The Whispering Mountain

by Joan Aiken

  Here Arabis could restrain herself no longer. “Why, you silly old man!” she cried indignantly. “Black disgrace it is to have such doubts of your own flesh and blood, and the poor boy half breaking his heart, trying to get the harp back for you! Serve you right it would indeed if Miss Tegwyn Jones turned up and asked what right had you to keep it in your old museum, covered in dust and all its strings broken!”

  An awful silence fell. Then Mr. Hughes inquired in an icy tone,

  “May I have the honour to ask who it was that just spoke?”

  Arabis, already repenting her outburst, did not, however, immediately reply, for in her excitement she had taken a couple of steps forward and both tiger-snakes, roused by this movement, were making their way purposefully towards her.

  In his chamber above, the Marquess, listening at the earpiece which carried all the voices of the prisoners up to him, nodded thoughtfully and said to Garble,

  “So!” I thought we should learn something if they were all left to tattle together. Miss Tegwyn Jones, eh? Still, I expect she is dead long ago. And, after all, it was that rascally pair, Bilk and Prigman, who played me false! If they reappear, Garble, with or without the harp, have them clapped straight in a cell. I’ll use no tools that turn in the hand.”

  “What about the old man’s grandson?” inquired Garble.

  “He’s of no consequence—unless, indeed, he should lead us to Bilk and Prigman. Still, if he turns up while I’m gone, throw him in a cell too, to await my return.”

  “Gone, my lord? Where would your lordship be going?”

  “Why, to Nant Agerddau, of course, fool, where else? First, to lay that meddlesome Tom Dando by the heels, before he makes mischief between me and the Prince of Wales. I should be able to overtake him soon enough; second, to search for Bilk and Prigman, since that is where the scoundrels were last seen with the harp; and lastly, I have a curiosity to see if I can not unearth some of the fat Ottoman’s little underground citizens. That would be a rare convenience indeed—a whole tribe of expert gold craftsmen at my bidding! Order my carriage round, Garble.”

  “But your lordship! It snows!”

  “And so? What of it?” inquired Lord Malyn coldly. “Should I be held up for a little snow?”

  “But, my lord, it is increasing to a regular blizzard!”

  “Garble, I find you are becoming wearisomely interfering. Pray do as you are bid without further argument!” And the Marquess, twirling his gold snake, shot Garble a look which made him turn pale yellow. “Order fifteen relays of horses to accompany the carriage,” Lord Malyn called after him through the door, “and a footman to run ahead and clear the drifts. Let them be ready in seven minutes.”

  12

  Owen walked slowly through the series of entrance chambers to the large cavern which contained the feature from which Devil’s Leap took its name. As he advanced the whisper of Fig-hat Ben became more and more distinct; the whole place seemed full of a soft, throbbing mutter; it was hardly a sound so much as a shiver in the air about him.

  The cave was illuminated by gas flambeaux which threw a greenish but clear light; Owen therefore extinguished the sixpenny taper he had caught up from the admission table and gazed about him with interest.

  The floor in this big cave was not flat, but bowl-shaped; the cave was, in fact, a huge round hole inside the mountain, as if it had been left by a bubble which had swelled and then burst. There were numerous entrances, from which flights of steps had been cut, winding round the circular sides and down to the bottom; here, like the plughole to a basin, yawned a dark, circular opening, perhaps thirty feet across and of an unknown depth; some people said that it descended to the very roots of the mountain, others that it was bottomless. Up this gigantic shaft, borne on a current of air, cloudy wreaths of steam perpetually rose; they broke and changed and took strange forms like the clouds in a stormy sky; Owen saw the shapes of horses and chariots, dragons and dolphins, forming and dissolving silently in the vault of the cavern above him.

  Slowly and with caution he descended one of the winding flights of steps; he felt like a fly crawling over the inside of a pudding bowl. Sounds reverberated strangely in the huge place, and he kept looking back, thinking there was somebody behind him, when it was only the echoes of his own feet clattering on the rock.

