WATKINS TO THE RESCUE
"Well, this is a nice mess I got you chaps into," said Hugh unhappily.
"It's not your fault any more than it is ours," returned Nikka. "We
walked squarely into a trap and were bagged. That's all."
"Were they ready for us?" I asked with what interest my aching head
would permit.
Hugh laughed with hollow mirth.
"That girl Hélène has an uncanny mind. She told the others, when
their trailers reported they had lost us, to watch out for a raid on
Tokalji's premises. They were so exultant over it that they blabbed
everything. They didn't hear the _Curlew_ or see her. They didn't
know we were here until we raised the trapdoor. But they were
prepared for us no matter which way we came. They had brought in
every man they could trust. We didn't have a chance."
"Did the Kings and Watty get away?"
"Must have. Hélène and the others said nothing about them."
"I hope they will not try anything foolish in the way of a rescue,"
said Nikka. "If Wasso Mikali establishes touch with them, I am
afraid they may be tempted to do something."
"There is nothing they can do," answered Hugh. "Our goose is cooked.
We're kaput, finished. As Hélène said, if the O.C. of the Forces of
Occupation jammed his way in here, they could make a clean sweep of
us. They might--"
He hesitated.
"--they might drop us down that grating in the floor, toss us into
the Bosphorus the way Abdul the Damned used to dispose of his
enemies. There are lots of things they could do with us. They will
think that even if they have to scrag us they will still have the
Kings and Watty to work on."
"Don't be too comforting," I observed with feeble sarcasm.
Nikka roused himself.
"There is no sense in abandoning hope," he remarked. "Is this any
worse than that pill-box at Le Ferriere?"
"Good old Nikka," said Hugh affectionately. "I say, if I had to make
an ass of myself I'd rather do it with two such prime--"
"Asses?" I suggested.
"--Not even to you would I say that, Jack," he retorted. "By the
way, lads, we're not running true to form. In every tale I ever read
in which brave, resourceful men were made prisoners, they gnawed each
other's ropes and so gained their freedom."
Nikka chuckled at this.
"If I tried to reach either of you I'd roll over on my face," he
said. "I've already tested the knots around my wrists. It would
take a strong man half an hour to untie them, and a very sharp knife
to hack through them. The only way we shall be freed is by help from
outside."
"That means not at all," replied Hugh. "Let's try for a nap. It
must be some hours to daylight yet--not that that matters any in this
dark hole."
We slept fitfully, frightfully harassed by the curtailment of
circulation due to the straitness of our bonds and the discomfort of
our positions which we might not change. Hugh fell over in his
sleep, and awakened Nikka and me with his groans as he endeavored to
roll off his face. By persistent efforts he finally succeeded in
getting on his back; but he was obliged to stay there, and advised us
to retain our sitting positions if we could.
Of course, we had no means of estimating the passage of time, but we
figured it was well into the forenoon when we abandoned further
efforts for sleep. Nobody came to us, and we began to be aware of
the pangs of hunger and thirst. At first we paid little attention to
this hardship, but as the hours dragged along we realized that our
desertion could mean only one thing: that our enemies were determined
to assail our courage with every weapon they had. And to tell the
truth, courage became something to grapple for after your belly
turned upside down for emptiness and your tongue commenced to
thicken. To add to our misery, the one lantern flickered out with a
rancid stench of oil, and several rats discovered us. They feared
us, perhaps, as much as we feared them. But their scamperings and
sorties were nerve-racking, and we expected every moment to feel
their sharp teeth in our wrists and ankles.
For a while we talked and sang and told stories, but our cracked lips
and swollen tongues soon felt the strain of vocal effort. What the
others did then I don't know, but I fell asleep--to awaken suddenly
with a gasp of agony as I lost my balance and fell sideways, striking
my head on the stone floor.
"Too bad," came Hugh's voice from the darkness, strangely muffled.
"Hit your head, Jack?"
"Yes," I moaned.
"Twenty-four hours must be nearly up," croaked Nikka.
I fought for a while to work over on to my back, but my limbs had
become so stiff that I could not. I had to lie on my stomach, with
my head resting, now on one cheek, now on the other. In this
position, ear to the floor, it seemed to me that I heard a clink of
metal, not outside the door of the dungeon, but somewhere underneath.
