Part 23 (1/2)

”I'm with you completely,” St. Ives said. ”When it comes to matters of this arcane nature, I'm far out of my depth.”

It was only moments later that Kraken said, ”Douse the glim. They're a-coming up.”

”Hoist the black flag, s.h.i.+pmates,” Tubby muttered. ”Both sides of the path, then.”

St. Ives saw Tubby and Hasbro disappear into the complete darkness on the left hand. He and Alice followed Mother and Bill Kraken several steps aside on the right hand. They were in an area of long, narrow walls of rock, much like standing stones, lying on their sides. St. Ives felt his way to the edge of the one that sheltered them, and at once he made out two men ascending, perhaps fifty yards below. They had also veiled their lanterns, although carelessly. There was enough of a glow to see that both carried rifles.

The footsteps of the two men grew audible. St. Ives heard the c.o.c.king of Hasbro's pistol, and he heard Alice's breathing. He could neither see nor hear Mother Laswell and Kraken, and it came to him that they might already have gone on, creeping downhill in the shadows of the rocks in order to get below the men who were coming up.

He gripped Alice's hand, and in the next moment the downward glow of the first man's dark lantern swung into view on the path. St. Ives saw Hasbro's silhouette in the dim light, the pistol outstretched, and then he saw the flash of the muzzle and heard the immensely loud bang, followed close on by a second report. This second shot, however, was not from Hasbro's pistol, which flew from his hand as he pitched over backward.

Mother Laswell and Bill Kraken had made good time at risk of life and limb in the darkness, but then had been slowed by an interminable stairs. They were at the bottom now, Mother catching her breath. Away to their left stretched an extensive, luminous plane on which was built a veritable city of low stone huts. She wondered who had lived there, so deep within the ground. Troglodytes of some variety, long gone away, for the huts had the look of having been abandoned for eons. The two of them went on, through another field of great, upward-tilting stones, the path winding among them.

Abruptly they came out onto level ground, with a broad view, and in that moment Mother Laswell felt a tightening of her forehead, and a crus.h.i.+ng pain in her temples that nearly staggered her. A feeling of despair settled over her, and she had the sensation that an evil presence was very near. She felt a similar agitation in Sarah's mind, and she wondered what accounted for it. She realized that Bill held her by the upper arm now, and was endeavoring to draw her into the shadows.

Ahead of them, at a distance of perhaps a hundred yards, crouched a tall, heavily built old gentleman Klingheimer without a doubt and the villain Shadwell, who held a rifle. One of the covered cages sat on the trail between them. Mother Laswell stared at the object, knowing that the cage contained the head of her late husband. There could be no doubt that Klingheimer meant to use it against Clara. It seemed very like madness, however, for the man to bring the head along with him, and she wondered at the extent of Klingheimer's powers whether they were a long enough spoon to protect him, so to speak, when he supped with the devil.

Both Klingheimer and Shadwell looked ahead, apparently studying a hut very like those of the troglodyte village away to the left, but roofed, and with lamps burning. There were people within their shadows revealing their presence. One of them was Clara, of that Mother Laswell had no doubt, and surely Finn was with her.

”Shadwell won't shoot because he's got no target,” Bill whispered. ”That's plain.” He lifted his blacksmith's hammer and dropped the head of it into his open palm with a light smacking sound. ”How's Sarah Wright in her mind?” he asked.

”Troubled, despite the nearness of Clara. But there's something worse. Much worse. I must tell you that the cage between the two men holds the head of my dead husband, Maurice de Salles. He was an evil man, Bill. He is the source of Sarah's agitation, and my own.”

”All right, then,” Bill said. ”We'll go back up to high ground. I'll come back down with Sarah Wright alone.”

”No, Bill. I must see this through. It's my destiny to do so.”

He stared at her, his face set, dropping the head of the hammer into his palm. ”What are you thinking on?” Mother asked him.

”I'm thinking on taking that there rifle away from Shadwell.”

”Don't be hasty, Bill.”

”If I take that rifle, Klingheimer's ours, do you see? I'll feed him this hammer as a choke pear, and then I'll beat that cage flat with the head inside. We'll be done with them all, and can go home peaceful like.”

”Don't speak so terribly, for heaven's sake.”

”Heaven's heard worse,” he said. ”You stay low, behind this here rock, and settle in with Sarah Wright. I aim to stop this here and now. I don't hold with hocus pocus, nor with the filth like this crowd is mixed up in it. Here's what I say. If they catch sight of me, I'll take to the rocks and come back around to you. They won't have time to shoot me. If you see trouble, douse this here lantern, slip back a nip, and wait for me. I won't leave you alone.” He winked at her and started forward in a crouch without waiting for a response, creeping through the shadows from rock to rock.

Mother Laswell said a prayer for them all and watched him go. But he hadn't covered sixty feet before there was a movement in the window of the hut Finn Conrad's face looking out, but keeping well down. Quick as a snake, Shadwell brought up the rifle, having a target at last, and Mother Laswell nearly cried out a warning to Finn and to Bill both. In that moment, however, she heard the report of yet another rifle, and she saw Shadwell jerk sideways before crumpling to the ground, a gout of blood spurting from his neck, dousing Klingheimer as if from a hose. Klingheimer staggered aside, crouched behind a handy rock, and stared down at Shadwell's shuddering form for a long moment. Abruptly he darted out, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the fallen rifle and the head of Maurice de Salles, and fled away into the field of standing stones.

