Later, he roused to the feel of cold air on his skin and the vague impression he was being carried over someone’s shoulder up a ladder. Then that too faded away into the mists of asleep that seemed to go on, and on.
When, at last, he did open his eyes, it was without being fully awake even then. He had not come suddenly out of slumber but rather drifted up from the shadows of sleep and night, hardly knowing it, into the light of awakening and day. He blinked and stared at a white ceiling on which a ghost of pale light brighter even than the day-bright room seemed to be dancing. It danced as light dances when it is reflected from the shifting surface of sunlit waves. Robby lay watching this dancing ghost for some time before he figured out that this was what it was. But by that time he was all of the way awake and ready to wonder where he was.
He turned his head and saw Mr. Lillibulero. The little man had his head half out of sight inside the wiring of a radiophone panel before which he was seated. He and Robby were in the communications shack back on the barge, and Robby was lying on a couch across the room from the radiophone.
On a small coffee table near the couch was a plate with two paper-wrapped sandwiches on it, and a pint container of milk.Coming more awake, Robby looked at these things sourly. It seemed, he thought grumpily, as if he was never eating anything but sandwiches, or chinking anything but milk.
He had not had anything else since the two pieces of apple pie that had wound up the dinner with his father in Nassau. A vision swam into Robby’s mind of a much better breakfast than the one before him. Orange juice to start with, then little sizzling, snapping sausages, and crispy, crinkled waffles soaking with melted butter and golden maple syrup running allover them and collecting in the little squares . . .
“Ah, Robertson!” interrupted the dry voice of Mr. Lillibulero. Robby’s golden syrupy vision of a hot breakfast went pop and vanished. “Awake, are y’now? There’s some milk and sandwiches there for you on th’table.”
“I know,” said Robby, coldly, looking at the table. “I see them.”
He threw off the blanket under which he had been lying and sat up. He unwrapped one of the sandwiches to look at it, and found it was peanut butter. He tasted the milk and found it warm. Then, since there was nothing else around and he actually was rather hungry he drank the milk and ate the sandwich he had unwrapped.
“What are you doing?” he asked Mr. Lillibulero, as he brushed the last crumbs of the sandwich from his lips.
“Wasting m’time, I believe,” said the little man, taking his head out of the radiophone panel with an air of defeat. “Yon Carswell is not amateur at fixing things so they will not work. An amateur now, would have smashed this set with a hammer. Carswell, being cleverer than that, has caused some tiny break or flaw in th’mechanism that I canna find wi’out better testing instruments than are available here at th’moment.”
“You can’t fix it?” asked Robby. “We can’t call for help?”
“That, Robertson,” said the little man, darting a piercing green glance at him, “is th’bare bones of th’information I was attempting t’convey to you.”
“Oh,” said Robby. There was a little silence. Robby looked at the other sandwich for a moment, then slowly unwrapped and ate it. He finished it off and looked back over at Mr. Lillibulero, who was apparently deep in thought.
“—You see,” said Robby uncomfortably, beginning out loud in the middle of a sentence that had started in the back of his head some moments before, “I thought maybe Red Carswell had somehow changed places with you while I was in the corridor. So it really wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t help it.” Mr.Lillibulero turned to look at him.
“Y’are referring,” said the little man after a painful moment of silence, “to the matter in the airlock when y’addressed me by my proper name, forgetting the phone t’the corridor was turned on?”
“Well, yes,” answered Robby. “You knew how to get up to the airlock and where the water lungs were in the airlock. And I saw you when they carried you in. You were knocked out. I didn’t see how you could know all these things.”
“Quite simply, Robertson,” replied Mr. Lillibulero deliberately. “I was not knocked out, as y’put it, but entirely conscious when I was carried in.”
“Then why did you look knocked out?”
“Because,” said Mr. Lillibulero with some severity, “I had allowed th’men in the cargo bag t’think they had captured me and rendered me unconscious, in order to get into th’tug. It was my intention to rescue you. I had seen Carswell bring you in.”
He frowned at Robby for a second.
