There was no one in sight and Persis quickly moved back against the wall, so her shoulder scraped along it as that compulsion sent her stumbling ahead toward the tunnel entrance.
“—snug as a weevil in a biscuit.”
The words came out of nowhere loud enough for her to distinguish them at last. While the tone was one of malicious amusement.
“Don’t fret yourself about him, m’dear. We’ve got what we need, and before they wake up and start hunting we shall be safe. Look at him now—the great Captain Leverett tied up like a prime hog on the way to market!”
“Please, Ralph—we should leave—I don’t know how long they’ll sleep—”
Lydia! Much of the habitual assurance was gone out of the girl’s voice. She sounded on the verge of tears.
“Oh, they’ll take a time even after they wake to find their lord and master. And what we’ve got right here, girl, will end all our problems. I did not think Leverett was such a fool to keep so much cash in hand. But once we’re safely married, m’dear, he daren’t raise any squeak about it, now can he—seeing as how this we can claim as your marriage portion.”
“But that other thing—the portfolio?”
“Don’t you fret yourself ’bout that either, m’dear. That’s maybe worth more than what we found in the strongbox—to the right people. We might go to Paris, love—what would you say to that? You’ve been talking how you want to see the world—well, we’ve got the key to do that right here now.”
“But Persis—”
“Persis Rooke, m’dear, hasn’t the faintest hope of getting what that old fool dragged himself down here to grab. A silly woman made a silly will. And the breaking of that, aided by the disappearance of these papers, that is as easy as dipping your hand in this water and flipping off the drops. Kind of him—and her—to keep it all in hand, making the lifting so easy. It’s a duty really, an honest duty to see that will broken. These high and mighty Rookes had it in for Amos. But, you’ll notice, they weren’t so high and mighty that they did not come nosing around for what was never theirs in the first place!”
There was no amusement in his voice now. Instinctively Persis’ hand went to the fan case. Light as Ralph Grillon’s tone remained, there was that in it which added to the cold gnawing in her ever since she had awakened in that seemingly deserted house.
“All right, girl, we’re heading out. Rest well, friend—” There was a faint splashing sound and then Lydia cried out:
“Don’t, Ralph, you nearly upset the canoe then! Stop it!”
“Did you ever think, Lydia, what might happen if this brother of yours was to die? You’d be a pretty important heiress, wouldn’t you? Here—what are you doing, you little fool!”
“You needn’t try to grab me, Ralph. I know you’re only funning. But you leave Crewe alone. We got what we want—stop playing games, I don’t like it!”
Ralph Grillon laughed. “All right, m’love, you have the saying of it. I’m not a greedy man, leastways not too greedy. We’ve done well enough over this night’s work. Get along into the other dugout now and mind you keep well down. I’ll take us out. Wearing this hat and all they’ll think me that old red witch Crewe makes a house pet of. We’ll be able to get to the south of the island and set up the flares then.”
“What if those are seen, Ralph?”
“They won’t be. I found a place where the rocks cut off the light except seaward. Now—move!”
“What if they find Crewe before your boat comes?”
“No chance of that. I’ve planned this well, m’dear, very well. It’s my big chance—yours, too, of course. Think about Paris, Lydia, and lie still, and all is going to be just as I promised.”
Persis heard noises which she thought came from paddles slipped into the water and out again. The light dimmed and went out. She pushed one fist hard to her mouth. The ledge ended here except for a narrow ridge which in the dark she could not see. To venture along that, slime encrusted as it was, single footed—she could not. But she had to!
In the end she felt her way by inches, hunching along rather in a froglike position, sweeping one guiding hand in the water. She had guessed from Ralph’s words that Crewe had been left helpless in a dugout. But was that moored, or was it drifting free away from her?
Then she barked her knuckles against wood so hard that the blow made her gasp with pain. She felt along what she had discovered—the edge of a canoe, side against the very narrow ledge on which she crouched. But—there was water inside it, too!
With horror Persis plunged her throbbing hand deeper, felt sodden cloth, a body under it. Ralph–Ralph must have known that the dugout would fill–that his victim had been left to drown!
With her other hand the girl jerked free the blade of the false fan, feeling along the wet body with her right. Her fingers met a tangle of wet rope. Not knowing how much time she had, she sawed away at that with the dagger edge. Was Crewe’s head underwater—could he have already drowned?
The body was quiet, cold. But suddenly there was movement, an upflung arm nearly sent her spinning from her perch.
“Please,” she found her voice at that sign of life, “lie still until I can get you free.”
But the arm moved away from her and a moment later there came a hoarse, croaked whisper as if from a throat which had not been recently in use.
“This craft is going to settle in a minute. Get me a handhold–”
Persis waved her hand through the dark, found and caught at a well-muscled forearm which she drew toward her.
“The ridge here—it’s very narrow—” she cautioned.
“I know. But just let me hold on. I think that I can kick off the rope now.”
Splashing sounds suggested that he was doing just that. Then she heard what could only be a sigh of relief.
“That’s done. But with this shoulder I can’t pull myself up—we’ll have to go out the canal entrance.”
