Luis stood up. 'I respectfully ask that I might be excused,' he said.
Nelson directed a withering look at him. 'What's the matter, Mr Naturalist?' he said. 'Too frail for a little hard work?'
Luis shook his head. 'Not at all,' he said. 'But if we're going to start walking tomorrow, we will need to have something to eat tonight. I'll take care of that.' He stood up and headed off into the jungle. Everybody watched till he was out of sight. Then Nelson turned to glare at Ethan.
'Please tell me you're not letting that little cockroach fool you,' he said. 'He's already proved he's not to be trusted.'
Ethan gazed back at him. 'I won't pretend he's my favourite person,' he said. 'He's responsible for all this, and if we make it back to civilization, he'll have to answer for it. But on the other hand, he's the closest we've got to an expert on this kind of country and we'd be mighty foolish to string him up like you wanted.' He looked around. 'Come on, everyone. We need to get searching before nightfall.'
Everyone got up except Conchita, who sat there on her tree trunk, snivelling quietly to herself.
'Miss Velez . . . ?' prompted Ethan, and she looked up at him indignantly.
'What?' she snapped. 'You . . . you don' expect me to help, do you?'
'I don't see why not,' he told her.
'But I . . . I am Conchita Velez. Frank, tell him who I am!'
'I know who you are,' Ethan assured her. 'But things have changed now. We all have to help. The first thing you need to do is find some suitable clothes for yourself.'
'Clothes?' She looked at him as though she couldn't believe her ears. 'I have clothes! Very nice clothes.'
'Yes, and I'm sure they look great around the nightspots of Acapulco,' he told her. 'But pretty soon it's going to be dusk, and when that happens, there's going to be a million insects swarming though these bushes. If they find you with those bare arms and legs, you are gonna be the best free dinner they ever had.'
Conchita blanched. She got up and allowed Frank to take her arm, picking her way through the undergrowth with exaggerated care. The two of them made for the long swathe of damaged vegetation where the plane had cut through the jungle. Nelson followed them.
Ethan shook his head and looked at Alec and Coates. 'This promises to be a lot of fun,' he said bleakly.
Alec frowned. 'I'm really sorry,' he said. 'If I hadn't persuaded Coates to come out looking for that Olmec head, none of this would have happened.' He thought for a moment. 'Well, I suppose the plane crash might still have happened, but we wouldn't have been on board.'
Ethan shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, no use crying over spilled milk,' he said. 'We're here now and the only thing we can do is try our very best to get out of it in one piece.'
Coates sighed. 'They'll be getting worried that we haven't returned,' he said bleakly. 'They'll doubtless be thinking about contacting Master Alec's father. I shouldn't be at all surprised if I get the sack over this.'
Ethan slapped a hand on Coates's shoulder. 'Right now,' he said, 'I'd say that's the least of your worries. Come on, let's get looking.'
He and Coates started off after the others. Alec stood there for a moment, gazing after them. He was experiencing a strange mixture of feelings. Most of him felt really sorry for what had happened. But a small part of him couldn't stop thinking about the mysterious city the plane had passed over; and hoping that before very much longer he'd get a better look at it.
CHAPTER NINE
The Dawning
Alec opened his eyes and was surprised by the dull wash of daylight. It felt as though he had been asleep only moments. He was looking at the smouldering remains of the campfire, over which the frazzled carcass of a young tapir still hung, already covered in a thick mantle of buzzing insects. Luis had provided the meat, which he had caught in some kind of snare; they'd all eaten ravenously, even Nelson – though he could not quite bring himself to thank Luis for providing the food. They had passed an uncomfortable night, listening to the sounds of the jungle: the shrieking of monkeys, the roaring of jaguars, and myriad unseen insects that chirruped and whined and buzzed all around them.
Conchita had at least managed to find some more suitable clothing from the luggage strewn in the plane's wake – a pair of men's trousers, an oversized khaki shirt and even a battered slouch hat. She looked odd to say the least, but woe betide anyone who commented on it.