“Come t’think of it,” he added, “how was it you were able t’get into Carswell’s costume and come t’my room? I was just about t’break out of the cell they had me in and go looking for you when y’appeared.”
Robby told about his escape and his decision to try and rescue the little man. When he finished, Mr. Lillibulero did not say anything for a long second. He was staring at Robby and frowning so hard it made Robby vaguely uneasy.
“Robertson,” said the little man at last, “y’baffle, amaze and dismay me.”
“I do?” said Robby, surprised. “Why?”
“I canna deny,” said Mr. Lillibulero, “that y’r attempt t’come to m’rescue was th’result of a most commendable impulse. I am both proud of you and deeply touched. However,” added the little man sharply, as Robby began to beam, “I feel I must somehow bring you t’understand that y’r dressing up and re-entering the tug was most foolhardy. The risk was enormous. Th’ chance of success was miniscule.”
“Miniscule?” asked Robby.
“Very tiny,” replied Mr. Lillibulero. “Could y’not see that this rescue attempt of yours was rather like an untrained bystander dashing into a burning building t’aid a fully equipped and trained fireman who was in no trouble whatsoever?”
“But I thought you were in trouble.”
“I know y’did,” said the little man. “But even if y’had been right, it’s my job t’get into such trouble, as it is a fireman’s job t’enter a burning building. And both th’fireman and I are especially trained and equipped t’get ourselves out again. As you are not, Robertson. While if th’job becomes complicated by th’presence and actions of an untrained and unwanted helper, in either the fireman’s case or mine, perhaps neither the expert nor th’helper will escape safely.”
“Oh,” said Robby, glumly.
“Now,” said Mr. Lillibulero, twice as sharply, “y’will think me ungrateful and without appreciation for y’r courage in coming t’my supposed rescue as y’did.”
“No,” muttered Robby. But he did. That was exactly how he felt.
“In later years y’will better understand what I mean,” said the little man stiffly.
There was silence for a moment. They were both uncomfortable.
“Well, now,” said Mr. Lillibulero, finally, firmly breaking the silence. “Y’mentioned bars of silver and sacks of coins in the room in which they locked you up?”
“Pieces of eight. Cobs. And the silver was stacked up like bricks,” said Robby, revived by this change of the subject.
“Ah,” said the little man, “that’ll be part of the last remnants of treasure recovered from the galleons in Vigo Bay, Spain, then. The galleons that were sunk by the English fleet in 1702. This last amount of the treasure was recovered only last year, and stolen shortly after. No doubt this Millen bought it from th’thieves and used it t’pay Carswell. Coin and silver being easier for Carswell to dispose of than a ship likeLa Floridana and untraceable—which currency payment is not.”
“Is he an art thief too?” Robby asked. “Millen, I mean?”
“He has not always been completely honest in th’strict sense of th’word,” replied Mr. Lillibulero. “But I would say no—not at least in th’sense in which Carswell is a thief. Why do y’ask?”
“I like him better than Carswell,” said Robby. He told the little man about helping Millen to stand up and of the scene i
n the carpeted room of the tug. “He was the only one I saw there that wasn’t afraid of Carswell.”
“No,” agreed Mr. Lillibulero, “he would not be. Millen has th’faults of his nature, but they do not include a lack of courage.”
“He called,” said Robby, “Carswell a little man.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, it suddenly came back to him that Mr. Lillibulero was little, too. However, Mr. Lillibulero did not seem disturbed.
“And he was correct,” agreed the International Police Agent, surprisingly. “For all the deadliness and fearsomeness of Red Carswell—for all his intelligence, which is large, he remains a little man. Y’may perhaps have noticed,” went on Mr. Lillibulero, frowning fiercely at Robby, “that I myself am a wee bit under the average height.”
“Er . . . yes,” answered Robby.
“Those,” said Mr. Lillibulero, “who like m’self and Carswell are physically smaller than other men, often have a great desire t’compete. By proving ourselves better than large men we hope t’convince them that size does not make th’man.”