  At length he reached the rim of the great well. To prevent sightseers from falling in, the Nant Agerddau Town Council had fenced it round with a rope, slung between stout posts. At one point these crossed a spur or tongue of rock, about four feet wide at the base and eight feet long, which extended outwards from the side of the well, like some fearsome diving board. Standing near this spur, Owen looked downwards into the dim, vapour-filled depths below. At first the height made him dizzy and he was obliged to close his eyes. Presently, to his astonishment, he began to think that he could hear music—or, at any rate, a series of half musical sounds—long, wavering, twanging notes. To begin with, he thought he must be imagining the sounds, but they grew clearer, as if they moved towards him; then he began to think they were coming from the depths of the well, unlikely though this seemed. Puzzled, wondering if the sounds could be another peculiar effect of the cave’s circular shape, he wiped his glasses and stared down, keeping a firm grasp of the rope. By degrees his eyes became accustomed to the murky dimness below and he saw that twenty feet down, directly opposite him, another spur of rock protruded from the side of the shaft. He remembered then a tale which Arabis had once told him: a legend of how the devil had stolen the candlesticks from Nant Agerddau church, was pursued by St. Ennodawg, and jumped from one spur of rock to the other, in his haste letting fall the candlesticks, which the saint skilfully caught in mid-air.

  Owen shivered as he imagined leaping over that fearful depth from one narrow prong of rock to the other; surely no one but the devil would attempt such a feat.

  Then, to his utter astonishment, he perceived something move on the lower spur—something that seemed alive. Hardly able to believe that he was not dreaming, he saw a tiny grey figure advance, through coiling wreaths of mist, to the very tip of the spur, and stand there, apparently quite Regardless of the gulf beneath. Moreover, Owen now realized, the music was proceeding from this figure—if indeed the melancholy noise could be called music.

  After a while a harsh, grating voice began to sing, at first in some incomprehensible language; then, suddenly, Owen found that he could distinguish words, and presently whole phrases, though the accent was odd and unfamiliar:

  All I need is a harp

  For my content:

  A talkative harp,

  A sociable harp,

  A harp of my own.

  One time I had a harp

  But it is gone.

  In an hour of deep despair

  Which I repent,

  Because its song was harsh

  I broke it on a stone.

  I cast it into dark,

  I heard it fall

  And weeping went

  For many days alone,

  Having murdered my harp.

  Unhappy Abipaal!

  But now, from dark

  Another harp is sent!

  I have set new strings

  And will teach them to sing

  A new song excellent,

  A new song meant

  For Abipaal alone,

  Sweeter than all,

  Second to none,

  O talkative harp,

  Sure and tender is your tone.

  O happy Abipaal,

  All I need is a harp

  For my content …

  Owen listened with great surprise to this wild and uncouth chant, which seemed to float up to him out of the rocky hollow on waves of mist. Although the singer professed great love for his harp and satisfaction with it, in fact it seemed to Owen that he treated it very carelessly, even roughly, thumping and thwacking it, shaking and almost tearing it apart; when, due to his clumsy handling, it gave out a particularly dissonant sound he flew
into a positive passion and several times looked to be on the point of hurling it down the well, only just managing to restrain himself at the last moment.

  Anxious to view the harp at closer quarters, Owen resolved to try and find some means of coming nearer to the player. Plainly it was necessary to be careful; if, as appeared probable from his song, Abipaal had already flung one harp away, there was too much danger of his repeating the deed to take any liberties with him.

  There were several openings in the sloping wall behind Owen; he chose the one nearest him and followed the winding passage into which it led, guided by the strains of Abipaal’s curious music which were audible even here. Where the passage divided he took the more downward course, and after some five minutes of groping in the dark, he emerged on to a kind of natural terrace which encircled the great vertical shaft at the level of the lower spur. Abipaal’s song could be heard much more clearly here, thought, on account of the windings of the passage Owen had followed, he was almost directly opposite, on the far side of the well.

