“How much further, sonny?” Old Walrus asked. And by the way he spoke I knew he was near the end of his tether.
“Not far,” I said.
Behind us we could hear the pursuit. It was very close now. But a line of mist lay across the moon and it was too dark to see back down the steep path. A little further up and the mist swirled round us. It was seeping down from The Lookout and in a moment it had blotted out the moon entirely and had closed round us so that we could scarcely see the path cut through the tall grasses. It was like a damp blanket—humid and stifling and strangely cold. It magnified sound so that we could hear the feet of our pursuers crunching down on the brittle grass stems as though they were only just behind us. A voice cursed the mist and I glanced quickly over my shoulder, expecting Nat, the Rigger’s, mutilated hand to grip my shoulder. But there was nothing there, just the mist and a few yards of cut grass vanishing into a gray, luminous void.
I think it was the mist that spurred me on. That and fear —the voices so close behind us and the sense of walking through a void. I was cold right through to my spine. It seemed to produce the same effect on Old Walrus, for he increased the pace.
The last lap of that nightmare journey seemed to pass quicker than the rest. I think I was lightheaded. I seemed to float up, barely conscious of pain and exhaustion. It was like a dream—those nightmares when you’re running, running, and never getting away from what’s behind. But suddenly there was the fire, an orange bonfire glimmer that seemed refracted from each tiny particle of moisture in the mist. We were running now, stumbling forward over the cut grass stalks, and the cook was calling, warning the camp of our arrival.
The fire suddenly materialized at our feet, as though the curtain of the mist had been swept back. We were standing over an ember glow that was rapidly dying. In its dim light we saw the grasses waving gently at the edge of the clearing, rustling as the westerly breeze jostled them. The single palm swept upwards like a bare pole, its ragged flag of fronds lost in the glowing mist. Beyond was the shack we’d built, just as we’d left it, without sides. The place was deserted. Utter exhaustion swept over me. I felt my legs giving way, and the embers of the fire swam slowly round. Then I was falling. The unreality of fire glow and mist faded into darkness.
The next thing I knew, a hand gripped my arm and I had cried out in sudden fear. The ground was hard under my body. I was rolled over on my back. The stalks of the cut jungle grass rasped against my swollen skin and jagged pieces of rock pierced my torn shirt. I opened my eyes and saw the weird leap of flames against the mist. Somebody had stirred the fire to a blaze. A water bottle was placed against my cracked lips. The warm liquid smoothed the roughness of my tongue and eased the tightness of my throat.
Then I saw the hand that held the water bottle. Where fingers should have been were just the four rounded humps of flesh, all torn and swollen.
I screamed, but my swollen tongue blocked my throat and no sound came. I turned my head and saw the face of the Rigger, all red with sweat, glistening in the firelight. “All right now?” he asked.
I sat up quickly. Figures moved in the firelight, dim shapes piling on more fuel. The sparks rose crackling into the damp blanket of the mist. I tried to speak. But I was still panting and my breath was caught up in the heaving of my chest so that nothing came out but a peculiarly dry croak, like the sound of a frog.
“Take it easy. There’s no hurry. We got all night to talk.”
But there was something I had to know, and at last I got it out. “Where’s the cook?” I asked. My voice sounded strange and unnatural. “Don’t kill him—please.” I felt if I lost the cook I’d be without the only friend I had.
“Nobody kills a cook unless he has to,” replied The Rigger. “See, Johnny, he’s over there.” He pointed to the glow of the fire. Old Walrus was lying there on his side, his hands tied behind his back. His huge, unsightly nose shone in the firelight. His eyes were closed. He looked utterly exhausted. But he was alive. I could see his bare chest rising and falling. The firelight seemed suddenly less fantastic, the vague shapes of the mutineers moving through the mist less frightening. I lay back again and closed my eyes. A feeling of great weariness swept over me.
I don’t know how long I slept. Probably only a few minutes. I suddenly became aware of the low murmur of voices. I heard The Rigger say, “Let the boy sleep, Mike.”
“I ain’t gonna sit here waitin’ for him to finish his beauty sleep,” the man replied from the other side of the fire.
“You’ll do what I say,” The Rigger answered sharply.