Mother Laswell, filled with both horror and relief at seeing Shadwell dead, looked behind her up the path, thinking that the Professor and the others might have come down behind and shot Shadwell from a distance. There was no sign of them, however. Bill had turned back now, coming along quickly and crouching beside her, both of them well hidden, but with a good view of what lay below.

Within moments two people came into sight, crouched and running across the front of the hut and away along a narrow trail toward the troglodyte village. One of them was a dwarf, carrying a rifle. Incredibly, he held the hand of Miss Bracken. There was once again the sound of a rifle firing Klingheimer, she thought, endeavoring to shoot the two runaways. Very soon they were hidden among the ruins, however, and he had missed his chance. She saw the two reappear after a moment, heading downward along a stream that sparkled with green light. They walked easily now, like a mismatched couple out of a fairytale taking a ramble. It appeared to her that the dwarf was playing a flute, and there was the high, thready sound of ”Bobby Shafto's Gone to Sea” clearly discernible on the still air.

”It were a dwarf,” Bill said now in a surprised and unhappy voice. ”Shadwell was mine, by G.o.d, and then a dwarf what plays a flute up and shoots him through the neck. Did you see it?”

”Indeed I did, Bill.”

”I'm to be deprived of killing Shadwell my own self, then.”

”Perhaps it was G.o.d's will a way to preserve you from taking a man's life in a state of pique. That would be a lot to account for on the Day of Judgment.”

”But G.o.d went ahead and let the dwarf shoot him? That just don't seem right.”

”Who knows what's right, Bill, when you're a mile underground in the darkness? We'll make our stand here, come what may. Here's what you must do: If I slip away trance-like, I mean watch over me. Maybe I won't, but I must do my part. I'll come back to you when it's done, and we'll go home.”

St. Ives moved toward Hasbro, looking back down the trail as Tubby pushed past, growling like a beast. He took in the sight in a moment the fallen lantern and the flaming lamp oil revealing a lanky boy who knelt on the trail behind a dead man, the dead man's face blasted half away, a red bowler hat lying nearby. The boy looked downward and held his own rifle out with both hands, like an offering.

Hasbro had been shot through the thigh, St. Ives quickly discovered. He was also unconscious, his breathing labored. There was very little bleeding where he had hit his head perhaps a depressed fracture.

”It's Mr. Jenkins!” St. Ives heard Alice say, apparently to Tubby.

Tubby asked, ”Do you know this villain, ma'am?”

”Yes. Club him only if he threatens to run,” she said, ”and please refrain from cutting his ears off.” She turned and knelt next to St. Ives.

”Press steadily against my kerchief here over the wound,” St. Ives said to her. ”The bullet went through, but there's a mort of bleeding. That's right hard as you can. You won't hurt him.”

He removed the laces from Hasbro's boots now, twisted them together, and wrapped them around the thigh above the bleeding wound. ”Lend me your sheath-knife, Tubby,” he said. ”And your coat, also, if you don't mind. It'll be less of a coat when we're done, but we must get Hasbro topside and we'll want a stretcher. The boy's coat also. Three should do it.”

Tubby, keeping an eye on Jenkins, pa.s.sed St. Ives his knife, which he used, sheath and all, to twist the tourniquet tight around Hasbro's leg, hooking it back through the lace to hold it. ”We must loosen it from time to time,” he said to Alice, ”or we'll damage the leg.” He looked at Hasbro's head again, moving his hair aside. ”Nothing to do here,” he said, ”except get him to hospital. We'll make a stretcher of the coats frap together the rifle barrels for the second stave. My stick will work for the other. It'll take the lot of us to carry it, and it means that we must abandon our friends.”

”It's a matter of practicality, surely,” Alice said.

”Practicality, yes,” he said. ”It sounds like d.a.m.nation, but of course you're correct. We haven't a choice. Who is this boy, then? Can he be trusted?”

”This is Mr. Jenkins, an employee at the Metropolitan Board of Works,” Alice said, standing up and looking at Jenkins, who was in a state of advanced fear, regarding Tubby warily. ”He's an a.s.sociate of Mr. Lewis at the Board of Works, who I am quite certain set off the bomb that nearly murdered you in the second collapse.”

”I'm no friend to Lewis!” Jenkins said. ”I did what he and the others told me to do, or they said my family would cop it. I haven't held a rifle except to shoot hare and suchlike, not till today when Mr. Klingheimer said I must come along with him underground.”

”When you and I first saw each other, Mr. Jenkins, did you know what was afoot? That Mr. Lewis was sending me into danger? The truth now.”

”Danger? No, ma'am. Not that. I give you a look. Do you remember? I didn't know what more to do, so I done what I was told, which was to tell them you were going down to...”

”I believe you, Mr. Jenkins. You have a chance to redeem yourself now, sir. We'll want your jacket, your outer s.h.i.+rt, and braces, if you will.”

”Bootlaces, too,” Tubby said.