by W E Johns
The silver stream was not more than ten yards away when there came a shout from the gorge, and Biggles forced himself to turn. It was Ginger, panting, but running swiftly.
Over his shoulder flopped a bundle of grey sheets.
‘Thank God,’ gasped Biggles. ‘Quick, Ginger, or we’re sunk,’ he called.
Ginger paused in his stride when he saw what was before him, but then came on again, his face as white as the silver stream.
‘Tear them in pieces,’ cried Biggles, striving to keep his voice steady. ‘Ah! you swine!’
One or two of the centipedes were well out in front of the others but Ginger brought his heel down on them viciously. Then, with commendable presence of mind, he spread out two of the sheets on the ground and dragged Biggles and Algy on to them. The effect was instantaneous. It was as if an electric current had been turned off, leaving only a slight stiffness. They grabbed Dickpa and Malty and pulled them unceremoniously on to the sheets.
‘What is it ?’ muttered Dickpa, opening his eyes. They fell on the silver stream.
‘Quick,’ snapped Biggles. ‘Tie the sheets round your feet —use your handkerchief —anything. That’s right.’
There were thirty seconds of something like panic, and then, snatching up the gun and what baggage they could reach, they set off down the gorge at a stumbling run with loose pieces of sheeting trailing from their feet.
CHAPTER 6
MAROONED
FOR a hundred yards they ran without speaking, actuated solely by a unanimous desire to put as big a distance as possible between themselves and the creeping horror. Then Biggles glanced over his shoulder and slowed down. ‘Easy all,’ he said in a relieved voice. ‘We’re well ahead of them. Let’s get this footgear on a bit more securely; mine’s nearly off.’ They all bent down and fastened the strips of rubber sheet firmly over their boots, winding the ends far up their legs in the fashion of puttees.
Biggles finished first and looked back up the gorge. What he saw seemed to surprise him, for he took a pace or two nearer and continued staring. ‘Well, I’m dashed,’ he muttered. ‘What do you make of that?’ He pointed back in the direction from which they had come.
‘Make of what ?’ asked Algy, glancing up.
‘That! Those overgrown caterpillars. They’ve stopped; the whole lot of them. There’s not a movement. They look as if they were all dead. Well, if that doesn’t beat the band.’
They all stared back up the gorge with their eyes on the silver stream that appeared to have been frozen into an ice-drift. Not a ripple, not a movement, broke the sinister surface. As Biggles had said, every centipede might have been dead.
‘How very odd,’ observed the Professor in a mystified tone. `What on earth could have happened to them? One can understand them stopping when they saw we had disappeared, but surely some of them would still be moving.’
‘This excites my curiosity,’ declared Biggles. ‘I must have a closer look at it, or I shall spend the rest of my life wondering what happened.’
‘Come back, Biggles, you ass,’ cried Malty, as Biggles started walking back towards the motionless white tide.
‘Don’t worry; watch me run if they start off again,’ Biggles told him casually. ‘My gosh! there’s somebody there – look!’
At the same moment a long cry of distress echoed eerily down the gorge. There was something so soul-stirringly hopeless, so dreadfully mournful in the cry that the explorers felt their heartstrings tighten.
‘He-lp! He-lp!’ came the voice again. It was followed by a whimpering sound like that made by a child when it is frightened.
‘Hark!’ Biggles stood transfixed, staring in the direction from which the sound had come. ‘Dickpa! Good heavens! It’s an Englishman,’ he cried incredulously. ‘There he is.’
The tiny figure of a man had appeared on the lip of the cliff on the opposite side of the crater, far beyond the still stationary centipedes. He ran to and fro and up and down in the last stages of despair, while from time to time he struck savagely at the air with what appeared to be a cudgel or club that he held in his hand.
Biggles caught his breath. He looked at the man and then at the silver stream. Then suddenly making up his mind, ‘A rescue,’ he called in a ringing voice. ‘Come on, Algy. Give me that gun – cartridges – thanks. Dickpa and Malty, you get back to the machine. Ginger, you go back too and stand by to start up.’ With that he was off up the gorge with Algy at his heels.