“Sure I’ll do what you say, Nat—when it’s sense. But it don’t make sense just sitting here watching the little runt sleep. An’ I don’t like this fire. There’s something screwy about a bunch of guys leaving a fire burning up here on The Lookout. What do you say, Taffy? Now we got the kid, ain’t it sense to get what we want out of him right away?”
“Indeed it is, Mike,” answered the Welshman. “The sooner we make him talk—”
“Shut up, both of you,” snarled The Rigger. “Give the boy time to freshen up. Unless you want to carry him. It’s quite a trek and he must come with us. I’m taking no chances this time.”
“Yeah. Well, what about us sitting here round this fire?”
“Scared of the skipper?” The Rigger sneered.
“No,” the other answered quickly. “No, I ain’t scared of the skipper. We got a guard posted, ain’t we? An’ we’re five guns to their two. We’re safe enough. It’s just that I don’t figure on sitting here all night.” He got to his feet and lumbered through the firelight. “Do you realize, Nat, what’s lying there beside you? Millions in gold and sparklers. Millions—all locked away in that blasted kid’s head. He’s caused us enough trouble already. I say, get the truth out of him and have done with it.”
“We take the boy with us,” The Rigger said again. “After we’ve found the cave—” He shrugged his shoulders.
Gault suddenly appeared in the firelight, his petulant mouth half open, narrow, close-set eyes glinting redly. “Stop talking!” he hissed. “Listen!”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Mike said, “Listen to what? I don’t hear nothing.”
“There was a rustling in the grass.”
“You getting scared?”
“No. I ain’t scared. I been in tougher places than this. I ain’t scared of anything.”
“Well, shut up then and get back to your post.”
The man hesitated, his head cocked to one side, listening. “There it is again.” .
The figures, round the fire seemed to freeze as they listened. But all I heard was the murmur of the surf down in Wafer Bay and the rattling of the dry grass stalks. “It’s the wind. That’s all. You ain’t scared of a breeze, are you?”
“I ain’t scared of anything.”
“Then you should be, man,” said Taffy Davies in his soft voice. “For it’s haunted, the island is.”
“Don’t talk like that. Do ye hear?” It was the man they called Bugs. The scar on his cheek showed livid in the firelight. “Don’t talk like that,” he repeated, and his voice trembled.
“It’s a haunted place, I tell you,” Taffy went on. “Isn’t there always death when men come to loot the treasure? I can see Irwin now, laughing and coughing blood and telling us we’d never find it, as he rowed away. Where’s Irwin? We never found his body. And now Roberts and Maynard and the chief and Danner. Maybe we’ll find the treasure, Mike. Maybe the boy can lead us to it. But I’ve a feeling now—I’ve a feeling it won’t do us any good. And perhaps Irwin’s laughing at us there in the jungle. Perhaps he never found the treasure. Perhaps he was—”
“Shut up!” Mike’s voice was high-pitched and wild.
“I will not shut up. I tell you, man, I don’t like it. There’s things we don’t understand. Who knows that it isn’t the spirit of poor Irwin that Gault hears out there on the hillside? Who knows?”
“Who knows?” The Rigger said
with a grin. “Who knows what you hear on Cocos Island? It could be the ghost of pirates, dead and gone, as you say, Taffy. It could be the Incas. Or it could be the wind stirring the grasses.”
“What’s the Ingas?” asked Taffy suspiciously.
The Rigger chuckled. “One of the old civilizations. The conquistadors plundered and murdered them and some are supposed to have escaped from South America to this very island. The eastern slopes of Mount Iglesias—the peak that stands in the center of the island—are unexplored. There are people who think the Incas still live there. Maybe they’re watching us now.”
“You trying to scare us, Nat?” Mike asked suspiciously. “Now why would I do that?” Again that trace of a brogue and the hint of laughter behind the words.
“I don’t know,” Mike replied sourly. “I guess maybe because we’re easier to handle when we’re scared.”
“Could be,” The Rigger answered.
“I don’t trust you, Nat. There’s a wicked devil in you somewhere. I don’t trust you.”
The Rigger laughed. “But you do what I say.”