“It doesn’t,” Robby said, remembering something. “Character does—that’s what my dad says.”
“Quite right. Although it sometimes takes a few years for us to learn it,” said Mr. Lillibulero, “we eventually discover that a man’s character is th’measure of his size. And character,” continued the little man positively, “is gained by making our fellow man respect us. While it is lost by making our fellow man fear us.”
“You mean,” asked Robby, “the way Carswell makes his men fear him?”
“Exactly,” answered Mr. Lillibulero, “the more he makes them fear him, the more he destroys his own character. At th’present time, after years of effort,” concluded Mr. Lillibulero, “his character is just about invisible. And that is why Millen, who himself has a good deal of character even if it is misguided, referred correctly to Carswell as a little man.”
“Good,” said Robby. “Why does Millen have so much character though? I mean, if he hasn’t always been honest?”
“Because, though mistaken in his principles, he is true to those principles,” said Mr. Lillibulero, sniffing. “Millen’s early life was very hard and poverty-stricken. Then, after years of searching, he discovered the now-famous Rift Silver Mine extending out under the sea from Milford Sound, which is on the west coast of Otago, on South Island, in New Zealand. The Rift Mine made Millen very rich, but he found riches were not everything. He had no living relatives.”
“He must have been lonely,” said Robby.
“He no doubt was. And that was why he took to tracing his ancestors and now thinks he has evidence that one of them—Sir Hugh Millen—was Captain of the La Floridana, which is why he wants th’ship. He is a man of entirely different kidney than Carswell, who is merely a descendant of the early skin-diving treasure thieves of the Mediterranean—such as would cheerfully blow up priceless archeological finds like La Floridana if they suspected there was treasure hidden inside her.”
“Oh?” said Robby, wondering a little guiltily about his own kidney. Before he had met Bob Clanson, he would have thought it quite sensible to blow up a sunken old ship to get at any treasure that might be inside it. “Maybe he should have an operation?”
“Operation?”
“To get his kidney fixed,” said Robby, surprised at the question. “Or can’t they fix kidneys?”
“Th’word kidney, Robertson,” said Mr. Lillibulero, “in the sense I used it, means sort or type of a man. I meant to say Millen was one kind of man; Carswell an entirely different kind.”
“I’d have said that, then, instead of saying kidney,” pointed out Robby, feeling smug.
“You, no doubt, would have, Robertson,” said the little man severely. “But you are not me, any more than I am you.”
“Still—” began Robby, ready to discuss the matter further. But Mr. Lillibulero cut him off.
“And in any case,” said the little man, “we have things of more importance to concern us, with Carswell and his men due to be here shortly. I did not expect them until some little time after sun-up. But the sun has been above the horizon for half an hour now, and we canna have much longer to wait. I can stand them off wi’the sonic rifle I picked up aboard yon tug, but not for long. And we canna radio for help. I suppose there’s no hope of you sending y’r sea lion for aid?” Hel ooked inquiringly at Robby.
“No,” said Robby, unhappily. “If it was a different sort of cap Mac has on maybe we could. There is a control cap that makes animals do what you tell them, but this is just a rapport cap. It just receives what my cap transmits in a radio signal—”
“Transmits?” snapped Mr. Lillibulero, straightening up and driving a sharp glance from his green eyes at Robby.
“Yes,” said Robby, surprised. “You see, my cap picks up the electrical activity from the emotional centers in my brain and makes a radio signal out of it and transmits—”
“Y’mean it’s a radio transmitter y’are wearing on y’rhead?”
“Why, yes. But—”
“Robertson!” cried the little man, leaping to his feet and snatching the cap from Robby’s head. “Th’day is saved! Perhaps. If I can just connect this in time—”
He broke off, interrupted by the sudden baritone roaring of Mac. But it was not the simple fact of the noise that stopped his tongue and made him and Robby stare at each other. It was the direction from which it came—not from the barge or the level waves beyond—but eerily and impossibly from high over their heads.