I asked the others if they heard it, but they said no, and I could
tell from their pitying tones that they thought I was becoming
delirious.
Yet again I heard it, and almost immediately afterward a wholly
different sound: footsteps approaching the door. The two noises
persisted together until the dungeon door was thrown open with a
clatter. I forgot all about the first noise in the sight of Toutou
LaFitte, standing by himself in the doorway, his shirt-sleeves rolled
up and a grin of horrible anticipation distorting his beautiful face.
It was as though a mask of animal hunger cloaked his features. Their
regularity was undisturbed. Each was in its usual place and relation
to the rest, but their effect was entirely abnormal. They were
warped and twisted by passions that must have rocked the foundations
of the man's soul. His green eyes radiated an unholy light. His
long arms were crooked and extended, his hands open and prehensile
fingers hooked. He walked warily, bent-kneed, slowly. A slight
trickle of saliva flowed from the corner of his mouth.
In the doorway he stood motionless for a moment, surveying the three
of us. Then he advanced, leaving the door open against the wall, and
unhooked the stable-lantern which hung from his belt. He placed this
close to the grating, and prowled over to where I lay.
I say "prowled," and I mean just that. He walked like a big forest
cat, or, rather, like a gorilla, investigating a likely meal awaiting
the kill. When he stood by me, I felt up and down my spine the
shiver of apprehension, of sheer horror, that I had known before in
his proximity. When he turned me on my back, and his powerful hands,
with their smooth fingers and polished nails, explored my muscles, I
could have screamed with terror. I twitched at his touch, with an
involuntary exclamation of repugnance. He snarled, and his fingers
pressed on a nerve of the upper arm, with a force that made me faint.
But almost at once he flung me from him, and walked across to Hugh,
who met him unflinchingly.
"I take it, Monsieur Toutou," said Hugh, "that the twenty-four hours
are up."
Toutou stood over him, with that peculiarly animal, bent-kneed
posture of meditated attack, arms flexed forward.
"Not quite," he answered in the throaty, guttural voice that I always
identified with him. "But we are tired of waiting."
He swooped and snatched Hugh into his arms, just as a gorilla might,
squeezing ferociously. Hugh's face showed above his shoulder, white
and beaded with perspiration. I thought the fiend intended to crush
Hugh's ribs, but he ceased as suddenly as he had begun and tossed his
victim down on the floor again.
"You shall come last," he growled. "First, you shall see your
friends suffer."
Hugh was too weak from the handling he had just experienced and the
shock of his fall to see what happened next, but I did. Toutou
leaped on Nikka with one tigerish spring, lifting him to his feet and
propping him against the wall. Then he prodded Nikka from head to
foot, testing out muscles and joints, all the time growling in his
throat. He did not hurt him, simply felt of him as though to
determine the parts of his body which would be juiciest.
Nikka's face showed revulsion, but no fear.
"Do you eat men, Toutou?" he gibed.
Toutou flashed his knife, and I closed my eyes, thinking to see the
torture begin. But when I opened them again, the knife was slashing
the ropes that bound Nikka's limbs. For a second I credited the
incredible. Were we to be set free? But no. Toutou sheathed the
knife, and crouched before Nikka once more, animal-like, menacing.
"I am a bone-breaker," he rasped. "I break men, bone by bone, joint
by joint. Have you ever felt your bones breaking, your sinews
cracking? Guuhhrr-rrrr-rrr-rr!"
He pounced, and Nikka screamed, screamed in an excess of agony as the
beast's fingers sank into his shoulder, torturing the nerves, tearing
the sinews and muscles, dragging the bone from its socket.
But there was another cry from the open door. With a whirl of skirts
a slight figure darted in, a knife gleamed and plunged home, and
Toutou started back from his victim, his own left arm dripping blood.
His face was a queer mixture of rage, lust and puzzled alarm.
Shaking his head, with the saliva trickling down his chin, he stood,
frowning, like an animal more than ever, an animal which had been
curbed and chastised. And before him, knife in one hand, pistol in
the other, stood Kara, her eyes blazing with passion, breast heaving
through the rags of her bodice, her slender body quivering with anger.