“ ’Cause you got brains, Nat.” The Irishman shook his bullethead. “You’re deep. You’re deeper than the rest of us. You know where you’re going all the time.” Then he suddenly rounded on The Rigger, his hand on the butt of the gun that stuck out of his belt. “But watch your step, mister. Watch your step. I seen a double cross worked for the thousandth part of what’s in that cave. An’ I don’t trust you. I wouldn’t trust the Archangel Gabriel. I want to know why we’re sitting here round this flaming fire. What are we waiting for?”
The Rigger sighed. “All right, Mike. I’ll tell you. We’re waiting for Captain Legett.” .
“Waiting for Captain Legett?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You gone crazy?”
“No. Sit down, Mike. That’s better. Now, you don’t imagine this fire is an act of God, do you? It was left here on purpose, as a decoy. They wanted to know where we were and they figured we’d come to the fire, expecting them to be here. Now I’m just as anxious to know where they are. There’s hours of cutting our way through the jungle between us and that treasure. I’ve no desire to walk into an ambush when we’re all dead-beat. So I sit here and wait for Captain Legett. What Gault hears is probably the captain’s party creeping up through the grass. Satisfied?”
“But, Jeeze, you ain’t sitting here waiting for them to shoot us down like we was partridges, are you?”
“No. They’ll talk first.”
“They could get out to the ship.”
“Shorty is looking after the ship.”
“But suppose they take our boat?”
“How do they know where we landed?”
“O. K. You know all the answers. But I don’t like it, see. If they got our boat—”
“Mike’s right.” Taffy’s little, wizened face emerged from the firelight. “It’s crazy you are, man, to sit here waiting for the captain. Get the truth out of the kid now, I say, and then get going.”
“Listen!” The Rigger’s head was cocked to one side. In the sudden silence the crackle of the flames seemed to kill all other sound. The wind stirred the grasses as it came eddying up from Wafer Bay. The mist swirled and for an instant I caught a glimpse of stars shining overhead.
Then suddenly a voice called, “Ahoy, there!” It came from the grasses to leeward of us. I turned in the direction of Chatham Bay, but all I could see was the tall, rushlike stems nodding gently to each other in the firelight. “Is Jennings there?” It was Captain Legett’s voice.
“You was right again,” Mike whispered.
“Jennings here, Captain Legett,” The Rigger answered. And then to the others, “Fade into the grass beyond the fire. Take the cook with you, and the kid.” The Irishman seized hold of me and dragged me past the fire to the tall grasses beyond the hut. In a moment only The Rigger was left in the cleared circle in which the fire blazed. He moved over to a boulder and sat down, the fire between himself and the captain’s voice.
“On whose orders was my ship moved round into Chatham Bay?” Captain Legett demanded. His voice, magnified by the mist, seemed to boom out of the tall grasses.
“On mine, Captain Legett,” The Rigger replied.
“What about Mr. Andrews?”
“I persuaded him that Chatham Bay was a safer anchorage.” There was a hint of laughter in The Rigger’s voice.
“And the other officers?”
“They agreed.”
“At the point of a gun, I suppose?”
The Rigger laughed outright. “All I said was that they agreed.”
“In the same way that Captain Farrer agreed to bring ‘ML 615’ to Cocos Island,” the captain roared. “Jennings. You’re a mutineer and a murderer. We know your history. We had it from Keverne before he ran off. You’ll hang for this.”
“Hanging is a serious matter, Captain. You’ll need to have witnesses. And you’ll need to be there yourself to make the accusation.”
“I’ll see you hanged if it’s the last thing I do,” the captain roared. “ ‘So let all thine enemies perish, 0 Lord.’ ”
“Then you’ll have to hang me on Cocos Island,” The Rigger laughed, “for that’s where I’m leaving you. But I’ll send your Bible ashore before the ‘Sally McGrew’ sails.”
The grasses suddenly parted and Sir Brian walked into the circle of the firelight. “I’d like a chat with you,” he said bluntly. “Mind telling the gang to put their guns up.”
“There’s no need,” The Rigger answered.
Sir Brian stood over The Rigger, his short legs planted slightly apart, his thumbs hooked into his belt. His face was all swollen with insect bites and there was a deep scratch across his jaw. “I’m not interested in what you’ve done in the past,” he said. “I’m interested in getting this gold and starting up new business in Chile. I’ll make you a proposition. Give yourselves up and I’ll drop you and the others off on the Bolivian coast. You’ll have till we reach Valparaiso to make yourselves scarce. I’ll even give you an agreed quantity of the treasure—enough to help you on your way.”
