The Whispering Mountain
Page 20
“That’s handy, then,” panted Bilk. “Us can go up the back way with the bandore when we’ve slit little Caliban’s weasand.”
“No call for that,” said Prigman, who seemed to have curious objections to out-and-out murder. “Us can tie him and leave him to cool in one o’ they vaults where the tide will come in and cover him.”
“I say slit his weasand. Look what happened with t’other one. He got away and spoilt our lay. Trouble he may be to us yet, rot him!”
“His lordship might want to see this one—to make sure we’re telling a true tale.”
“He can see him just as well with a slit weasand.”
“Carry him up all those stairs? Not on your Oliphant!”
They were still arguing this point when Owen realized that their voices were drawing farther and farther ahead; peering down to discover the reason for this he saw that he was kneeling in warm water; evidently his boat had struck and holed on some sharp underwater rock, and was slowing down. There were no bales; he was obliged to beach the boat, empty it, and launch off again. It filled once more, this time much faster, there was nothing for it but to take to land. His rest afloat had done him good and he set off with renewed energy, but he had lost a good deal of time and the thieves were now out of sight in the long tunnel which followed the underground course of the Malyn river.
Owen ran on desperately. When at last he suddenly burst into a vast empty cavern, and saw the central-heating pipes climbing the opposite wall like huge silver snakes, Bilk and Prigman had vanished.
Collecting himself, Owen looked around and saw that there were numerous openings leading out of the big cave. His only course was to try each in turn.
He investigated several; some led to smaller, empty caves; one passage, after much turning and winding, led him out on to the snowy hillsides above Port Malyn. Behind him, Malyn Castle frowned on its crag; snow continued to fall and in the east a wild red dawn was breaking.
Should he go up to the castle at once and demand to see the Marquess? No, he thought; while he wasted time, those two scoundrels were probably engaged on murdering poor Abipaal, who had never done anything worse than pick up an apparently discarded harp in a cave on Fig-hat Ben and put it to rights.
Owen turned back resolutely into the tunnel; this time, when he entered the main hall, he thought that he could hear a faint cry coming from an entrance he had not yet tried. Summoning the last of his energy he ran to it and made his way down a steep narrow descent. At the foot of this slope he tumbled, before he could stop himself, over an eight foot drop into a small, sandy cave, lit faintly by a slit high in the wall above him. The sea’s roar was plainly to be heard; evidently the slit gave on to the beach. In fact, as he pulled himself to his feet on the damp floor, a spray of icy salt water showered in through the hole; it was clear that this must be the cave mentioned by Prigman which filled when the tide was high.
Owen heard the faint sound again, behind him; he spun round and distinguished a small, trussed figure lying in the gloom. But the Harp of Teirtu was gone.
“Eh, dear, sir!” exclaimed Owen in distress. “Did those brutes leave you like that? Only a minute, and I will get you undone.”
It took a bit longer than that, for Owen had lent his knife to Hwfa, when the hare needed skinning, and had never had it back. At length, however, he had the last of Bilk’s savagely tied knots undone; the reward he received was that Abipaal flew at him like a fury, biting, kicking, and clawing.
“Hey!” protested Owen, fighting to protect his eyes and spectacles from this uncalled-for attack. “Give over, leave me alone, stop it, stop it! I haven’t taken the harp! Oh, do stop, for goodness’ sake, otherwise we shall never catch up with that pair of scoundrels.”
Abipaal either did not understand, or did not choose to; he continued to bite and kick. How long the struggle would have lasted, as Owen was concerned not to hurt his furious little attacker, there was no knowing; but a mass of water suddenly slopped through the opening and soaked them both. When they rose, gasping, Owen realized that the water in the cave was already over his knees and nearly came to Abipaal’s chin.
“This is stupid!” Owen exclaimed. “No use staying here to be drowned. Up you go, sir!” And with a final effort he picked up the scratching, struggling Abipaal (who weighed no more than a truss of straw) and thrust him on to the rock shelf which sloped up to the entrance.
Abipaal immediately turned and hissed at him like an angry goose.
“Now, sir, if you will be so kind as to give me a bit of a hand—’
But Abipaal, without the slightest indication of having any such intention, turned and scurried up the slope, leaving Owen submerged up to his chest in seawater, gaping after him.