  Owen, although he took care to keep himself concealed in shadow, now had a fairly good view of this strange little character, for the greenish light filtered down the well from above and illuminated the spur of rock on which he stood. He was extremely short, not much over three foot six; his garments, which were indescribably tattered and disorderly, appeared to be made of some grey fur; from under his grey fur cap a mass of wild, dark, unkempt locks protruded; his horny feet were bare and his face, gnarled and withered as an old elm-root, suggested that he must be a great age, probably well over eighty.

  The harp he held contrasted strangely with his appearance, for it was fully strung, brilliant gold, and shining; it might have just left the maker’s hands. Yet its appearance was surely familiar? Owen had dusted the harp of Teirtu so many times in the Pennygaff Museum that he felt almost certain he was not mistaken; there, in the utmost peril, as it seemed, of being dashed to destruction at any moment by its impatient player, was the lost treasure.

  “He ought to be able to play the harp better at his age,” Owen thought, as a particularly discordant and jangling clump of notes came staggering through the air and Abipaal, in a perfect frenzy of frustration, stamped his foot furiously on the rock, and then hopped up and down in agony. His position, capering about on the very edge of the abyss, seemed extraordinary perilous; several times Owen held his breath in terror as he seemed bound to fall, but it was plain that he must be amazingly sure-footed and muscular, for although he frequently leaned right over the edge, he always drew back without the slightest trouble, and continued singing and playing with unabated energy. Part of his difficulty in playing, Owen realized, came from the unusual shortness of his arms and the fact that the harp, though not a large one, was far too big for him; his left arm could not reach all the way across the strings unless he turned the instrument sideways on and then, of course, his right hand could hardly reach the strings at all.

  And the harp? Creeping closer still, Owen felt his hope grow to a certainty; he recognized the leaves and fruit ornamenting the frame, and the strange, beautiful, upward-staring face carved at the tip of the bow. Little Abipaal had certainly made a magnificent success of cleaning and repairing the formerly stringless, dirty, dilapidated instrument; it seemed sad that his skill as a player lagged so far behind.

  Abipaal had launched into a new chant:

  “Sing flat, not sharp,

  You disobedient harp,

  Why can’t you do as are told,

  You miserable bit of gold?”

  Twang went the strings as he struck them a vicious blow, screeching with rage at the resulting jangle.

  “Poop me!” whispered a voice from somewhere to Owen’s left. “What a rumpus the little cove do make—ain’t he wreakful, eh Bilk?”

  “Regular rug-headed little abram,” agreed another voice. “Right tricksy we’ll need to be to get the bandore away from him, so frampold as he is; if we aren’t right sprag he’ll toss it down old Bogey-boo’s hole afore we can get it off him.”

  Owen nearly fainted with astonishment and dismay at the sound of these two voices, which he had thought silenced for ever. Prigman and Bilk! But how in the world did they come to be here in the cave, how had they escaped from an awful death in the buried cottage?

  “Warn’t it a bale o’ luck, though, chancing on the little cullion down in these here vaultages, eh, Bilk? Who’d a reckoned, when that there doddering hillside came down on the roof, that the floor’ud give way and we’d fall through on our pantofles like this, live and skipping, and find the little queer-bird as must have prigged our bandore? Look how he’s cleaned it up, too, and new catlings, neat as ninepence, naffy as new! I daresay Old Stigmatical will fork over twice the lour for it now.”

  “You still reckon on handing it over, then?”

  “Burn my galleyslops, yes! I’ve no fancy to pass the rest of my days without any fambles or stamps! Ask me, his lordship is own brother to Horny himself—no matter where we huggered he’d search us out in the end. I reckon trying to play him false was a mug’s game.”

  “It was your notion,” Bilk said sourly.

  “Oh, quit brabbling. All we need to do now is to get the tinkleplunk away from little Caliban there, and we’re up to our gorges in velvet. Now: you slide round thataway and then let out a shout to startle him, I’ll stand yonder to cut him off when he scampers. Agreed?”

  “Ay, let’s get at him.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Owen bawled, as loud as he could. “You leave him alone! Keep your hands off that harp!”

