by Don Wilcox
“Go ahead,” I said. “Give him the worst.”
“The worst is that our dear cousin George had a very pleasant little conversation with a pretty girl who was spying on us,” said David, making a sour face.
“I made a friend,” I said defensively. “Loonza is a charming person.”
“It ended in some kind of pledge that had to be sealed with an embrace,” David added, giving me a disgusted look.
Uncle Willard glared at me in despair. “This is bad. I don’t understand it. You’ve sold us out, George . . . So that’s the thanks David and I get for trying to run down your lost fortune. You’re going to ruin our chances with such indiscretions.”
I was pretty thoroughly silenced and badly whipped. I mumbled something about circumstances altering our destinies, but Uncle Willard just sat there, shaking his head and idly pouring grains of dirt through his hands. Then he flung the dirt at the wall, sprang up and began to pace. “I give up,” he said. “We’ve come all the way to Mercury to try to find some trace of your brother. And the fortune. You know better than anyone what’s at stake. You know—and I know—that that first and only load of the Mercury material brought a cool four million dollars when it was sprung on the market. And that was before its full value was known. It should have been your four million—or rather your great-grandfather’s. But his stepbrother turned a villainous trick and it got away from you.”
“I’ve read all about it,” I said calmly.
“And so—here we are.”
David threw a pebble into the corner. The three crewmen climbed up, bringing the rest of our equipment. They stared at us, sensing that someone had called time-out. We stared back at them blankly, as glum as bumps on logs.
“Pick up the baggage,” Uncle Willard said so abruptly that the surprised crewmen jumped. “We’re going to have to go back farther into the hills. Until these bungling boneheads blow over, we’ll have to hide out and wait.”
CHAPTER IV
Two days, as gauged by Uncle Willard’s lazy wristwatch, was a long time to wait. Especially in the company of two angry relatives. I broke away while Uncle Willard and David were sleeping, and went back down toward the shore town in the hope of finding Loonza again. After several hours of scouting, I spied her swimming along toward the rock where we had sat and talked before.
I plunged in and swam across to meet her. She didn’t appear surprised. In fact, her first words were, “Where have you been hiding?”
“I’ve got to talk with someone,” I said, “and I think it had better be you.” She looked pleased and pretty, and I wondered if Uncle Willard could have refused to be friendly if he had had the privilege of sitting beside a beautiful bathing beauty like Loonza. The soft glowing lights—the whispering waters—“Does the village know they have visitors?”
“Yes, but I didn’t tell.”
“The boy told,” I said.
“You know about him?”
“I stopped the fight just as they were about to beat up on him.”
“You were the one. I was sure of it. He told me it was the handsome, tall one with the kind face and—”
“And what?”
“And the ugly hands.”
“Why, the brat!”
“He thinks my hands are ugly too, because I’ve never had fins grafted on them.” She extended her fingers, and I took the liberty of examining them as she talked on. “Almost everyone wears webbed hands and feet. But my father told me that some day there would be a man from the outside world who would come and see me, and he would appreciate—”
She stopped short and withdrew her hand.
“Go on,” I said.
“No, I shouldn’t be telling you all this. The important thing is that you—”
“That I have ugly hands?”
“No. That’s only what my brother said. But he’s always making remarks. The important thing is that you were kind to him and stopped the fight.”
“Your brother?”
“It put me in an awfully embarrassing position because of that promise I made you. You see,” she was looking at me with large sincere eyes, “I never keep anything from my brother. Not anything. And this time I had to hold back the most interesting thing—the fact that I already knew you.”
“Well, if that’s how it is—” I weighed the matter, and made the bold decision that Uncle Willard certainly wouldn’t have approved. “All right, we’ll let the little fellow in on it. Any brother of yours is a friend of mine. I’ve a lot to tell you. If he were here right now, I’d let you both in on my story.”
A small voice piped up from the other side of the stone. “Hi, Sis. Pardon me, mister. Do you mind if I come around where I can hear better?”
“There you are!” Loonza sighed. “That’s Bud for you. Come on, you mischief. I should have known you’d be spying.”
We sat together, the three of us, and only when Bud wasn’t watching too closely would my hand stray over to touch Loonza’s. But she wasn’t being drawn into anything that called for holding hands, I decided. She was much too interested in my story and growing troubles with the Pembertons.
“You see, Willard Pemberton and his son would be next in line for the Freeman inheritance if there weren’t any Freeman living,” I explained. They looked too happy about it, so I tried to simplify my explanation. “I’m a Freeman. My brother was a Freeman—”
“Naturally.”
“And we’re the only two left. Neither of us is married. So you see why I’m beginning to lose sleep.”
“You mean because you’re not married?” Bud said. “That’s too bad.”
“No, no, no. I mean because there are so few of us in line for the fortune. If my brother has passed on—and that’s what he probably has—then I’m the only one.”
“And all this expedition is for your benefit?” said Loonza brightly.
“Yes—that is—unless my uncle and his son have a funny notion that something might happen to me. In that case, they would get all the benefit.”
“What could happen to you?”