‘I believe they’re dead,’ he said, when they were only a few yards away from the nearest centipedes.
‘It certainly looks like it,’ admitted Algy, approaching warily. He put his foot out and touched one of them carefully with his rubber-bound boot. ‘Yes, they’re dead,’ he said, with a sigh of relief, as the centipede rolled over on to its back and lay still.
‘Come on, then,’ said Biggles, and clenching his teeth, he began squelching his way through the centipedes.
Algy shuddered violently as he followed. ‘Do you mind if I’m sick?’ he asked, in a strangled voice.
‘Not a bit,’ replied Biggles, cheerfully, for with their inexplicable immobility, all fear of the centipedes had departed.
The lonely figure on the cliff saw them coming, and waved frantically. ‘Help! Make haste,’ he screamed, in a strong Scots accent.
The airmen broke into a run. They crossed the crater and presently stood at the foot of the cliff, on which the man was still fighting nothing more solid than thin air.
‘Mad as a hatter,’ observed Biggles. Then, lifting his voice, ‘Hi, how can we get up?’ he yelled.
‘Through the cave. Watch out for the blue light. It’s death,’ shouted the man.
‘Don’t we know it,’ growled Biggles, as he plunged into the yawning cavern, at the same time pulling out a box of matches. The stench was appalling, but he hurried on striking matches as he went. ‘Look,’ he gasped suddenly, and pulled up dead.
Algy stared over his shoulder in petrified astonishment. On their right, lighted by a brilliant electric bulb, was all the apparatus of a small, compact power-station. The light gleamed on a dynamo, bundles of cables, and a switchboard annotated with Chinese characters.
‘Come on, or we may be too late,’ went on Biggles. ‘We’ll look at this again when we come back.’ He hurried on up the swiftly rising floor towards the patch of blue sky that now appeared ahead. They had almost reached it when a beam of blue light stabbed the darkness from an opening on one side of them.
Biggles’s gun crashed as he fired from the hip. There was a sound of splintering glass and the light went out. ‘Keep going,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’m standing for no nonsense.’ As they dashed out into the open he staggered as if he had collided with someone. Turning swiftly with a snarl, he was just in time to see a shadow disappear into the mouth of the cave. Vague, indistinct forms flitted about the wide plateau on which they now found themselves. Most of them were concentrated round the man who, with his back to the edge of the cliff, was wielding a heavy iron bar like a flail. Every now and then there was a crash of breaking glass, and each time he let out a grunt of satisfaction. Queer high-pitched voices were calling in a strange language.
Again Biggles’s gun roared as he blazed both barrels in quick succession to the right and left of the lone fighter. Then, swinging the gun like a club, he plunged into the fray. The dark shapes backed away before him. ‘Keep it going, Jock,’ he yelled, with the fighting madness on him. ‘Come on, let’s get back through the tunnel.’
‘Ye can’t,’ panted the man, whom they now saw was very old, with a grey beard, and clad in heavy blue silk overalls.
‘Why not?’ demanded Biggles. ‘The centipedes are dead.’
‘Look,’ The man rested on his club and pointed.
Biggles, following the outstretched finger, staggered back. The centipedes were on the move again, pouring back into the tunnel. For a moment he was too stunned to say anything.
‘They’ve turned on the current again
,’ explained the man briefly. ‘The bugs can’t move while the current is off; I turned it off myself. That’s why they came for me.’
‘Who came for you?’
‘The Chungs.’
‘What are they, ghosts?’
‘Nay, they’re human enough, the skunks.’
‘How are we going to get away?’
The Scotsman turned towards the tunnel, and the others followed his eyes. Where the exit to the plateau had been was a solid wall of rock.
‘We’re trapped,’ said Biggles grimly.
‘Looks like it,’ admitted the stranger.
‘But won’t they let the centipedes in on us?’