"You would dare!" she cried shrilly. "You would dare to touch my
man! No man lives who can touch him while I live. He is mine, I
say! Mine! I will cut your throat, big French pig. I will carve
out your bowels! I will pick out your eyes! I will, I say! I will!"
She danced toward him so energetically that he cowered and gave
ground before her.
"Go!" she cried, gesturing with her pistol toward the door. "Quick,
before I strike!" And she leaped at him. He clutched his wounded
arm, and retreated. "Go, I say!" She raised her arm to stab him
again. "Did you think I would let you touch him? Did not the others
say that you should only harm one of them? And you took my man! Oh,
I will cut you in ribbons!"
And this time he turned, and fled through the door, slamming it
behind him. She was swift on his heels, jerked open the door and ran
out into the passage after him.
"Run!" I heard her shout. "I am close to you! I, Kara Tokalji! My
knife is at your back. Make haste--"
Then the door swung to, and shut out the echoes of Toutou's retreat.
My whole thought was of Nikka, his face green in the lantern-light,
his empty stomach retching with the nausea from horrible pain. Hugh
called to him:
"Nikka, old chap! Pull yourself together. Can you get me
unfastened? I'll see what I can do for--"
But I promptly lost interest in Nikka's plight. For my ear, that I
could not lift from the floor, registered once more that peculiar
clinking underground, this time more pronounced and nearer. I peered
idly along the floor, watched a rat flit from hole to hole, and then
stiffened with amazement as the grating in the middle of the room
lifted two or three inches. It thudded into place again with a
shower of dust, but at once the clinking was resumed, and the heavy
stonework was pried upward.
"Hugh!" I whispered. "Nikka! My God, look at the grating! Do you
see what I see?"
Nikka was still too sick to understand, but Hugh stared at the
grating, and his eyes popped from his head as he perceived its
unsteady progress upward.
We were both afraid to speak, afraid to guess what it might mean.
And while we still watched, uncertainly, wondering whether to hope or
to fear, we heard a loud grunt, the grating rose into the air,
tottered and fell out of place, leaving the drain only half-covered.
The end of a steel crowbar appeared in this opening, there was
another grunt, and the grating was levered aside.
"Where's that 'ere dratted box?" muttered a familiar voice. "If the
Servants' 'All could see me now!"
Two hands clutched the sides of the drain opening, the grunt was
repeated for the third time--and Watkins clambered laboriously into
the dungeon.
"If your ludship will pardon me a minute," he puffed. "This work
does fair do me up--at my time of life and all, Mister Hugh, sir--and
the rats down there are as big as old Tom the mouser in the dairy at
Chesby."
We could only stare at him. Even poor Nikka forgot his agony and
peered unbelievingly at this extraordinary apparition.
"'As that Tootoo gone, your ludship?" continued Watkins, looking
around.
He drew a pistol from his coat pocket.
"Miss Betty told me to be sure not to shoot if I could 'elp it. But
I would 'ave taken a crack at 'im, only I couldn't rightly see down
below there, and I was afraid 'e'd tumble to me if 'e 'eard me like,
so--"
"For God's sake, Watty, where did you come from?" burst from Hugh.
"From the drain, your ludship. I nearly broke my neck in the opening
last night account of coming down the rope so sudden with the
Professor, and when I told Miss Betty she said it was a gift from
'Eaven and we must come back, which we did, your ludship."
"Do you mean to say," asked Hugh, "that there's a passage down there
and Miss Betty is outside?"
"Quite right, your ludship," said Watkins, rising and commencing to
dust himself off. "It runs out into the big rocks on the beach. The
Professor, 'e says, sir, it's a great discovery, it's a regular,
sure-enough old Roman sewer. Miss Betty, she said it was nothing of
the kind, it was a gift from 'Eaven."
"Well," I said, thrusting myself into the conversation, "this is no
time for a debate. If you are going to get us out, Watty, you have
got to move quickly. Toutou and his friends will be back any moment.
One girl can't keep them away. I suspect they'd have been here by
now, if she hadn't precipitated some kind of a row."