“I can get back—find help—” Persis resheathed the dagger, and got to her feet.
“I’m afraid,” though there was no note of fear in his voice when he answered her, “that I can’t hold out that long. If we can swing the dugout over, it may float and support me down to the outside. Only trouble is that I do not think Grillon will be ready to leave until he has made very sure of me.”
“But Lydia would never let him—” Persis began in protest.
The sound out of the dark which answered that might have been a laugh but it was far from expressing any amusement.
“Lydia will soon discover that she is nothing whatever to Ralph Grillon once she has served his purpose. He may make some pretense of a plausible story to appease her, say that the dugout had a leak he did not realize. But he wants me dead just as much as if he faced me with a primed pistol in his hand!”
Persis knew, with a growing fear, that she could not hope to support Crewe in any climb out of the water. She simply did not have the strength. Guiding his good hand to the edge, she could feel the tension of the grip as his fingers closed upon the slippery stone there.
“Now if you can turn over the dugout,” he ordered. His tone was as even as if he had asked her to draw a curtain or light a candle. Persis knelt, her hands running along the side of the rough native craft. It was hardly above water now. Obediently she jerked and exerted what strength she might from such a cramped position. The wood of the side she held was slippery so she could not get a good continuing hold on it, but still she tugged almost wildly.
The splashing her efforts caused sounded very loud to her. She could only hope that Ralph was well enough away not to hear them.
“He won’t trust entirely to this little trap,” Crewe spoke out of the dark in that same meditative fashion, as if he were an onlooker and not the victim of this attempt at long-distance murder. “He can’t be sure he has succeeded until he knows I am dead.”
Persis felt a rising anger, not at Ralph Grillon, not yet, nor at Crewe, but at the unwieldy craft which stubbornly resisted her efforts to
master it. She gave a last fierce tug, unmindful of her own precarious perch, and, by some miracle, the edge of the waterlogged craft she pulled moved at last. There was a great splash. At the price of two torn nails and a hand scraped raw she had made the dugout turn bottom up. Her fingers touched two holes in the wet surface bobbing there.
“It’s over,” she said, with a catch of her breath. “But won’t it sink now anyway? There are two holes—at least—cut in it.”
“Perhaps.” Crewe Leverett did not sound alarmed. “But I think it will support me to the turtle pen. There are the stakes set upright there, a better chance to wedge somehow with my head above water—unless the tide–”
Persis nursed her scraped hand against her breast. “The tide!” She had not thought of that. And the very mention of the turtle pen made her flesh crawl.
“Why can’t you hold on to the dugout and let me pull that back to the house pool? Then I can get the men—”
Again Crewe laughed until she hated the hollow echo of that sound.
“Do not underrate Grillon,” he returned. “He will have the house watched. Do you think that you would be allowed to reach the quarters?”
“Askra is there—in the kitchen. She was the one who told me they were doing this thing—”
“Askra will not lift a hand to help. Why should she? To her all our race are interlopers and murderers. She lives in a past which is hers alone and will not be dragged out of it. And I cannot climb that ladder with one hand.”
“Then how did you get down?” Persis was reluctant to surrender what she believed was the most sensible solution to their difficulties.
“Oh, they lowered me by ropes, I think. I’m not too clear-minded about that. Seems that Lydia was very busy today. Concocting a potion which reduced everyone to a state in which they could be easily handled if the need arose. The little fool! I ought to let her go, she’ll discover soon enough that Grillon is not the hero she dreams of. He’s filled her with his own version of affairs and promised her the moon, with all the nearer stars thrown in. And she’s weakminded enough to believe him!” That was bitter.
“She would not let him hurt you,” Persis protested. “I heard her–”
“Just showing a trace of squeamishness when it is too late to matter,” Crewe returned. “But now—if you can edge the canoe nearer—”
“It’s slippery, you can’t hold on to it! Wait—”
Before she had time to fear what she knew must be done Persis lowered her own body from the ridge, throwing her left arm across the upturned canoe. The dugout bobbed and sank, spattering water into her face. But it did not go entirely to the bottom, and she found that it did offer support enough so that her head and the top of her shoulders were above water.
“What are you doing?” Crewe Leverett demanded harshly.
“Hold on.” She began to kick her feet slowly, edge the damaged craft along so she could hear it grate against the side of the wall. Then, to her surprise and growing confidence, she discovered her clumsy efforts did work! She could force the nearly waterlogged boat closer to where she knew the Captain clung.
“I’m moving the canoe toward you,” she explained. “And you’re right, it will support us—”
“Us!” The word broke from him with the urgency of a pistol shot.
“Us,” she repeated firmly. “You cannot manage with one arm—it is foolish to even think of trying so. Now—tell me when—”
Then came a bump and a bitten-off exclamation. Either the bow or the stern of the dugout had struck him.
“Can you get your good arm across it now?”
She heard splashing, mutters, and then the dugout sank deeper into the water, so that wavelets washed about her neck. But at least her head was still above water.
“Are you all right?” she cried out with foreboding.
“Well enough. But you—get out of this!”
“No.” All Persis’ stubborn determination built into that one-word denial. “You can’t manage alone and you know it. How far is the turtle pen?”
