‘Could you show us the way out of here?’ asked Jack, in an innocent voice. The old man looked uncomfortable.
‘If you use my wings, then you can go,’ he said at last. ‘We are all prisoners here till then, even I! Meier has said this must be so. He says I must hurry, hurry to get my wings quite perfect – time is short. Then I shall be made king of the whole world, and everyone will honour me.’
‘Poor old man,’ thought Philip. ‘He believes everything that rogue of a Meier says. Meier and Erlick are using his brains for their own purposes.’
As suddenly as he had appeared, the old man went. He seemed to forget they were there. He vanished through the curtains and left them alone. They looked at one another, feeling uneasy.
‘I don’t know how much to believe,’ said Jack. ‘Has he really got hold of the secret of how to cancel out the pull of gravitation? Do you remember how peculiar we felt when we were looking at that extraordinary brilliant mass down in that pit – we felt sort of light, as if we ought to cling on to the balcony, or we’d float off into the air? Well, I bet some of those rays he spoke of were flying loose then!’
‘Gosh, yes – that was strange,’ said Philip thoughtfully. ‘And, of course, all this would have to be done underground – so that the rays couldn’t go flying off everywhere! The heart of a mountain seems a jolly good place for a terrific experiment like this – walls of thick rock all round. No wonder we heard rumblings and felt the earth shaking! That old scientist knows a thing or two. I’d be scared stiff to meddle with all the powers that scientists use nowadays. This is more extraordinary than splitting the atom.’
‘I don’t understand about things like that,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘I feel like the people of old must have felt towards their magicians – I don’t understand what they’re doing, but it all seems like magic, and I’m scared!’
‘You wait till you put on a pair of non-gravitation wings or whatever he calls them,’ said Philip, helping himself to a peach. ‘That’ll be magic if you like.’
‘Meier and Erlick must believe in the ideas the old man has,’ said Jack. ‘Or they wouldn’t go to all the terrific trouble they do – and try to keep everything such a secret. I suppose, if the idea really came to something, they’d make such a colossal fortune that they’d be the richest men the world has ever known – and the most powerful.’
‘Yes. They’d be the rulers – not the old man,’ said Philip. ‘They’re just using him, and stuffing him up with all kinds of stories. He’s as simple as can be, though he’s got such a brain. They would give out that they were the inventors, not the old man. Fancy keeping him a prisoner here like that – and everyone else too!’
‘Us included,’ said Dinah. ‘Well, I’m beginning to see daylight a bit now – understanding what’s going on here – but I just can’t believe it. Nor will Bill!’
They finished a very good meal. Nobody came to interrupt them. There was no sound from the old man’s room. The children thought perhaps he had gone to bed for a rest, or had returned to his weird underground pit. They all made up their minds that nothing would persuade them ever to go down there again!
‘What shall we do now?’ said Jack. ‘Snowy, tell us! Kiki, you’ve had enough peaches.’
‘Poor Polly,’ said Kiki sorrowfully, and wiped her beak on the table-cloth.
‘Someone’s coming!’ suddenly said Lucy-Ann. ‘Quick, hide!’
‘Behind the hangings on the wall,’ whispered Dinah, and the four children fled to the loose hangings. They squeezed behind them and waited, holding their breath.
It was two of the soldiers, who had entered the room to clear away the meal. They talked to one another in surprised voices, and indeed, they were filled with astonishment to see so much of the food eaten.
The children heard their light feet pattering to and fro. Then one of them gave a sharp exclamation, which the children didn’t understand. They stood behind the curtains, their hearts beating fast. Kiki was on Jack’s shoulder, silent and puzzled.
Suddenly Lucy-Ann gave a loud scream, and the two boys leapt out from behind their curtains at once. One of the soldiers had seen her foot below the hangings, and had pounced on her.
‘Jack! Philip! Quick, save me!’ she cried, and they rushed to her rescue.
