The British Mysteries Edition: 14 Novels & 70+ Short Stories. Sapper
And at length his head was poked cautiously through. He looked round until he saw her, and for a while they stared at one another in silence. Then with a leer he pushed the panel right back, and stood in the opening.
"Have you changed your mind, my pretty," he whispered.
"Get out, you unspeakable cur," she said tensely.
"But I've only just come," he remarked. "Wasn't it thoughtful of me to give you the cabin next mine? All specially prepared as you see. Now are we going to be wise, or are we going to give trouble?"
The leer grew more pronounced, and he took a step forward. And at that moment she heard him give a strange gurgling noise: saw something brown round his throat, and watched him being dragged back through the opening. He disappeared, and with no thought in her mind save the incredible fact that he'd gone, she sprang to the sliding panel and slammed it to. And as she did so there came from the other side of the wall a blood-curdling scream, followed by a series of bumps as if a heavy sack was being thrown about.
She cowered back terrified: the noise was like nothing she had ever heard. And even as she listened to it pandemonium broke loose in the ship. Shots, oaths, yells of terror came from every direction, and every now and then a loud splash indicated that somebody had fallen overboard. She forced herself to go to the porthole, but there was nothing to be seen though the din had now become indescribable. And mingled with it came a succession of strange snarling grunts.
She crossed to the little window that opened into the corridor, and drew back the curtains. Pressed against the glass was a face, and as she stared at it every drop of blood seemed to freeze in her veins. It was human, and yet it was animal. Its teeth were bared like those of an angry dog: its flattened nostrils were distended. And in its eyes was a look of bestial savagery.
Suddenly it put its hand straight through the glass, and tried to clutch her, but she fell back half fainting on the bed. For a while the great hairy arm continued groping: then it was withdrawn, and she could hear it snarling angrily, evidently furious at having cut itself. And then to her unspeakable horror the door handle rattled violently. The thing was trying to get in.
The door creaked and groaned: she could see the panels bulging inwards. And in those few moments Judy experienced the supreme acme of human terror. For she knew the door handle would not hold. Already the wood was beginning to splinter, and in one last desperate throw for safety she tried to clamber through the porthole. But it was too small, and with a pitiful little moan she cowered back on the bed just as the door, with a final crash, was burst open, and the thing came in. And it was then that something snapped in her brain, and Judy fainted.
When she opened her eyes again she found herself in darkness. She was lying on the ground, and for a while her mind refused to act. Then little by little it came back to her, and she bit her lip to prevent herself screaming. It wasn't some hideous nightmare: it was the truth. Something had come into her cabin, something that she dimly remembered as being of vast size, and unspeakably horrible. And it must have carried her off the yacht.
Where was she? She felt the ground with her hand and found it was hard earth. And suddenly the full horror of her position dawned on her: she was in the power of these awful creatures. From close beside her there came a movement, and involuntarily she gave a little cry. And then with a feeling of unutterable relief she heard a well-known voice.
"How are you feeling, miss?"
"Bill," she cried, "where are we? What's happened?"
"The same as happened in the Paquinetta," he answered grimly. "They've slaughtered or taken prisoner every soul in the yacht, and now we're in their power."
Some voices started jabbering Brazilian near by, and she asked Bill who they were.
"Some of the crew, miss. There are about ten of us altogether. The rest are dead."
"Thank God, they didn't kill you, Bill."
"It was that crack on the head in the motor-boat saved me, miss. I'd come to, and was lying dazed and sick in the bunk where they'd thrown me, when I heard the fight start. So I staggered up on deck unarmed as I was and ran right into two of them. It was so unexpected I didn't show any fight, and they just carted me off."
She forced herself to ask the question, though she dreaded the answer.
"Have they got Mr. Maitland too?"
"I haven't seen him, miss, or his cousin either."
"He may be able to do something," she said, hope springing up in her mind.
The sailor said nothing. In the first place he doubted if Jim could ever find them, and if he did what could he possibly do? There were scores of these hideous monsters, and even if he succeeded in shooting a few of them, it would only make the others more savage.
"By the way, miss," he said at length, "have you got your revolver with you?"
"I haven't, Bill," she answered. "That brute Don Miguel took it from me."
And the sailor almost groaned aloud. No good now alarming her more than she was already, by telling her to blow out her brains in certain eventualities: they could only wait in agonising suspense.
"What will they do to us, Bill?" she asked tremulously.
"God knows, miss," he said gravely. "We've just got to keep our spirits up and hope for the best."
"But, Bill, are they human?"
"Half man, half beast, miss. You remember I told you. They've got a sort of language for I heard them talking, but to look at they're more like gorillas."
"I suppose," she said quietly, "they'll kill us."
And he dared make no reply. All that he could pray for was that they would kill her and that nothing worse should happen. He was unarmed himself: he was powerless to help her in any way. And the realisation of the girl's peril made him well-nigh sick with fear. He had tried to take note of the direction in which he had been brought, but it had proved hopeless. It had seemed a veritable maze of paths, and since for long stretches of the journey the moonlight had not penetrated into the forest, most of it had been done in darkness. All that he knew was that they were in some form of underground cave.
Two of the sailors near by were talking, and he understood sufficient Brazilian to get the gist of their remarks.
"Do you hear what those blokes are saying, miss," he said, when they had finished. "According to them some of the words these things use are a sort of Brazilian patois. And from what they heard the reason for the attack on the yacht was that their chief or king or something like that was killed this afternoon."
"Doesn't seem to help us much, does it?" she said with a pitiful little laugh. "Bill, wouldn't it be possible to escape? There must be a way out."
"First thing I thought of, miss. But the brutes have blocked the entrance of the tunnel we came in by."
"So that our only hope is Jim," she whispered under her breath.
They fell silent: and Judy's thoughts went back to that night in Hampstead when she had first met Jim and asked his advice about the treasure. Who, by the wildest stretch of imagination could have dreamed that it would have ended as it had? It was all so inconceivable that even now she had a feeling that she would wake up soon and find it was some fantastic nightmare. And suddenly she cried out almost hysterically.
"It can't be true, Bill. It is just like Alice in Alice in Wonderland. We'll find it's all a dream and these things are just a pack of cards."
And the sailor who had come on deck just in time to see Bully McIntyre's neck broken with a flick of the wrists could think of nothing to say. In fact he found himself praying that her reason might give: then at any rate she would be spared the mental horror that lay in front of her.
For the twentieth time he asked himself what was going to happen. How long were they going to be kept in this underground hole, and what was their fate going to be when they were taken out? Presumably the brutes were asleep resting after the fight: in which case it might be many hours before