T. C. Bridges
Martin Crusoe (6) (A Boy’s Adventure on Wizard Island)

VI. In the Hands of the Enemy

As Martin raced up the smooth steps he heard a heavy thud and a ringing clatter of metal. He passed the Professor, and ran at full speed between the tall, sculptured columns in the direction of the sound. The Professor having switched on all the electrics, the great hall was as light as day.

“Dis way, Marse Vaile!” came a shout from Scipio; and, as he rounded a great columned pillar, Martin saw in front of him the negro battling desperately with one of the golden giants. Scipio, who was a burly man still in the prime of life, was armed with a tremendous club. That he had used it well was proved by the fact that one of the enemy lay flat upon the rock floor of the hall. The second, however, was pressing him hard, driving at him with his short but deadly-looking sword.

How the Lemurians had got there, or what had happened, there was no time to inquire. All that Martin saw was that Scipio could not last another moment. Swinging his battle ax high in the air, he dashed recklessly into the fray. The great Lemurian, busy with Scipio, did not see the boy coming. When he turned, to see him, it was too late, for Martin had him at his mercy. Yet even in that moment Martin did not forget what the Professor had said about not killing the Lemurians, and it was the blunt back of his ax which smote the tall foeman on the top of his head, and sent him rattling in his armor to the floor.

“Quick, boss!” panted Scipio. “Dere’s more a-coming. See dat hole under de pillar? Dat’s where dey’s coming up. Yo’ help me to shut de door.”

Martin saw in a flash. At the base of the great carven columns gaped a dark opening which had been covered with a slab of stone. This was now leaning against the pillar. Together he and Scipio flung themselves upon the slab. It was desperately heavy, and took all their strength to move it.

Martin had hardly got hold of it before he felt his left leg grasped by a huge hand. He yelled to Scipio, and kicked out desperately. It was useless. He was plucked away as a lion might seize a dog, and the next instant was dragged down into the depths of the pit.

For a moment Martin had a horrible sensation of falling, dropping into unknown depths. Then he was caught—caught as easily as a child might catch a kitten—in a pair of giant arms. He heard a hoarse cry of triumph, and looking up saw, red in the smoky glare of torches, a face more terrible than any he had ever pictured in his wildest dreams.

It was the face of a giant with a nose resembling an eagle’s beak, and fierce eyes gleaming like pale steel. The golden heard was turning gray, and the hair was long and gray under the heavy helmet. But it was the mouth that was the worst feature of all. Wide, with thin lips, it showed teeth like those of a wild animal, and by some curious malformation of the upper jaw the eyeteeth on each side projected outside the lower lip, like the tusks of a walrus.

The owner of the face was nearly seven feet high, and had a chest like the gnarled trunk of an old oak.

For a moment he held Martin in both hands, glaring at him with a look of such malice and savagery in those evil gray eyes as made the boy cold to the bone. Then, with a deep laugh, the monster swung him lightly over his shoulder and went striding away down a long, sloping tunnel.

Martin had little time to think. His captor went on at a tremendous pace, and he, hanging like a sack over the giant’s shoulders, was bumped and swung till his head swam. A few moments only, and they came out on to a narrow ledge of rock just above the level of the lake.

Lying tied to the ledge was a boat, a sort of shallop, broad and solid, but with low sides. Into this the big man stepped, dumping Martin down in the bottom as unceremoniously as a sack of coals. The next thing that he knew was that the boat was bumping alongside the longship in the open lake.

The tusked giant stooped, grasped him, and, as he swung him up into view of the crew of the longship, the crew burst into a long-drawn shout of “Haro! Haro, Odan!”

Next moment he was pitched into the longship, and found himself lying on the bottom boards between the two benches on which sat the rowers. A fresh roar of triumph from every throat. Then a stern command from Odan, who was evidently the captain of the Lemurians, and the strangely shaped craft sped away towards the mouth of the sea loch.

Left to himself for the moment, Martin tried to pull himself together, and think what was best to be done. For the life of him he could not see any way out. True, the Lemurians had not tied him, but that did not help. Even if he could seize a chance to spring overboard, they would have him again at once. In any case, the ship was by now a long way from shore, and he had no notion whether he could reach it.

The more he considered matters, the more helpless seemed his position. He knew, of course, that the Professor and Scipio would do all in their power to rescue him, but he could not see how one frail old man and a negro could do very much. They had nothing but the little launch, which would crack like an egg-shell under the driving weight of the Lemurian ship.

Even if Professor Distin were to resort to firearms it would be next to impossible to pick off enough of these many rowers, protected as they were by their thick shields, to cripple the longship.

His heart sank, and with every stroke of the oars he came nearer to despair.

After a while Martin tried cautiously to raise himself so as to see where they were going. His movement was noticed, and a rough hand seized him, shook him, and flung him down again. His blood boiled, but, knowing the utter uselessness of resistance, he lay still.

The sound of the oars changed. The beat was echoed back from cliffs, and Martin knew that the ship must be fast approaching the narrow channel leading to the sea. At the same time he noticed something else. A slight mist was dimming the stars overhead. It thickened so rapidly that even the mast-head of the longship was scarcely visible. He heard an angry growl from Odan, the oar beats slackened, and the longship moved more slowly.

Martin was amazed. Fog on a night like this, and on a warm, almost tropical sea, was a very strange phenomenon. Every moment it grew more dense, and now Martin realized that this was no ordinary mist. It was smoke! He could smell it.