21
On the mountain-top
Both the soldiers had got hold of poor Lucy-Ann. She was screaming wildly, and the two boys flew at the men. But to their great surprise they were thrown back as easily as if they had been feather-weights. Just a twist of the men’s arms, and back they went, falling headlong to the floor.
They were up again in a trice – but this time one of the soldiers caught Philip in a vicious grip, and the boy found himself turning over in the air, and flying right over the man’s head! He landed with a crash on the table, and sent all the dishes into the air.
What with Lucy-Ann’s screams, the boys’ yells, and the crashes of the dishes there was a terrific commotion. Kiki added to it by screeching loudly. Then she flew down and attacked one of the men. He fended her off.
Four more soldiers suddenly appeared, and that was the end of the children’s resistance. They were all captured. Kiki flew off somewhere, still screeching. Snowy had disappeared completely.
The four children were marched out of the room and taken to a bigger room, well furnished, but not nearly so elaborate as the king’s rooms. Hangings covered the walls, but they were plain and simple. The roof of the cave was not covered, and the children could see the rough rock above their heads.
Lucy-Ann was sobbing. Dinah looked very pale and the boys were angry and defiant. They were all stood in a row against the wall. Philip felt in his pocket to see if his slow-worm was hurt in the scuffle. Sally Slithery had not liked life in the mountain. She had become lethargic and dull. But she would not leave Philip.
She was still there, coiled up. Philip wondered where Kiki and Snowy were. It was not like Kiki to fly off like that. She must have been very scared – or perhaps one of the dishes had struck her as it flew off the table.
In a few minutes Meier and Erlick, the two men who were the real power behind the poor old ‘king’, came into the room. Meier was glowering, and his piercing eyes glanced from one child to another sharply.
‘So! There are four of you! Three of you came to find this boy, I suppose – and let him out of the cave he was in. You thought you could all escape – you thought it would be easy, so easy. And it was not?’
He fired this question at them, with a twisted smile on his hawk-like face.
Nobody answered. ‘How did you find the way to let down the rope-ladder?’ The man fired this question at them so suddenly that they jumped. ‘Who told you how to get it down?’
Nobody said a word. Meier’s eyes began to narrow, and the girls felt uneasy. He was horrid!
‘I asked you a question,’ he said. ‘You, boy, answer me!’
‘I used my brains,’ said Jack shortly, seeing Meier looking at him.
‘Does anyone else know of that entrance?’ said Erlick suddenly. The children looked at him with dislike. He was like an ape, they thought! Meier was bad enough – but Erlick was ten times worse.
‘How do we know?’ said Philip, beginning to boil at the way these two men spoke to them. ‘What does it matter if they do? Is what you’re doing here so shameful that you need to hide even the entrance to the mountain?’
Erlick stepped forward and slapped Philip across the face. Lucy-Ann stopped crying, in greater fright than ever. Philip did not flinch. He looked the man boldly in the face, and did not even rub his smarting cheek.
‘Leave him alone, Erlick,’ said Meier. ‘There are better ways of bringing a boy like that to heel than by slapping his face. And now we will send out the dogs to scour the countryside. If these children have friends anywhere near, the dogs will find them, and bring them in.’
The children’s hearts sank. Would the Alsatians capture Bill and David then – and bring them to the mounta
in to make them prisoners too? That would be dreadful.
From somewhere outside came a hollow cough. Meier and Erlick jumped. Meier went to the entrance to the cave and looked out. There was nobody there at all.
‘Is there another of you?’ asked Meier. ‘Is it boy or girl?’
‘Neither,’ said Jack, who had recognized Kiki’s cough, and was hoping she would keep out. It would be just like these men to wring her neck.
‘Pooh! Gah!’ came Kiki’s voice, and then a cackle that was enough to make the men’s blood curdle. They went to the entrance of the cave again, and had a good look round, but Kiki was safely perched on a shelf of rock above their heads, and they could not see her at all.
‘Send for the doctor,’ said Kiki, in a sepulchral voice, that sent shivers down the men’s backs. ‘Send for the doctor.’
