The British Mysteries Edition: 14 Novels & 70+ Short Stories. Sapper
a second they were alone, and she put her arms round his neck.
"I don't know how you did it, Jim," she whispered, "but I think you're the most wonderful man on earth."
Which was the moment that Percy would choose to appear.
"Welcome, wench," he remarked. "Dear me! how very strange. I'd no idea that phosphorus travelled aerially so to speak."
"What are you blathering about, you unspeakable mess," demanded Jim, and then happening to glance at Judy's face he made a dive for his cousin. For her lips were luminous, and the method by which they had become so was not hard to guess.
"I just can't believe I'm back here," said the girl a few minutes later. "Can you, Bill?"
The boat was nosing down the river towards the open sea.
"I can't, miss," he said solemnly. "How did you manage it, Mr. Maitland?"
"Well, Bill, one thing stood out a mile."
The first streaks of dawn were beginning to show in the east, and the three of them were sprawling on the deck with Percy at the wheel.
"The only possible hope was to frighten those brutes by something which they would regard as supernatural. Gun work was useless: there were far too many of them. And it was then that I remembered that I'd stowed a pot of luminous paint amongst our kit for the very purpose I used it for in the forest—marking a trail by night.
"Now Percy and I had been to the spot where we found you yesterday afternoon, and while there we had fallen through an ancient type of trap into the very place where you were imprisoned. And there we killed one of the monsters. But the barrier was open at the end of the tunnel so we escaped all right. The point however is that I knew where you would be taken to, which was a very great advantage.
"Then came the second discovery—made by Percy. For what purpose they brought it I don't know—probably in case blasting was necessary—but there was a large quantity of dynamite on board the yacht. So we concocted a plan. By the way—what happened to her, Percy?"
"All in good time, Jim: you carry on."
"Percy was to land me complete with phosphorus paint, and then return to the yacht. Three quarters of an hour later, so as to give me time to get to you he was to let drive on the siren. I told him to send O.K. to cheer you up, but the real object was to draw as many of the monsters away from you and back to the yacht as possible. It succeeded admirably: at least thirty of them went crashing past me in the forest."
"And thirty of them came on board the yacht," put in Percy. "When I heard 'em down there by the water's edge, I laid a ten minute fuse to the dynamite, and hooked it in the motor-boat. She split open like a rotten apple, Jim, and sank at once, and I think the little pretties were all in her at the time."
They had reached the open sea, and all around them the water was strewn with wreckage.
"Pity," said Jim. "She was a nice boat. However so much for that. To go back to you and Judy. I had no idea, of course, what was going to happen, or how those brutes proposed to deal with you. I'd heard the screams of a man as I went through the forest."
"That was the Englishman they sacrificed first," said Bill.
"Also shouts from someone else whose voice seemed familiar. And you can guess my amazement when I realised as I got nearer that that someone else was none other than Dresler, who had been abducted from the motor-boat earlier. Moreover they were obviously making a god of him, and the reason suddenly dawned on me. The golden idol which they worship is made in the form of a misshapen dwarf, and they probably thought that Dresler was this idol come to life.
"However all those who hadn't gone to the yacht were below with you, and by peering through a chink in the booby trap, which apparently is not set when they are there I could see you quite distinctly. And I could also hear that unpleasant Brazilian sailor. So since it was essential to find out the way they went to work, I thought he would be an admirable person to start on.
"Well the trick with the electric torch succeeded, and they brought him up whilst I hid in the undergrowth. They lashed his feet and his hands—just as we found Lopez, Percy—and threw him over the water towards the idol. And there they left him to be bitten to death by fer de lance and poisonous adders—just about as deadly a combination as you could get. Moreover a complication on which I had not reckoned.
"You see I'd already made up my mind that the only hope lay in playing the fool with their idol. But the point that now arose was how the devil I was going to get to it. A fer de lance is no respecter of persons, and as you saw for yourselves that ground was alive with the brutes, which were imprisoned there by the water. However I knew it had got to be chanced, but I had to wait till the explosion took place. I guessed that would rouse them, and it was essential to get you and Bill up from below while it was still dark, or else my luminous paint fell flat.
"It all worked according to plan except that for some reason or other they turned on Dresler. However that didn't matter: he richly deserved all he got. I got through the snake belt by wrapping my coat round my legs; then I stood behind the idol on a sort of pedestal place. And the rest you know. First I rubbed its face with the paint: then I hoped that the rocket would finish them. But it didn't. So I covered the idol's head with my coat and decorated my own hands and face keeping hidden behind it while I did so. And that's that."
"Not bad for you either, James," remarked Percy kindly. "Sorry I wasn't in at the death but I quite enjoyed myself this end. Great fun seeing that yacht blow up. Hullo! do my eyes deceive me, or are those some of the little pets on the edge of the swamp?"
Jim snatched up the field-glasses. The sun had risen: the mist had lifted from the bog which stretched away to their left. And as he watched a peculiar smile flickered round his lips. There were more than a dozen of the ape-men, and they were clustering round a small squat object that lay on the ground. Then with a great effort they lifted it, and flung it into the swamp. For a while they stood there: then they vanished into the forest.
"Half a million gone west," he remarked. "Assuredly I damaged that god's reputation. And I guess it's just as well that I spent some of my spare time removing this while I stood behind it."
From his pocket he drew a huge red stone the size of a hen's egg. It lay in his hand like a ball of crimson fire; then he held it out to Judy.
"That's for you, bless you," he said. "And you richly deserve it after all you've gone through."
She looked at it quietly for a moment or two: then she glanced up at Jim.
"It's a ruby, isn't it?" she asked.
"It certainly is," he answered. "Moreover I should say that it literally is priceless."
"And you give it to me?"
"That," he remarked, "is the idea."
She stared at him steadily, a strange look in her eyes. Then with a quick movement she flung it overboard, and with that streak of glittering red light there vanished for ever the last of the treasure.
"I couldn't bear it, Jim," she cried. "It's haunted. We would never have a moment's peace while we had it."
"We?" he said, taking both her hands in his.
The others had gone below: they were alone.
"That," she repeated softly, "is the idea."
* * * * *
THUS ended the strange adventure of Lone Tree Island. No trace was ever found of the members of the yacht's crew, who perforce had been left behind: in fact the island was reported to be uninhabited. But sometimes o' nights an expression comes over Jim's face which makes Judy look at him suspiciously. Is there still treasure hidden somewhere in that forest guarded by the survivors of the ape-men? Is there perchance another god of solid gold in some undiscovered clearing? Who knows? And as far as Judy is concerned there is one person who certainly never will—her husband.
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