His thoughts flew at once to the volcano. Was this smoke beating down from its lofty crest? or was some fresh eruption beginning? He knew that the great cone was far from extinct; and the Professor had spoken of earthquakes from time to time.

The smoke became so thick that Martin could hardly see a yard before him. It reeked of sulphur. His eyes were streaming, the foul stuff was in his lungs, and he was choking for breath.

Suddenly the gloom was lit by a dull glare of light which seemed to be dead ahead. A moment later came a heavy thudding explosion, the water boiled, and the longship pitched heavily on a series of great, swelling waves. Now Martin was sure that he was right. A volcanic eruption had begun.

Another bump! Then all of a sudden the men around Martin tried to scramble to their feet, and he heard hoarse cries of terror. He himself made an effort to scramble up, and this time no one stopped him. Then, through the reek, appeared a face so hideous that Martin stopped, appalled. With its vast snout, from which hung down a curious tube, it was like nothing human.

It made no sound; but a pair of hands stretched out towards Martin, and, to his utter amazement, they and the arms above them were black!

In a flash he understood. This was Scipio!

He could have shouted with sheer delight, but had no breath. He could only choke. But he knew now, and scrambled up. The hands grasped him firmly, and drew him to his feet.

Half-choked and poisoned as they were, the Lemurians had no intention of parting so easily with their prey. With a hoarse cry of rage the great Odan lunged forward, seized Martin’s arm with his monstrous hand, and began to drag him away. Then, from behind Scipio, another hand shot forward. It did not touch Odan, but in an instant he gave a choking bellow of pain and rage, his hold on Martin relaxed, and he staggered back flinging both hands up to his face.

Before he could recover, Scipio had dragged Martin clear, and the two were over the gunwale of the longship and in the launch. Like a flash the light little craft spun round in her own length, and darted away in the opposite direction.

The launch was in the cove harbor and safe inside the water gate before Martin was well enough to speak. Even then the Professor would not let him talk, and Scipio had to help him up the stairs and through the Painted Hall.

Lying in a long chair in the rock-roofed living room, the boy rested and drank a draught which the Professor prepared for him.

“I thought it was the volcano starting up,” was the first thing he said.

“I don’t wonder,” replied the Professor, with his dry little smile. “As a matter of fact, I was taking a leaf out of Admiral Roger Keye’s book, and using a mixture of phosphorus and sulphur which produced a dense artificial fog similar to what the motor launches spread in the attacks on Ostend and Zeebrugge.”

“It was jolly smart of you,” said Martin heartily.

“It was the only thing to do, Martin. Perhaps, after such a lesson, the Lemurians will leave us alone for a time.”

“They’ll be fools if they don’t,” replied Martin, laughing.

Then he started up. “But I say, Professor, what about the prisoners?”

The Professor got up quickly. He looked grave. “Upon my word, Martin, I had completely forgotten them.”

“Scipio!” he called.

There was no answer.

“Ah, Scipio has remembered,” continued the Professor. “No doubt he has gone to tie them up. Let us go and see.”

They hurried into the Painted Hall; but before they had gone many steps, Scipio himself was seen hurrying to meet them.

“What about the prisoners, Scipio?” asked the Professor quickly.

“Dat’s jest what I was coming to tell you about, sah. One of dem is dere whar Marse Martin laid him out wid dat battle ax, and I’ve tied him jest to make sure. But de oder, de one I knocked down, he’s done gone. I can’t see him nowhar.”

The Professor looked at Martin; Martin looked at the Professor. Both faces were grave.

“This is a bad job, sir,” said Martin. “Where can he have got to?”

“Dar ain’t no doubt about dat, boss. He’s gone down dat dar tunnel hole. Me and de Professor, we put de stone back, but he’s done lifted it again, for it’s a-lying dar on its side.”

“Then he has taken to the lake and probably swum after the longship,” said the Professor. “But we must make sure. Let us arm ourselves, and take lights, and go down the tunnel.”

A few minutes later Martin stood once more in the gloomy tunnel through which he had been carried as prisoner little more than an hour earlier. Scipio was with him; but the Professor had remained behind in the Painted Hall.

The two went quickly out on to the ledge by the water’s edge, and Martin looked round in every direction. There was not a sign of any living thing to be seen.

Martin turned to Scipio. “The man can’t have swum very far, Scipio,” he said. “And, personally, I don’t believe he would have been fool enough to try to follow his friends that way. If he did swim out, he has probably landed again in some little cleft near by.”

“I don’t know as he’s been swimming at all, Marse Martin,” responded the negro.

“How do you mean, Scipio?”

“Why, sah, I mean be might hab climbed up dem dar rocks. Yo’ look whar I’m a-pointing.”

Martin looked. Sure enough, there was a sort of cleft—what Alpine climbers call a chimney—up which the Lemurian might very well have forced his way.

“Yes,” said Martin slowly. “It’s quite likely you’re right, Scipio.”

As he spoke he moved forward along a narrow ledge which led to the foot of this curious cleft.

“I wouldn’t go out dar, Marse Martin,” came Scipio’s voice from behind him.

“Why not?” asked Martin, turning.

The movement saved his life, for at that very instant there was a loud rumbling sound overhead, and with a rattle of loose stones an enormous boulder, flung from some unseen height above, came whizzing down. It missed Martin by a mere matter of inches, and plunged into the inlet, flinging up a fountain of foam ten feet into the air.