  He could not endure the thought of Bilk and Prigman getting possession of the harp for the second time; rather than that, it would be far better for Abipaal to keep it. At least he had put it to rights and appeared to love it in his peppery way.

  A silence of utter astonishment followed Owen’s shout. Then Bilk muttered,

  “Trine me, it’s the young bumble-cock! How in mandrake’s name did he get here?”

  “Never mind him!” said Prigman urgently. “Get after t’other one. Quick, you monument!”

  For Abipaal, alarmed by the voices, had not paused an instant but, with one agile goat-like bound, had quitted his pinnacle of rock and vanished into a cranny behind him. Prigman, who was nearest, gave chase, Bilk followed Prigman, and Owen brought up the rear at top speed, running blind in the dark, feeling his way along the rock walls with his hands.

  It was a frantic, headlong scramble. Owen was not even sure whether Abipaal had not already given his pursuers the slip and gone off into some undetectable crevice; but if not, Owen was determined to help fight off the thieves at whatever cost.

  Luckily the way they were going lay all downhill. Owen, having passed two hours in a tree and spent much of the day helping to carry the Prince of Wales, was already somewhat fatigued; had he been obliged to run uphill he would soon have fallen behind. As it was, being young and light on his feet, he was able to keep up tolerably well in the rear of the heavy, blundering Bilk and the stout, short-legged Prigman. How far Abipaal was ahead of them, he could not tell, nor where they were going; the passage they had taken seemed to lead deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountain. Little by little, however, it widened; at last they emerged on to a sort of platform, or quayside, overlooking an underground river. Arabis would have recognized the spot. A pale glimmer of light from far ahead illuminated the scene.

  “Gone to ground,” said Bilk with an oath. “The little ferret’s diddled us.”

  “No he hasn’t, drumblehead. He’s taken to water. Don’t you see where we are? This here’s the Malyn river—goes all the way to Port Malyn, and the hot pipes carrying steam to the castle lays at the bottom of it. I know, acos when I was a kitchen boy at the castle I used to carry their peck to the coves what was a-laying of the pipes.”

  “And so?” growled Bilk. “How does that advantage us?”

  “Why, you nodcock? Our little twangler’s taken boat downstream; all we need do is fol
low him and he’ll navigate himself right into the fox’s mouth, right to Old Stigmatical’s castle. How’s that for a gaudy fine shift? We’ve got him in lipsbury pinfold if we do but follow.”

  “How about the young whipster? We don’t want him on our tail.”

  “Oh, we lost him a dozen turns back; he’ll not fret us again. Come on—there’s another boat.”

  “That walnut shell? I’m not trusting my quarrams in that.”

  “Oh, don’t be so poor-stomached!”

  Bilk, however, insisted that it would be quicker to run along the bank; accordingly they set off into the dark. Owen who had only waited in the shadows until they were out of earshot, immediately leapt into the little skiff that Bilk had mistrusted, undid the mooring rope, and launched off downstream in pursuit.

  The boat, which appeared to be made of leather with the fur left on, was very light and rocked wildly until Owen, who at a young age had been taught seamanship by his father, discovered the knack of kneeling motionless amidships and helping the fragile craft downstream with two triangular wooden flaps evidently intended as paddles.

  Gliding along, not far behind, in the shadow of the rock bank, Owen was able to overhear a few snatches of Bilk and Prigman’s conversation.

  “When we‘ve—prigged the bandore—off the little whiskered cove—” puffed Prigman, pounding along the towpath, “there’s a way up into the castle from that hall where the central-heating pipes rises out o’ the river. Up a lot o’ steps it goes, through the cellars where his worship keeps his barrels o’ bouse, and the queer-kens where he stows the prisoners.”

  “I’ll lay you used to find your way into the cellars, if not the dungeons,” grunted Bilk, toiling beside him.

  “Ah, and I did! I was always a rare hand as a wrester even when I was a boy—could pick my way through any locked-up jigger in the land with a blade of grass and a goose-feather and a drop of oil.”