13
The captives in Lord Malyn’s dungeons were not given any supper. Nor, for that matter, did they receive tea, dinner, or breakfast. But about an hour after the time when breakfast ought to have been served, Garble made a round of inspection, peering through the grilles in the dungeon doors.
He was disconcerted, on looking into the cell occupied by Arabis and Brother Ianto, to find them both still alive and well.
“Odd that is,” he muttered. “What has come over Gog and Magog? His lordship will not be best pleased.”
“Mr. Garble!” Arabis called indignantly. “You must get those tiger-snakes out of here! Most unsuitable accommodation for them, it is, and they are not at all well, with them. No proper medicine I have for them, either. Very poorly indeed, one of them looks, and the other one is lying on her back!”
“Now that is spoken like a girl of sense and feeling,” Mr. Hughes remarked approvingly from his cell. “Cruelty to animals is most abhorrent, though, to be sure, it is only what one would expect from Lord Malyn, and all of a piece with his repulsive ways!”
Garble, however, was extremely reluctant to enter the cell and inspect the tiger-snakes at close quarters; only the repeated demands of Arabis and the thought of how angry the Marquess would be, should he return to find his pets no more, finally persuaded him. Slowly and unwillingly he detached the bunch of keys from his belt and moved towards the door.
At this moment, however, another door, the one leading from the cellars below into the prison lobby, burst open, and two persons erupted violently through, singing at the tops of their voices:
“The bandore boy to the wars has gone,
In the dews-a-vill you’ll find him!
With his fol-de-rol and his om-tiddle-pom
And his—hiccup—slung behind him.”
“Hey-o, Garboil, me old co,” roared Prigman. “What are you doing, a-boggling away down here like a moldwarp? Lead us to his ludship, man, we’ve summat for him as he’ll fair pop his glaziers at sight of!”
“Aye, sprag’s the word, my bawcock,” agreed Bilk. “We doesn’t want to keep old Stigmatical a-waiting, does we? Hiccup knows, we had enough trouble ferreting out the way here, along those tortive, cranksome pash—hic, pardon me—passages of yourn down below.”
It seemed plain, from the two men’s high spirits and the strong atmosphere of Canary wine surrounding them, that a major part of their route had lain through Lord Malyn’s cellars.
“His lordship is away from home at present,” Garble said coldly. “Anything that you have for him you can hand over to me.” Then his eyes widened as, through the gloom, he caught the sparkle of the harp, which Prigman proceeded to untie from his back. But he preserved a calm demeanour and merely added,
“Ah, you have done the job properly at last, I see. Let me have it, then. Make haste, pray.”
“Ho no, Garboil, me old hodge-pudding,” Bilk said. “Not afore we sees the colour of his ludship’s mint-sauce.”
“Do not be impertinent. Hand over the instrument,” Garble said sharply, selecting a key and moving, in an unobtrusive way, towards the door of an empty cell.
But Prigman, instead of passing over the harp, began to pluck in a random manner at the strings bawling out,
Let’s all go to the bousing-ken!”
while Bilk, mumbling, “Ah, you’re a lovely old friend, a lovely old cough-drop, Garboil, me old gumboil,” lurched forward and enveloped Garble in a most unwelcome embrace, from which he tried in vain to extricate himself.
Meanwhile the prisoners in the cells, who had listened with the utmost interest in this exchange, were not silent.
“Why,” Arabis cried out when she first heard the voices of Prigman and Bilk, “those are the two thieves who stole the harp from your museum, Mr. Hughes! And I believe they have it on them now.”
“Ah, the scoundrels,” muttered Mr. Hughes, listening. “But where, then, is Owen?”
“Does dim dwywaith, without a shadow of doubt that is the Harp of Teirtu,” sighed Brother Ianto, listening to the horrid jangle of notes produced by Prigman’s inexpert hands. “Golden sound she do have, even when played by such a rheibiwr!”
“Well, well, well?” cried the Seljuk somewhat snappishly, for he had passed a miserable night in the damp little cell, kept awake by the ear-splitting snores of Mr. Hughes. “If that obnoxious peer has now procured the harp he sought, perhaps we may all be allowed to decamp, absquatulate, show a clean pair of heels. Open the door, if you please! I demand to be put in touch with the Rummi consul!”