‘Good heavens! Who is it?’ said Erlick. He looked threateningly at the four children. ‘If that’s another boy out there, being funny, I’ll skin him alive!’
‘There are only four of us, two boys and two girls,’ said Jack.
‘And here we all are,’ said Philip, in an insolent voice. He knew it was foolish to talk like this to the two men, but he couldn’t help it. Both he and Dinah were foolhardy when their tempers were up.
‘Oh! And here you’ll all stay!’ said Meier. ‘And I’ll think up something to take the spirit out of you, my boy. You may have gone through your life cheeking everyone and throwing your weight about – but you won’t do it with me. Now – walk in front of us, and keep going!’
The children were forced to walk out of the cave in front of the two men. They soon found themselves stumbling up the stone spiral stairs, going up and up. They came to the openings where the stores were, and then went on past those till they came to the door of the cave in which Philip had been bolted.
‘Hey, you, boy! You’re to go into that cave again,’ ordered Meier. ‘A few days without much to eat will soon take the insolence out of you. You others go on up.’
Poor Philip! He was shut once more into the cave that looked out to the sky – but this time he had no Sam to keep him company. He sat down, wishing he hadn’t been so foolish as to cheek the two grim men. Then he was glad he had. He wasn’t going to kow-tow to two rogues like that. All the same it was a pity he wasn’t with the others – especially as now there was only Jack to be with the girls.
The other three were forced to go on higher, climbing steadily. And then – what a surprise!
They came up a broad flight of steps hewn out of the rock, on to the very top of the mountain itself. They stood there, catching their breath at the sight of the amazing panoramic view all round them. The top of the world! Surely they must be touching the sky itself!
The three forgot their troubles for a moment as they gazed round in wonder. Everywhere they looked there were mountains, rising high. Valleys, deep in shadow, lay far far below. It was wonderful to be up there in the blazing sunshine and cool breeze, after being in the dark mountain for so long.
The top of the mountain was extraordinarily flat. On three sides rose steep rocks, like teeth. Jack knew in a flash what mountain it was – Fang Mountain, the one he had noticed when they had set out. He looked round the mountain-top. Nothing grew there at all. It was bare, flat rock, the size of a great courtyard. At one side, playing cards in the shade, were the paratroopers.
They stared in surprise at the children. Runaway Sam was with them and he pointed to Jack and was evidently telling his companions about him and the others. Jack was glad that Philip had told Sam so little about himself and the other three. He did not want Meier to know any more than he already did.
There was an awning rigged up on the side opposite the paratroopers. Meier pushed the children towards it.
‘You will stay here,’ he said. ‘You will not talk to those men over there at all. You will not go near them. You are prisoners, you understand? You have forced your way in here, where you are not wanted, and now we shall keep you here as long as we wish.’
‘Can’t Philip come with us?’ begged Lucy-Ann. ‘He’ll be so lonely away from us.’
‘Is that the other boy? No. He needs a little punishment,’ said Meier. ‘A little starvation diet! Then we will see if he will talk civilly.’
Meier and Erlick then left the three and disappeared into the mountain again. Jack and the girls sat down, looking doleful. Things weren’t too good! It was a thousand pities that poor Philip was apart from them.
Evidently the paratroopers had been warned that they were not to go near the children, for they made no attempt even to shout to them. It was obvious that Meier and Erlick were used to being obeyed.
There was a natural parapet of rock near where the children were, that ran round the edge of the mountain just there. Jack got up and went to it. He sat on it and put his field-glasses to his eyes. If only he could spot Bill! And yet he was afraid that if Bill was there anywhere, the dogs might set on him and find him. He wondered where all the dogs were.
Then he sat up a little straighter on the parapet and focused the glasses on a small spot on the slope of the mountain. He had seen a movement. Could it be Bill and David and the donkeys?
No, it wasn’t. It was the dogs! They had evidently already been let loose and were ranging the countryside. If Bill was anywhere about, they would soon find him! Blow! Then Bill would be captured too. Jack wished he knew some way of preventing this happening, but he couldn’t think of anything.