“And what makes you think we should accept?” The Rigger asked.
“To begin with we stand between yourselves and the location of the cave. But even supposing you reach the treasure and get it off to the ‘Sally McGrew,’ how the devil do you imagine you’re going to dispose of the stuff? And what about the ‘Sally McGrew?’ You can’t just sail into a port in a stolen ship.”
“Oh, we’ll manage.” The Rigger laughed. “Don’t you worry about us. We’re used to looking after ourselves.”
“So I imagine. But I think you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. And there are your own men to consider. You’re an intelligent man, Jennings. You’ve got a bunch of murderous crooks on your hands.” I felt Mike stiffen beside me. His hand relaxed its grip on my arm and he pulled out his gun. “Think they’ll work together once they get a sight of that gold? They’ll murder you and each other. I doubt if you’ll ever see the mainland again. Probably they’ve started already. What was that shot we heard down in the valley?”
“The cook shot Maynard.”
“Is the cook in this?”
“Figure it out for yourself,” The Rigger answered. “As for your proposition, Sir Brian—the answer is ‘No.’ Do you think we’ve been after this gold all these years only to give in at the last minute?”
“No,” Sir Brian answered. “You’re probably right. But I’ll give you a word of warning. There’s something in that cave that can hang the lot of you.”
“What do you mean by that?” The Rigger asked.
“I’ll leave you to find out,” Sir Brian replied curtly. “But I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t be in your shoes for all the gold in the world when you open up that cave. I’ve been leading men on dangerous trips all my life. But they were decent folk at heart. You’re running a gang of scum and you’re a murderous devil controlling them by fear. I’m
warning you, they’ll round on you and kill you—if you don’t kill them first. I’ll leave you to chew over what I’ve said. If you want to make terms, just give us a shout. We’ll be close by you in the jungle.” He turned abruptly and walked back to the shelter of the grass. The Rigger watched him go, seated there in the firelight, quite motionless.
At the edge of the clearing Sir Brian turned. “What have you done with the boy, Jennings?” he demanded.
“You needn’t worry,” The Rigger answered. “He’s quite safe.”
“He’s with you, then?” The Rigger didn’t answer, and Sir Brian looked past him to the grass where I was hidden. “If you’re there, Keverne,” he said, “look out for yourself when they find the cave.”
As he turned into the tall grasses, I suddenly called out. “Get their boat,” I cried. “It’s in Wafer Bay. There’s only one of them on—” The Irishman’s fist crashed into my face. As I fell, his curses and the shattering sound of his gun merged into the roaring in my ears. The clearing seemed to come alive in a hellish volley of sound. I squirmed in the grass, half crying and wiping the blood from my broken lips. As I rolled over, I heard The Rigger laugh and shout, “Just try and get to Wafer Bay through this.” I saw him pick up a blazing brand from the fire and fling it far out into the grasses. Another and another followed it, flaming arches sparkling through the darkness of the mist. And where they fell the grass blossomed instantly in a misty glow that brightened as tall tongues of flame leaped upwards.
Then all hell seemed let loose. There were shouts and cries of panic. A man screamed, an agonizing, high-pitched cry like a rabbit caught in a trap. And over it all was the steadily increasing roar of flames crackling skyward in a rain of sparks. I was too dazed by the blow to have more than a vague impression of din and heat. Then The Rigger was standing over me. “You little fool!” He yanked me to my feet and shook me. “You made me do it.” And he turned me round so that I could see the great line of fire leaping upwards into the red glow of the mist, the dancing tongues of flame curved eastward by the wind like runners in a race. In that instant I saw the line of fire advance, driven by the breeze—a roaring, pitiless wall of searing heat. “Your fool tongue has killed the lot of them. They’ll die like rats in a burning rick. And all through you.” He jerked me round and thrust me into the grasses. “Now get moving. No knowing what tricks a fire like this will be up to. It may eddy back.” And I heard him say to the Irishman, “Why the hell couldn’t you keep hold of the brat?”
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