No Answer Below
Neither Robby nor Mr. Lillibulero wasted any time on talk. They were through the door of the radio shack out onto the barge deck and staring up into the air before either of them could have said, “Red Carswell.” What they saw there was startling to them both, but it did not startle Robby half as much as Mr. Lillibulero.
“Th’beast must have grown wings!” cried the little man in astonishment. “How else can he have got up there?”
The beast in question was Mac. And “up there” was twenty feet above the rigid steel deck of the barge, at the tip of the crane that had been used to hoist the Hoenig flyer aboard the power boat the day before.
The crane arm was stubby and strong, composed of two long steel girders joined in a sort of narrow, upside-down-V. The point where the girders came together was the tip, high in the air. The end where they spread apart was anchored firmly to the crane engine on the barge deck. All the way up, six inches apart, were crossbars of steel plate, almost like the rungs of a ladder except that they got shorter and shorter as they came toward the point where the girders met. Right at the tip was a small steel box about a foot and a half square. It covered a pulley wheel, over which ran the heavy wire cable used to hook on to things the crane was to lift.
It was not so remarkable that someone should be up at the top of the crane. Robby could have climbed it with ease.What was surprising was that it should be an excited three-hundred-pound young sea lion perched there, jerking about
and bulging over the little surface of the steel box, and looking ready to fall off at any second. Just then, luckily,Mac saw Robby and Mr. Lillibulero below him and stopped roaring. It had looked as if the roaring alone would send him tumbling.
“Steller’s climb like that,” Robby explained to Mr. Lillibulero. “In their rookeries each bull picks out a rock and claims it for his own. He watches from the top of it and attacks any other bull who tries to come up after him and steal his cow seals—the cow seals that the first bull seal has collected on the rock.”
“This barge,” snapped the little man, “is hardly a rock in a Bering Sea sea-lion rookery, Robertson!”
“Maybe Mac thinks it is,” said Robby, imagining it suddenly. “They play at fighting and climbing from the time they’re pups. Maybe Mac thinks that the barge is his rock,and you and I are his cows that he has to defend, and he’s just seen something mysterious out beyond the reef that—” Robby broke off, for Mr. Lillibulero wa
s no longer before him. With the skill of a gymnast, the little man had jumped up, seized the edge of the roof of the radio shack and flipped himself up onto it with ease. Then he had run lightly to the peak of the roof, leaped through thin air to catch hold of the crane arm in the middle and run up the metal crosspieces like a fireman up a ladder. He shaded his eyes, glanced out to sea,and in a moment was back on the deck with Robby again.
“Carswell,” he said briefly to Robby. “Looking for a spot t’bring his tug through the reef.” And with that he slipped back into the radio shack again. Robby hurried after him and found the little man, Robby’s rapport cap in hand, seated once more before the radiophone panel.
“The gap where La Floridana went out isn’t wide enough for a fat ship like that tug,” said Robby. “What’re you doing?”
“This phone,” said Mr. Lillibulero, continuing to work, “like all such instruments, can be considered t’consist of two parts, or stages. The first stage changes the human voice into a radio signal, the second stage amplifies and broadcasts that signal. Carswell put this radiophone out of order by gimmicking th’first stage, it being more difficult to locate trouble in that part without testing instruments. Now, wi’this cap of yours I can simply bypass th’first stage and connect th’phone directly t’the cap. And th’cap t’the second stage.”
He paused to glance at Robby.
“In short, Robertson,” he said, “Coast Guard Rescue Nine, which is th’unit of that service nearest to us, will in a moment be alerted to this location by th’loud hum of the carrier wave of y’r cap. I’ve no doubt they will first try to callus back by this phone, and when they discover they canna, will lose no time investigating. And,” continued the little man tartly, “I would greatly appreciate y’r drawing back slightly until I am done, Robertson! In small spaces such as behind this panel, two heads are definitely not better than one.”
“Oh. Sorry,” said Robby, backing off.
He watched Mr. Lillibulero finish, and lock the panel back into position. Barely had this been done than they were assaulted by a new burst of roaring from Mac above them. They raced outside.
Secrets of the Deep Page 25