He wondered about poor old Dapple. Thank goodness they had tied him up so very loosely. He had plenty of range, and there was grass and water for him. But how the donkey would wonder what had happened to everyone!
Something touched Jack’s hand and he jumped and looked down. It was Snowy! The kid had found his way to them and was nuzzling Jack in a half-scared manner.
‘Hallo, Snowy! Have you been looking for Philip?’ said Jack, rubbing the kid’s soft nose. ‘He’s in that cave again. You can’t get to him.’
Snowy knew that very well. He had already been to bleat outside Philip’s door. He looked so dismal that Jack took him to the girls and they all made a fuss of him.
‘What do you suppose has happened to Kiki?’ asked Lucy-Ann after a time.
‘Oh, she’ll turn up all right,’ said Jack. ‘She knows how to take care of herself. Trust Kiki for that! She’s probably leading those two men a fine old dance, coughing and sneezing and cackling and making a noise like an express train screeching in a tunnel!’
Jack was perfectly right. Kiki had been playing a fine game with Meier and Erlick, and as they had no idea that the children had a parrot, they were two extremely puzzled men. A voice without a body to it – how very strange!
Nothing happened for some time. Then, when the sun was sinking, there came a clamour of howls and barks, and the pack of Alsatians was brought up to the top of the mountain by two of the soldiers. The children watched to see if Bill had been caught, but there was no sign of any prisoner with the dogs. They heaved a sigh of relief.
The dogs were taken to a big wire enclosure some way off the children. ‘You be careful of dogs,’ said one of the guards to the children. ‘They bite hard. You be careful!’
22
The helicopter
The children, however, were not in the least afraid of the dogs, for had they not all slept together with them some nights before? They did not tell this to the soldiers, of course. They waited till the men had disappeared and then they went over to the dogs.
But Philip was not there this time, and the dogs did not feel the same towards the girls and Jack as they had done towards Philip. They growled when Jack came near to them, and one showed his enormous white teeth. Lucy-Ann and Dinah shrank back.
‘Oh! How terribly fierce they look! They’ve quite forgotten us. Jack, be careful.’
Jack was not afraid, but he was cautious when he saw that the dogs did not want to be friendly. They were strong, fierce creatures, disappointed in their hunting that
day, hungry, and suspicious of Jack. Now, if he had been Philip how different their behaviour would have been! Philip’s magic touch with animals would have put everything right. He had an irresistible attraction for all live creatures.
‘Come away from them,’ said Lucy-Ann, when she heard the growling taken up by most of the pack. ‘They’re making a perfectly horrible noise – just like wolves would, I’m sure.’
They went back to their own part of the mountain. ‘A corner for the dogs, a corner for us, a corner for the men!’ said Jack. ‘Well – I wonder how long we’re going to be here!’
Nobody brought them anything to eat at all for the rest of that day. They thought it was a very good thing they had had such good meals in the king’s room! Jack wondered if they were supposed to lie on the bare rock to sleep. What brutes those men were, if they meant to keep them without rugs or food!
But just as it was getting dark three of the soldiers appeared. They carried rugs with them, which they threw down at the children’s feet. One had brought a pitcher of water and mugs.
‘What about something to eat?’ asked Jack.
‘Not bring,’ said one of the men. ‘Master say not bring.’
‘Your master not nice,’ Jack told him. ‘Your master very nasty.’
The men said nothing. He and the others went away, soft-footed as cats. The children curled up in their rugs, wondering how Philip was faring, alone in his cave.
The next morning was unbelievably beautiful when the sun rose and lighted up the mountain-tops one by one. The three children sat on the parapet and watched. They all felt very hungry indeed. Snowy was with them. Kiki had still not appeared and Jack was getting a little worried about her.
Snowy leapt up on to the parapet beside Jack. There was a very steep drop from there, with a tiny ledge of rock jutting out some way below. Nobody could escape by climbing down, that was certain. He would just go slipping and sliding down the mountain and break all his limbs in no time.