‘They will if we don’t do something about it, but I think I can stop them, though. What I make I can break.’ With this cryptic utterance, and carrying the iron bar, the man set off towards the rock door. On reaching it he paused for a moment to take a bottle from his pocket and pour some thick brownish liquid over his hands. Then, reaching up, he thrust the bar behind a black tube that connected the door with the solid rock, and, with a swift jerk, tore it clean out. There was a blinding blue flash as he did so, but he paid no attention to it. The door was in two parts, and after serving the other side in the same way, he stood back and surveyed his handiwork with a grim smile. ‘W’eel,’ he said, ‘and that’s that. Those doors weigh twenty tons apiece,’ he observed, ‘so it’ll take them all their time to push them open.’
‘It’ll take us all our time to push them open, too,’ Biggles pointed out in alarm. ‘Is there any other way out of this place?’
‘Nay.’
‘Then you’ve busted our only chance of getting out.’
‘Ay.’
‘You don’t waste words, do you? So we look like starving to death.’
‘That’s better than being eaten to death,’ replied the other meaningly.
‘One way and another, we seem to be in a nice mess.’
‘Ye might have been in a worse one,’ nodded the man. ‘Come over here; let me show you something.’ He led the way across the plateau, which was nearly half a mile wide, to a point on the far side. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing.
About two miles away, but far below, was the camp. Through the thin air they could see it clearly with three tiny ant-like figures standing near the machine.
‘Maybe they’ll come and fetch us,’ suggested the stranger.
‘They might if they knew where we were, and if the engines were running properly,’ smiled Biggles, a trifle sarcastically.
‘They are.’
‘What are?’
‘The engines; they’re all right now.’
‘How on earth do you know that?’
‘Because I’ve turned off the beam that was upsetting them; moreover, I’ve jammed the gear in such a way that it will take a day or two to put it right.’
Biggles stared. ‘This is getting beyond me,’ he complained bitterly. ‘I can’t compete with rays and blue lights and what not. I don’t know what things are coming to.’
‘You’ll know presently, if something isn’t done about it,’ the Scotsman informed him.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll tell you later on. I’ve got to tell you — that’s why I’m here. I’ve only got about twelve hours to live.’
Biggles caught Algy’s eye with a look that said as plainly as words that he considered that the man was not right in his head. ‘I see,’ he said casually, looking back at the camp.
‘If we could signal to them, attract their attention in some way, and if the engines were all right, Ginger could fly up and fetch us,’ he mused.
‘Ay, that’s what I thought.’
‘A bonfire is about our only chance; let’s make a smoke-signal. If we can see them they ought to be able to see us; they’re certain to be looking this way. Come on, let’s make a pile of dry grass.’
Working quickly, they soon had a good heap of the coarse grass that covered the plateau, and putting a match to it, watched a tall pillar of white smoke rise upwards. ‘I should think they are almost within earshot,’ said Biggles meditatively, and taking three cartridges from his pocket, he fired them into the air at regular intervals, the universal distress call.
With anxious eyes they watched the tiny distant figures. ‘Someone’s gone into the tent; I should say it’s Dickpa, gone to fetch his binoculars,’ said Biggles hopefully. ‘There he is back again. What did I tell you! Did you see the light flash on the lenses? He should be able to see us clearly.’ He whipped off his coat and waved it above his head.
‘Somebody’s gone to the machine; it’s Ginger, I expect,’ cried Algy excitedly. ‘Hark!’
From far away came the distant hum of the Explorer’s engines. They could see the light flashing on the spinning propellers.
‘You’re right,’ cried Biggles jubilantly. ‘He’s started up. I can see the others getting in.’
A few minutes later the Explorer began to move, slowly at first but with ever-increasing speed. Then, like a great white bird, it soared into the air.
‘He’s not taking any chances,’ went on Biggles, as the machine began to climb in the opposite direction. ‘Presently he’ll turn, and then he’ll discover that the engines are O.K. –that is, if they are O.K.,’ he added, with a sidelong look at the stranger.
‘It’s the first time I’ve ever seen one of those flying-machines; aeroplanes you call them, I understand,’ said the Scotsman.
Biggles threw him an odd look. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘With any luck you’ll soon be having a ride in one.’