After they had eaten their fill, the group had started bickering again and Alec had eventually drifted off with the sounds of an argument ringing in his ears.
He lifted his head and looked around. A pale mist hung low over the small clearing where they had camped and the faint dawn light was only just beginning to filter through the canopy of trees overhead. He saw the others, slumped in awkward positions around the pile of grey ash, and thought about snuggling down and catching another hour of sleep, but something stopped him. He reached out a hand and scratched at his arm, where some insects had left a couple of nasty bites.
Something was wrong, and for the moment he wasn't sure what it was. He sat up and peered this way and that, but nothing seemed out of place. Then it occurred to him. The silence. In nearly every country he'd ever visited, the dawn was greeted by the sounds of birds calling; but here there was nothing – not even the creatures he had heard in the night. He glanced at Ethan, lying only a short distance away from him, and thought of shaking him awake, but decided he might want to sleep on. Maybe the dawns were always silent in the Huasteca Veracruzana.
He got quietly to his feet and moved across to where Klaus was lying. To his dismay he saw that somebody had pulled the sheet of canvas they had been using as a blanket up over the pilot's face. Alec remembered that Coates had been sitting with him late last night. Clearly the German's suffering was now over. Alec pulled back the canvas a little and saw that he was gazing sightlessly up at the forest canopy above his head. When Alec placed a finger against his throat, there was no sign of any pulse. He sighed and gently covered the pilot's face again; he felt a terrible sadness overcome him. He had only known Klaus for a short while, but he had seemed a decent enough fellow; and he had saved Alec's life.
It must have happened in the night, while Alec was sleeping. He walked to the edge of the clearing and gazed thoughtfully into the dense undergrowth, but he couldn't see very far in any direction. He wondered how many miles they would have to walk before they discovered the city he had glimpsed from the plane. He asked himself if they would ever get out of here alive. He couldn't help feeling responsible for the situation. Why, oh why was he so strong-willed? Why had he insisted on dragging Coates out into the middle of nowhere to look at that blasted stone head?
He felt a sudden need to relieve himself, and not wanting to disturb anyone, tiptoed as quietly as possible into the jungle. When he had gone a short distance, he ducked behind a group of tall ferns and unbuttoned his trousers. He was just buttoning himself back up when he heard something moving slowly through the bushes away to his left. He froze, then turned his head to stare through the screen of ferns. What he saw made his heart pound in his chest.
An Indian was creeping furtively towards the clearing, gliding through the undergrowth like a ghost. The man was tall and wiry, his long jet-black hair cut in a fringe across his forehead. Alec saw that he had bright red stone plugs through his earlobes and another through his nostrils. He was naked except for a loincloth and a few items of jewellery, and carried a long wooden spear tipped with a deadly stone head.
Alec fought down a rising wave of panic. There was another sound to his right and he saw a second warrior, almost an exact copy of the first. He too was creeping forward, armed with a wooden club glinting with chunks of black obsidian.
Alec stood there in a fog of uncertainty. His first instinct was to run, but he knew he couldn't just desert his friends. His eyes flicked back towards the clearing, and through the screen of ferns he saw that everyone was still sleeping, quite unaware of the danger creeping up on them.
His
first thought was to run out yelling his head off in the hope that he might wake the others up in time – but he immediately realized that it was already too late for that. So he ducked down and stayed exactly where he was, telling himself that if he was going to be of help to his friends, he needed to stay concealed. He watched in mute horror as more Indians crept up on the sleeping survivors. There were eight of them in all.
It was over in moments. Coates woke up and was immediately overpowered. He struggled but was thrown down onto his face and his hands were tied behind his back. As Alec watched helplessly, the same fate was meted out to the others. Ethan had been sleeping slightly apart from the rest; he began to resist, and one of the Indians raised a club to strike him. Alec began to move forward – but then an authoritative voice shouted something in a language he didn't understand and the Indian lowered the club. Alec dropped back down behind the bushes. As he watched, Ethan too was flipped over onto his front and his hands secured. One of the Indians took his Bowie knife away and then grabbed his pistol from its holster. He seemed to know that it was a weapon.