"Very good, sir, Mister Jack," answered Watkins, calmly producing a
knife from his belt. "Such a necessity was duly foreseen, if I may
say so."
He went to work methodically on my lashings.
"I trust you will take notice, your ludship, that all possible 'aste
'as been made. It was fair mucky below there, as you will see,
gentlemen, and I barked my shins something cruel. Yes, sir, Mister
Jack, I'm going as fast as I can without sticking you. What a
terrible place! And Mister Nikka 'as the stomach ache."
"He has worse than that, Watty," said Hugh grimly. "Are the others
all right?"
"Yes, your ludship. Ah? Mister Jack, sir, there you are. One
moment, sir, until I 'ave 'is ludship loose, and I'll give you a bit
of a rub." He sawed away at Hugh's ropes, while I slapped my cold
legs with hands I could scarcely move. "Why, your ludship, when we
came outside we talked things over, and first off Professor King 'e
says that 'e's going in. But I pointed out to 'im 'ow somebody
should stay with the young lady, and as 'e was 'er father and I was
valet to your ludship, it was plain that 'e should stick by the
launch, whilst I--"
"Never mind any more," Hugh cut him off, as he disposed of the last
wrappings. "We can talk things over later. Help us to get our
circulation back. Rub, man, rub! That's it."
Presently we were able to walk stiffly. Our first concern was to
lower Nikka into the drain. He was so weak that he took very little
interest in the rescue. His initial flare of understanding was
succeeded by a semi-stupor, and his tortured shoulder must have been
agonizing, although he never complained. We had Watkins go down
ahead of him, and Hugh and I, between us, eased him gently through
the hole, and Watkins caught him around the waist and steadied him.
My instinct was to follow them immediately, but Hugh checked me.
"See here," he said, "now that we've got this secret entrance, why do
we need to let the enemy know of it?"
"How do you mean?" I asked stupidly.
"Can't we cover up our tracks?" he pursued. "Here, Watty," he called
into the drain, "hand up that crowbar."
Watkins extended it, a look of alarm on his face.
"I do 'ope, your ludship, you won't run into another mess," he
remonstrated. "Best come along right away, sir, before Tootoo and
'is friends twig what we've done. Really, your ludship--and I'll
need some one to 'elp me with Mister Nikka."
"You get started," returned Hugh. "We'll be all right, but we have a
job to do first. Get on. We'll catch up with you."
Watkins retired, grumbling.
"If you'll permit me," I said uneasily, "I'm inclined to think you
are mad. Personally, I don't hanker for Toutou's attentions. We may
lose this opportunity if--"
"We won't lose this opportunity," answered Hugh, "and I hope we won't
lose the more valuable opportunity I'm looking for in the future.
Help me break down the door."
Then I appreciated his plan. We worked the crowbar under the sill
and between the jamb and the lintel, and with very little difficulty
forced the door from its hinges. It was old, and although heavy, had
warped and was poorly hung. As it came free, we caught it, and let
it down gently on the floor. I crept out into the corridor and
around a turn where a flight of stairs began. Nobody was in sight,
but I heard a distant murmur of conversation. To the left of the
stairs a passage trended at right angles, with a slight upward grade,
and I followed it until I came to a clumsy door of planks. I
listened at its crack, but heard nothing, so I applied my crowbar and
forced the rickety lock. Beyond this door stretched a vast cellar
which underlay the structure of the House of the Married.
I waited only to make sure that it was unoccupied, and then returned
to the dungeon. Hugh had pushed the stone grating into position on
the edge of the opening, leaving a space barely wide enough for us to
slip through. We dropped down, and found that when we stood on the
empty packing-box which Watty had fetched--for no special reason, as
he afterwards admitted, except that he "thought he might want to
reach up like"--with him we could exert the necessary strength, with
the help of the crowbar, to pry the grating into its bed.
We crept away after Nikka and Watkins, feeling light-hearted for the
first time in twenty-four hours. Ahead of us Watkins' electric torch
shone palely on the slimy, moss-grown walls. We splashed in water
over our ankles. Big black rats scuttled around us. But we were at
liberty, and we licked our puffy lips with our swollen tongues at the
thought of the dismay that our enemies would feel when they reëntered
the dungeon.