‘I don’t think so,’ was the quiet reply.
Biggles did not answer. He was watching the amphibian turn in a wide circle and then head back towards the mountains. ‘Here he comes,’ he said. ‘Let’s throw some more grass on the fire to keep the smoke going. No rocks about, are there?’ He ran his eye quickly over the plateau, and saw with relief that it had a fairly level surface.
Swiftly, with the sun glinting on its silver wings, the Explorer sped towards them. It was soon evident that Ginger had seen them, for he shifted his course slightly, and throttling back, began an S-turn to lose height and to come into the wind.
‘I’ll bet that kid’s perspiring with anxiety,’ muttered Biggles sympathetically. ‘So should I be if I were in his place, knowing that the lives of the whole party depended on a perfect landing. Steady, boy – gently does it – hold her off –that’s the stuff. Oh, nicely, nicely,’ he cried approvingly, as the amphibian flattened out and dropped her wheels gently on the tufty grass.
With a roar of her engines, the big machine swung round and taxied slowly towards them. They stopped as Ginger switched off; the door was flung open and Dickpa, with Malty close behind, jumped out, and ran towards the castaways. Ginger climbed down from the cockpit and followed them.
‘What’s happened?’ cried Dickpa.
‘We got cut off,’ exclaimed Biggles. ‘Thank goodness you spotted us.’
‘But who is this?’ The Professor turned to the stranger.
‘Angus McAllister, at your service,’ replied the old Scotsman, bowing.
‘What in the name of heaven are you doing here? How did you get here?’
‘I didn’t get. I was took.’
‘When?’
McAllister smiled faintly. ‘I dunno exactly; but I should say it must be close on fifty years ago.’
The others stared incredulously.
‘But – but you’re not more than fifty years of age now, surely,’ stammered Dickpa.
‘I was close on forty when they brought me here, and that was in 1885, or thereabouts, when I was wrecked in the China seas in the clipper Morning Star,’ answered the other simply.
‘You must tell us about it,’ declared Dickpa. ‘You’ll come back with us, of course?’
McAllister shook his head sadly. ‘Nay, I canna do that,’ be said.
‘Come, let’s get aboard; we may be in danger here,’ put in Biggles.
‘You�
�re safer here than down below,’ McAllister told him.
‘How do you make that out ?’
‘They – that is, the Chungs – know you’re there, and they can get at you. They know you’re here now, but they can’t get at you. Better stay here.’
‘Are you sure of that ?’
‘Ay, I’ve bust the mechanism that works the door, and there’s no other way up.’
‘But can’t the centipedes crawl up the sides?’ asked Algy anxiously.
‘Nay, they can only move over specially prepared ground, and then when the current’s turned on. But give me a bite and sup. My time’s getting short and I’ve much to tell you.’
They returned to the machine, got out some provisions, and with the exception of Algy, who remained on guard, sat down under the broad wings of the aircraft.
‘What do you mean when you say your time’s getting short?’ asked Dickpa curiously.
‘I’ll tell you, if you’ll listen,’ answered McAllister quietly.
CHAPTER 7
ANGUS TELLS HIS STORY
IN the light of the sinking sun Angus McAllister told his story, slowly and haltingly, like a man who speaks a language to which he is unaccustomed.
‘First of all,’ he began, ‘I must tell ye that I shall die soon after sunset; I’m telling ye that so that you’ll be prepared. It’s nothing mysterious. These people have inoculated me with a drug for so long that I’ve got to have it, or else – well, you know. That’s how they kept me prisoner. They didn’t need to put a guard on me. You see, if I’d run away I should have been dead before the day was out. So I had to stay to live. But I heard you were here, and I knew what would happen to you – as it has happened to other people – so I broke away and came to warn you.’
‘And by so doing virtually committed suicide,’ put in Malty.
‘Ay, put it that way if ye like. But my time is up and overdue, so me life’ll be no great loss. I’m verra, verra weary. All the same, I should like to ha’ seen ma bonny Scotland once more – before I went. It’s been a long time.’ McAllister bowed his head and a tear crept down his lined cheek.