Ethan twisted his head to one side and tried talking to his captors. 'Hey, it's OK, we're friendly. We come in peace! There's no need for this! Luis, talk to them, for Pete's sake!'
Luis tried a few lines of a native tongue; when that seemed to get no reaction, he tried another.
The warriors didn't respond at all. Their faces were impassive, but for the moment at least, it didn't seem as if they meant their captives any harm.
'There's absolutely no reason to do this,' said Coates, one cheek flat against the earth. 'We . . . are . . . friends. Friends, understand?'
The Indian securing Coates's hands shouted something that didn't sound very complimentary and slapped the back of his head with one hand. Then he grabbed his arm and jerked him upright. He was pushed towards the others, who were all being roped together, as if they were setting out on a mountaineering expedition. Ethan was looking around, an expression of impotent fury on his face. He had lost his Stetson in the scuffle and looked odd without it.
'Where's Alec?' he whispered to Coates; the valet could only shrug his big shoulders. The two of them began to scan the surrounding undergrowth, trying not to make it too obvious what they were doing.
The Indians finished roping their captives together. Conchita was crying and struggling, and they seemed fascinated by her: they were pulling at her hair and laughing at her horrified reaction, but they soon stopped when she slammed her shoulder into one of them and yelled at him.
'Take your hands off me, you pig!' she screamed.
The Indians retreated a little, looking wary, clearly not used to such feisty females. Then Alec saw that one of them was crouched beside Klaus's body. He was prodding the German with the butt of his spear, puzzled by his lack of response. He looked up at his companions and made a gesture, jerking the thumb of one hand across his throat.
Ethan gazed down at the body in evident surprise.
'He slipped away in the night,' Coates told him. 'I didn't see any point in waking you up.'
Ethan grunted. 'Too bad,' he said. 'He seemed like a swell guy.' He was still looking furtively around. At one point he was staring straight towards Alec's hiding place and Alec considered giving some kind of signal, but then thought better of it. He couldn't risk giving himself away. The Indian left Klaus's body where it was and went back to join his companions.
'Surely they're not just going to leave him here?' said Ethan. 'Luis, try talking to them again. Ask if they'll let us bury him.'
The Mexican nodded and fired off a few questions, but the Indians just looked at him uncomprehendingly. He tried another dialect and then another, but still got no reaction. Eventually one of them said something to him in a strange sing-song tongue, but Luis seemed equally baffled.
'They're not speaking a Huasteca dialect,' he said. 'It sounds like Nahuatl, but it is very different to any I've heard before.'
'Oh, wonderful,' said Coates. 'So good to have an expert with us. What's Na-wattle, exactly?'
Alec, in hiding, knew the answer to that one before Luis supplied it.
'It's the language of the Aztecs,' the Mexican said.
'Oh good, so we've been captured by Aztecs,' said Coates. 'Marvellous. What are we supposed to do now?'
Alec knew that these people couldn't be actual Aztecs. As far as he was aware, they had died out hundreds of years earlier. But he also knew that many modern-day Indians spoke a version of the language, one that had become mixed with the Spanish spoken by the people who had conquered them.
'Well, they don't seem to mean us any real harm,' said Ethan. 'If they'd wanted to kill us, they could have done so easily. So I guess there's no need for anyone to get too excited.'
'Yeah, but they aren't exactly welcoming us with open arms either,' muttered Nelson. 'Who knows what horrors they've got lined up for us . . .' He directed a baleful glare at Luis. 'This is all your fault,' he said. 'I'm holding you directly responsible for everything that happens to us.'
Luis could only shrug his shoulders. 'You will forgive me if I don't worry too much about that right now,' he said.