“Mr. Garble, do something about those tiger-snakes you must!” Arabis exclaimed strongly. “Indeed I will not be surprised if one of them is at its last gasp; should it be here any longer I will not answer for the consequences!—Queer, isn’t it,” she added reflectively to Brother Ianto, “that the smell of wintergreen disagreed with them so, special since it did you so much good!”
Garble, harassed by all those different demands, was in a quandary, wondering how he could get the harp away from the two thieves and clap them in a cell, as instructed by Lord Malyn. He felt badly in need of assistance, but both turnkeys were upstairs having their dinner. Then it occurred to him that if the tiger-snakes were really in such a poor way, he might use them to frighten Bilk and Prigman without running much risk himself.
“Wait, then, you!” he said, at last disentangling himself from Bilk’s Canary-scented hug. “I do not suppose you imagine Lord Malyn keeps his cash in the dungeons? You will have to accompany me upstairs when I have seen to the prisoners.”
“Oh, very well, tol-lol,” replied Prigman. He had just discovered how to play the first three notes of Three Blind Mice on the Harp of Teirtu, so he burst into song again,
“They all ran after the harman-beck
Who cut off their tails with a famble-sneck—’
“Stop making that atrocious noise!” snapped Garble. He stepped up to Brother Ianto’s cell and peered through the grille again, vainly trying to see the snakes, which were just inside the door. Then he called, “I am coming in to inspect the reptiles. Stand well away from the entrance. I have a blunderbuss with me and shall not hesitate to shoot.” This was quite untrue, but he hoped that if, cowed by the threat, Arabis and Brother Ianto stood well back, he would have time to whip in, grab the ailing snakes, and out again, before they could either hinder him or try to escape.
As his key rattled in the lock, Arabis, standing by the narrow little window, received one of the greatest shocks of her life: Owen’s face appeared outside, with Hawc hovering just beyond him. He laid a finger on his lips and Arabis remained silent, though her mouth and eyes were wide open with amazement: Owen pulled himself up, balanced a moment with his hands on the sill, then pushed a knee over and slipped neatly inside, panting a little. “Would you mind holding my glasses a moment, sir?” he whispered to Brother Ianto, who was chuckling quietly to himself. Hawc, who had flown in after Owen, took frightful exception to the tiger-snakes and began hissing and heckling at them in a manner which they, poor things, were too low-spirited to resent.
“The harp!” breathed Arabis. “Bilk and Prigman have it just out there—” She pointed to the door. Owen nodded, and stole over to stand flattened against the wall—not that he needed to be all that quiet, for Prigman was now carolling,
“Hey diddle diddle, up on the pillion,
Who’s the old mort in the scarlet mandilion?”
while Bilk did a kind of clumping step-dance all round him.
Garble turned the key, opened the door, and stepped briskly inside; as he did so, and while his attention, after a brief glance at the two captives, was fixed on the snakes, Owen, like a shadow, slipped through the doorway behind him, removing the key from the lock as he passed.
Owen’s intention had been to take Bilk and Prigman by surprise, snatch the harp, run back into the cell, and lock the door. But this plan was thrown into confusion by the sudden and unexpected arrival of Abipaal, who shot in through the cell window like something fired from a catapult, dashed past the astounded Garble through the cell door, flung himself at Prigman, kicking, biting, and scratching his face, grabbed the harp, and was away through the open cellar door before either of the two thieves had the presence of mind to stop him.
“Dang me!” gasped Prigman, rubbing his half-blinded eyes. “The little Turk! He’s fair clappered me! After him, Bilk—stir your strossers, man!”
But Owen had tackled Bilk from behind, tripping and throwing him to the ground, effectively preventing him from pursuing Abipaal until the fiery little man was well away with the harp.
“What in Beelzebub’s name is going on here?” exclaimed Garble, rushing back out of the cell and searching in vain for his keys, which Owen had pocketed. He began trying to drag apart the struggling Owen and Bilk.