“Whatever happened to my brother could happen to me, I suppose.”
“What happened to him?” Bud asked, bright-eyed.
“I don’t know. I only know he came down here and that’s the last we ever heard. I may never know. He may have gone straight to your high mogul—or king—or what have you—”
“We have the great Mong,” said Bud.
“All right, he may have gone to the Mong and asked what happened to the Freeman fortune, and the Mong may have been in a bad mood and chopped his head off.”
“Our Mong doesn’t do it that way,” said Bud.
“Quiet,” said Loonza. “What did your brother look like? Did he have a deep voice and nice wavy brown hair that swept back from his forehead?”
“Yes! Have you seen him?”
“Did he have brown cheeks and a jaw like a rock? Was he a little taller than you?”
“You’re right on the beam.”
“Did he know how to kiss?”
“I think he originated it,” I said. And then I gulped. “Kiss? What are you saying, Loonza? Do you mean—he—was it he—was he the one?” Loonza dived into the water and started swimming away.
I started after her. But Bud caught my arm.
“Let her alone. She’s going off to have a cry. When women swim off for a cry, that’s the wrong time for us men to bother them.”
I had had about all the shaking up
I could stand for one day. I’ll be frank about it; this Loonza gal had me going. And all I really knew about her was that she was nursing a broken heart—as she put it. She had been friendly enough with me—Yes. But it was plain that I had exaggerated the importance of that. Loonza had been in love with Ken!
I sat there mumbling to myself until Bud thumped me on the arm. “If you’re going to talk, can’t you talk out loud?”
“What happened to him, Bud?” I asked.
“Same thing that happens to al
l strangers,” he said.
“What? Tell me.”
“It might spoil your dinner.”
“Go ahead.”
He had me swim with him across to a place where we could climb about half way up toward the cavern ceiling.
Along the way he showed me how to use climbing glue that could be gathered off the rocks just below the surface of the water. We padded upward until we could get a fair squirrel’s eye view of the great cavern. Far across the mist, where the line of markets ended and the walls curved in and out among the towers of rock, he pointed out a purple line along the surface of the water.
“That’s a sort of turtle walk,” he said, “only they call it the ‘Leopard Walk.’ Don’t ask me what a leopard is. I’ve never seen one. But that’s what someone named it a long time ago.”
I could see the reason for the name, for the perpendicular walls beyond were blotched with spots of yellow light. It was like a huge leopard coat in reverse. The walk was the straight purple line at the surface of the water.
“A water gate rises along that line,” he said. “When they let you go to see the Mong, you’re supposed to be able to walk across the tower of rock beyond. The Twisted Arm. Do you see it?”
Twisted Arm was a perfect name for it. It was a thick vertical column of rock shaped like an arm, and it must have been hollow. The arm rose into a square palm which separated into fingers, like gigantic stalagmites that had grown up to the ceiling. Between the fingers, the level floor of a porch could be seen. Elsewhere there were windows cut in the arm.
“The Mong lives in the Twisted Arm. And if the guards let you go to see him, you walk across the Leopard Walk. But you’re lucky if you get across.”
“What happens?”
“The water gate rises, and no one in the village is supposed to know just what happens. But something happens, so that you’re never seen again and that’s what happened to your brother.”
I stared, wondering. Finally, “So you’ve never actually seen anyone walk through?”
Bud didn’t answer directly. He told me to look along a certain profile of tower rocks until I saw a certain niche with a blue scar at the side.
“If you are good enough at climbing you can see the whole show from up there,” he said.
“You’ve seen it?”
He nodded. “I can tell you this much, don’t ever try to walk through. If they ever send you through, dive and swim for it the minute the water comes in behind the gate.”
“So that’s where my brother came to an end,” I said, trying to visualize the horrible something that Bud had refused to describe.
“He was with a party of about twenty,” said Bud. “There were six Paint-Faces standing by to start them off—Mong’s guards, you understand, and nobody ever doubts a Paint-Face. You’ll meet them before long.”
Bud told me more. He knew about the magician, Propsander, who was the Mong’s chief assistant. And he knew about the fine foods and the luxurious tile-walled rooms and the little private pool which the Twisted Arm contained, like a fancy penthouse at the top of the tower, for the luxury of the Mong and his guests. And he mentioned too, as I was to recall later, the ornaments of white bars—chalky white—bleached white—but these words passed over my head for the present, for I was still mentally engrossed in imagining the awful end of my brother’s well-planned expedition.
Bud tried to lift my low spirits by making a bright suggestion.
“Do you want to see my treasure? I can show you something that will surprise you.”
We avoided the light as much as possible as we climbed along the mountainous walls. His treasures were in a deep crevice between two towers of rock, not far from the opening of a narrow passage to the water’s edge.
“None of the boys have ever found this place,” he said proudly. “They always play at the other side of town. I got away with my prize treasure without anyone ever seeing. Do you believe in stealing, George?”
“Certainly not.”
“I don’t either. This is the only thing I ever stole. I stole it the day your brother and the rest of the party went under. That was a long time ago. The Mong never missed it. Or the Paint-Faces either, though they probably argued over the count.”