“Not too far.” He at least made no more open protests. They advanced at a snail’s pace. By a slightly swifter motion of the unwieldly support under them Persis judged that the Captain was also using his feet to help propel the half-sunken craft along the way. Suddenly Persis felt a self-confidence she had seldom tasted in her life. She had done this—she was succeeding. She spat out water which washed unexpectedly into her face, concentrated on keeping their support moving, nudging its way along the wall of the tunnel.
Then she felt a difference in the obstruction which had been their guide so far. Daring to loose one hand from a desperate hold across the dugout, she felt out, to discover that there were stakes here, between which the water flowed in and out.
The pen! She tried not to think of those creatures moving sluggishly beyond that barrier. A moment later Crewe spoke.
“You’ve found it.”
But Persis, exploring farther by touch, was afraid. The stakes, stout as they were, were also slimed. Certainly Crewe could not hold on here for any length of time and the openings between were too narrow to allow him, she was certain, to squeeze himself amongst them for support. Not with his broken shoulder.
“You can’t hold on here,” she said flatly. “Any more than you could back there.”
“I don’t intend to,” he answered coolly. “We shall have to go through the pen—”
“Through it!” She felt like shuddering, but feared that even such a slight reaction would jeopardize their frail support.
“If Ralph has left any guards, and I do not think he is stupid enough to overlook that, they will expect us in the canal where the escape route comes out. Our only chance is to go through the pen and hope to reach the mound to the north.”
Persis set her teeth. She had no idea of what one of the giant turtles she had seen might do to a soft-skinned invader of their prison. But if this was their only chance—
“Feel along the stake wall. It has been over a year since that was renewed,” Crewe continued. “There ought to be at least one stake which is rotting. I have had to replace two or three such every season since this was built.”
Persis moved very cautiously, keeping one hand on the dugout. The fingers of the other she ran around the stakes at a little below water level. To her they all seemed iron fast and completely firm. One—two–three—four—five—at the sixth she could not be sure. Had her now-broken nails scraped wood which was a little spongy? She tried to keep her mind entirely off what lay beyond. If Crewe said this was the only way, then it was. At that moment she was not even aware that she was accepting his pronouncement without question.
“Find one?” He did not even sound impatient, yet there was a note in his voice which bothered her. She began to wonder if he was tiring—she must find the way out! If Crewe collapsed here—with all her strength and determination she could not help him then.
Persis felt for the fan dagger. Using only the one hand she drove it point deep, gouging again and again at the stake which had seemed the least resistant. And, after an initial resistance, the wood was giving!
She dug away at it feverishly. The water was washing more and more into her face so she had to strain her neck, muscles in order to be able to breathe. Still she battled on. Then holding the dagger in her other hand she explored what she had done. The stake was whittled down.
“One of them—I cut at it—” she said.
But there still remained a tough core she could not break.
“Hold very still,” Crewe’s voice was somehow heartening. “I am going to move up, so you move back. I will go one small space at a time. One—”
Persis had sheathed the dagger again. Now she edged a short distance down the dugout. A moment later that heaved under her. She held on with both hands praying that it was not going to completely sink and fail them. Crewe was moving up its length toward the stakes.
“Two—” Again at this count Persis changed position, steadied
herself against the resulting bobbing as Crewe advanced. They had then to wait between such changes of position before they dared to try again.
“Three—” Persis spat out the water which washed suddenly against her lips. And this time she was sure that Crewe’s countermove would sink their own support.
She heard a grunt through the dark and at first envisioned one of the turtles waiting just beyond. Then the canoe rocked perilously again. Her hands slipped so that she nearly screamed aloud in her horror of being flung off that very precarious support. There was another sound, a cracking, and then Crewe’s voice:
“It’s open. But we can’t get the dugout through!”
“Then how—? She could not swim, nor, she was sure, could Crewe, not with his shoulder encased in the heaviest bandages Dr. Veering could devise and his left arm strapped to his chest.
“Work your way back to me.” She almost resented that he sounded so controlled, so sure of himself. “Then hold on to the stakes. The pool is not too deep—and we have no choice.”
So once more, inch by inch, she drew herself along the length of the dugout. Only this time it rode higher and she guessed that Crewe had taken to the stakes for support. Then, reaching out, her hand closed once more on sodden cloth with strong, well-muscled flesh under it.
“Good enough. The stakes are here.” She groped out blindly with one hand, her other one still clinging to Crewe as if not even death now could drag her from that hold. And he was somehow moving ahead, drawing her with him.
The turtles! In her mind she cringed, waited for some paralyzing snap upon arm or leg. But, though she could pick up some odd splashing sounds, those were not near. Perhaps their own presence frightened the sea monsters as badly as they did her.
She floundered in the water and there was a thick, unpleasant smell in the place. But ahead—yes there was a lighting of the heavy darkness which had encased them since Grillon and Lydia had left. Did that mean they were near the outer world at last?
“Along the wall,” Crewe’s voice, still calm and quiet, steadied her. Once more her outflung hand hit hard against what could be a rocky surface. But there were fingerholds there; she could catch them.