One of the Indians stepped forward and cast an eye over the captives. He was dressed much like the others, but something about his bearing suggested to Alec that he might perhaps be the leader of the group. He inspected Ethan's bonds and seemed satisfied. A second Indian, a man with a long turquoise stone pushed lengthways through his nostrils, came over and dropped a loop around Ethan's neck so that he could be pulled along like a pet dog. He was wearing Ethan's hat, Alec noticed. Though he had it on back to front, he seemed extremely pleased with it. The leader, meanwhile, went along the row of captives, checking all the knots; as he approached Conchita, she shouted at him.
'Keep away from me,' she warned him. 'You lay one hand on me and you'll be sorry!'
He stared at her for a moment, his eyes narrowed in disapproval. Then he spoke. 'Shut up,' he said; she looked at him in shocked surprise.
Alec couldn't believe his ears. Ethan and Coates exchanged amazed glances.
'You . . . you speak English?' Ethan asked the Indian.
He only smiled mysteriously. Then he turned away and said something to the others. The Indian who held the rope gave it a fierce tug, obliging Ethan and the others to stumble after him. They began to walk into the jungle, passing right by Alec's hiding place. He hugged the ground, hardly daring to breathe; then a jolt of shock went through him as he felt something brushing against his hand. He froze and stared down in terror.
A huge yellow centipede was crawling across the back of his hand. It was some twelve inches long and had jaws that could have administered a very nasty – and quite probably poisonous – bite. Alec's natural impulse was to shake his arm and fling the thing away but he knew that the keen-eared Indians would hear him; so he just had to stay stock-still, holding his breath while the sweat poured down his face. He watched in disgust as the creature moved slowly up onto his shirtsleeve. It occurred to him that the thing was heading for his face.
Then Alec heard Coates's voice speaking from just a few feet away. 'Wait!' he said. 'Our friend, the pilot. We can't just leave him there!'
But the Indians took no notice of him. They continued to drag the line of captives behind them until they were out of sight. Alec was dimly aware that the centipede had moved up to his shoulder and was twitching its loathsome feelers towards his face. He could be still no longer. He brushed the thing aside with an exclamation of disgust. It skittered away into the undergrowth.
Alec finally remembered to breathe. He got cautiously to his feet and peered through the undergrowth. He could just see the two Indians who were at the rear of the group, padding along a narrow trail. He lifted a hand to wipe the sweat from his face and then, moving as quietly as he could, began to follow them.
CHAPTER TEN
Captives
The Indians walked through the jungle at a brisk pace. Having heard their leader speak tho
se two words of English, their captives were filled with hope.
'Hey, if you guys can speak our language, tell that trained monkey of yours to give me my hat back!' shouted Ethan.
The remark got no response.
'Can't you tell us where you're taking us?' asked Coates.
The leader, who was walking beside Ethan, lifted a finger to his lips, a clear indication that he wasn't prepared to answer any questions. They had no option but to trudge after the Indians along the narrow trail.
They walked in silence for some time before Ethan spoke again.
'This is screwy,' he muttered. He glanced back at Coates, who was just behind him. 'What do you make of it?' he asked quietly.
'Damned if I know. Luis, what do you think?'
'I can't believe it,' came the reply from further up the line. 'A place this remote – you wouldn't think they'd speak a word of English. And the language they are speaking . . .'
'Na-wattle?' prompted Coates.
'Nahuatl, yes. The way they speak it seems . . . pure, somehow. Like they've never encountered any Spanish people.'
'But that doesn't make sense,' said Ethan. 'If they're such a remote tribe, how would they know any English?'
'I don't get it,' Luis told him. 'It's almost as if— Ow!'
Ethan turned to look down the line and saw that one of the Indians had just whipped Luis across his back with a thin cane.
Luis said something in Spanish, but the Indian didn't seem to understand.
'Maybe we'd better not talk any more,' said Coates. 'It seems to annoy them.'
Ethan ignored the advice. 'Another screwy thing,' he said. 'They took my gun from me. They seemed to know what that was all right – though I don't know how.'
'Yes, it's very odd,' muttered Coates. He lowered his voice a little. 'I'm more concerned with what might have happened to Master Alec. Where do you suppose he is?'
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