“Never mind them, fool! The harp!” gasped Prigman, at last getting his eyes open and staggering after Abipaal. Bilk rolled away from Owen’s grasp and followed; Garble hesitated a moment, trying to decide which would anger Lord Malyn more, to lose his prisoners or the harp which had seemed so nearly secured; he decided on the harp, and set off after Bilk.
Arabis and Brother Ianto, finding no one there to stop them, came warily from their cell, stepping over the dozy tiger-snakes.
“Thank goodness you are safe! Yehimelek told me you were here and Hawc led me to the right cell,” Owen said, giving Arabis a quick hug. “Here are the keys! Let out the others, I can’t wait; I must go after that dratted little Abipaal or they’ll make mincemeat of him. I had no notion he was behind me! Follow down—oh, thank you, Brother Ianto!”
He received his glasses back and disappeared at top speed.
“Well! There is a thing!” said Arabis. “Who would have expected it?”
“Oh, not a bit surprised, I am!” Brother Ianto said cheerfully. “Always thought there was more in that boy than he knew himself. Eh well; best to get out of here, maybe, before anybody upstairs notices what is going on.”
He went methodically round the cell doors, unlocking them all; the prisoners were only too glad to make off down through the cellars without waiting for explanations. All except for old Mr. Hughes.
“What in the name of goodness is going on here?” that gentleman demanded. “Where is the harp now? What have those two rascals done with it? Was not that my grandson’s voice I heard? Did I not say that he was somehow involved in this murky business?”
“Oh, go and eat flummery!” snapped Arabis, at the end of her patience. Then she collected herself and added politely, “Your grandson, Mr. Hughes, have just rescued us all by climbing a six-hundred-foot cliff, and if you have sense you will not be standing here chewing the rag, but will bustle off out from by here before any more trouble will arrive, is it?”
“Of a certainty, yes,” agreed the Seljuk—Arabis had to suppress a gasp of horrified amusement at the sight of his devastated moustaches—“Let us cut our stick, walk our chalks, slip our cable, before that detestable nobleman returns hither.”
Without more delay they set off after Owen, though Arabis was conscience-stricken about leaving the tiger-snakes.
“Since it was my oil of wintergreen that upset the poor
things,” she said. “But surely to goodness somebody will come down before long. There must be someone in that great castleful of folks can spare time to care for such a fine pair of snakes.”
Mr. Hughes still wanted his explanation.
“You say my grandson rescued us?” he demanded, panting, as they ran down endless flights of stairs. “So who has the harp? Where is it now?”
“I am thinking that queer little fellow who climbed in after Owen will have made off with it,” Arabis said. “Abipaal, Owen called him.” Then she suddenly stood still, put her hands to her head, and exclaimed, “Abipaal! Where was the sense with me? He will be the one who stole the harp from where Bilk and Prigman left it! And then somehow the thieves will have got it off him, and now he has snatched it back, good luck to him!”
This was meaningless to Mr. Hughes, but the Seljuk pricked up his ears.
“Abipaal? Who is this person, my dear young friend, companion, fellow-fugitive?”
As he asked, the little party came down the last flight of steps and through an open door into the great cave where the central-heating pipes rose from the Malyn river. But the hall was not empty now. Regardless of the fact that day was now well advanced, about a score of the Children of the Pit were grouped there in a ring. They all clutched golden weapons that would have made Lord Malyn wild with envy; they were being given orders by Yehimelek, who, splendidly dressed in black and gold, looked thin and pale but every inch a Hereditary Foreman.
“Half of you at top speed to the caves of Fig-hat Ben, in defence of our brother Abipaal,” he was saying. “Although he has involved himself in this trouble because of his foolish craving for a harp, yet he is our brother and we must assist him if it is within our power. The rest of you, whom I shall command myself, must hasten at once to the help of our healer and deliverer the Lady Arabis, whose voice, I am told by our reliable scouts Shishak and Ipshemi, has been heard coming in cries of distress from the Wicked Lord’s dungeons. No wonder she did not return to us at first light, as promised! It may be that the valiant young man, Owen, who saved our brother Abipaal from drowning, has been able to release her, but until we see her safe with our own eyes, it is our duty to go to her support. Never shall it be said that the tribe of—’