“The count?”
No. He was talking over my head again.
“There were several. I only took one.” He slid some rocks aside and lifted a clean, white, life-sized skeleton of a man. I caught a quick breath and understood.
“This one might be your brother,” he said. “I was under water when I stole it and I took the first one I came to. It took a lot of fast under water swimming to get away without being spotted. Those Paint-Faces would have given me a hundred days of mud jail if they had caught me.”
I lifted the skeleton with a feeling of awe mixed with tenderness. It was about the height and build of Ken. As the boy had said, it could have been.
“You’re looking awfully puzzled, George. Maybe you don’t understand why I’d want to steal such a thing. But it’s like having some of the Mong’s own ornaments. It almost puts me in the same class with a king. Do you think I ought to give it back?”
“Have you told Loonza about this?”
“I didn’t dare. She wouldn’t let me steal, ever. And besides, she would know that this might be her friend.”
CHAPTER V
I returned to camp with the intention of eavesdropping on the rest of the party. I discovered that they had moved again; and later I found that they had reoccupied the small cave above the water’s edge.
The climbing glue was just the thing to enable me to explore the dark interior of these premises. Around at the rear, I found, to my delight, a sort of natural lattice in the stone. Through it I could see the figure of Uncle Willard, tall and broad shouldered and a trifle bent, more with eagerness than with age. He was pacing back and forth. David was sitting moodily against the wall. Two of the crewmen—Casey and Blanchard—were cleaning up after a meal. David was grumbling because I hadn’t returned.
“Jim may find him,” Uncle Willard said.
“Jim can’t swim far with all that plunder he insists on carrying.”
“He’ll have to learn if he’s going to keep pace with us.”
“If George has strayed too far, no one will find him, as far as I’m concerned,” David growled.
The two crewmen stopped and looked at each other, and I knew that this sort of talk didn’t appeal to them. It didn’t appeal to me either. I had bent over backward trying to play fair with David, in spite of his moods.
“Jim will stop along the way to see whether his pedometer is running true in this Mercury gravity,” Casey suggested, as if to overlook any slighting thing that had been implied by David.
“He’s never sure whether he’s going forward or backward without consulting his instruments,” Blanchard added. They joked freely about Jim’s eccentricities. Jim had struck out to swim, wearing the pedometer, trying to see whether he could work out a gauge of distance in the water by counting the number of strokes.
“He’ll not come back until he’s looked in on the high mogul of this village,” David said.
“How do you know?”
“I talked with him before he left.
I can read him like a book.”
“Did you order him to look in on the authorities?”
“It was in his mind to do that,” said David. “I told him if he did, he was taking his own chances—but if he succeeded, he’d be a hero.”
Uncle Willard was concerned. He decided they should climb to an observation point and take a gander with the field glasses. A sudden horror struck through me. Was it possible that Jim, seeking me at the tower of the Mong, would encounter some of the Paint-Faces and be directed to the Leopard Walk?
“We’d just as well let him serve as a test case,” said David. “If he gets through to the Mong then we can all get through. If he has trouble—well, my guess is, he will have trouble—and whatever happens, we can benefit
by it.”
“You sound pretty heartless,” Casey said, stopping again to stare at the young lieutenant. “You wouldn’t want to lose Jim, would you?”
“Just get on with your work, and we’ll take care of the welfare programs,” said David haughtily. But his father struck a saner note.
“No, we don’t want to lose Jim. We don’t want to lose any of you. We may have a full cargo of ghagstic on the return trip and we’ll need all hands.”
“Ghagstic?”
“Never mind, Casey. If you haven’t heard of it, you’re going to. There are two ways we can work it to get our load. Either the Mong of this land can concede it to us as our right, or we can slip through from the ocean side and get it. The boy said there was an ocean entrance—”
“Under the Black Ledge,” said David.
“You’ll find your crew agreeable,” Casey said, trying to make up for lost ground. “Whatever you men and George decide, that’s what we and Jim will do. But any time you think we should help you find George and Jim, we’re ready.”
“We’ll look about them,” said Uncle Willard abruptly. “Come on, David.”
The two men skirted the shore as close to the water’s edge as possible, and occasionally they would have to swim a short distance to pass the perpendicular walls. I began to discover the use of the upland trails near the ceiling, and I found a distinct advantage in traveling this route. The sounds would waft up to my level. An old fisherman swam in from some small rocky islands with a fish basket streaming with his catch. Uncle Willard and David were forced to stop and talk with him. And their words came to me clearly.
“Sure, I recollect seeing one of your party,” said the old man, rubbing his fin-like hand over his wet baldish head. “I heard him ask the Paint-Faces the way to the town authority and they conducted him to the Leopard Walk.”
“I hope it isn’t dangerous,” Uncle Willard said.
“I can see you don’t know anything about this world. Dangerous? Umn-m-m. It’s known to be a very great honor to go over the Leopard Walk to the Mong’s tower. All apart from the danger involved. Yes, it’s a very permanent honor . . .”
