Part 15 (2/2)

'Don't you remember all those times I helped you polish the cap'n's teaspoons, Mr Holy?'

As it was quite plain that he did not, Noah Gusset sensibly suggested, 'He be main weak and wambly yet. Why doesn't us give him a drop o' summat hot?'

Since it was impossible to boil water, they gave the recovering man a drink of aguardiente, and some of the ca.s.sava bread and baked turtles' eggs which none of them had fancied for their midday meal. The patient ate slowly, and could not take much, but the food visibly did him good. When he had finished he stood up, una.s.sisted, by slow and careful stages, stretched, and staggered, but kept his balance, leaning on the sword, which he had held tightly clasped in his hand since awakening.

Then, frowning in perplexity, he said, 'You brought me here? On that litter? But then -where had I been before?'

He articulated his words very slowly, as if translating from another language in his mind.

'Brought you here? Why, from the Thrush of course,' Windward repeated. 'You're the captain's steward. Don't you remember anything?'

Holystone shook his head.

'I remember battles. The alliance against us King Mark, King Lot, King Anguish and my nephew, Mordred. And then I was wounded here -' he raised an uncertain hand to the back of his head. 'I gave Caliburn to Bedivere to throw in the lake -'

His hand lovingly caressed the hilt of the sword. He glanced down and said, 'The blade is rusty. But a rub in the sand will soon mend that.'

Lieutenant Windward exclaimed impatiently, 'Come, come, my man, what the deuce ails you? This is moons.h.i.+ne! Battles alliances Ah well, I reckon you are all tottyheaded yet. We had best be on our way. Make haste, the rest of you pack up those things. There is no sense in lingering here. At any moment the clouds may lift and Aurocs be upon us.' And he added privately to Mr Multiple, 'Let us hope there will be some surgeon or physician at King Mabon's court who can set the poor fellow's wits to rights. Otherwise he won't be much use to us. Bustle about, now, Miss Twite!'

Holystone however flatly refused to get back into the litter. He said that he was well enough to ride if they did not go too fast. While he and the lieutenant were arguing about this, Dido felt something rub against her leg.

'Murder!' she cried, her mind on Aurocs, and then, looking down, added in amazement, 'Oh, no! If it ain't another o' them cats!'

Then, inspired by a hopeful notion, she grabbed the cat and, carrying it to Mr Holystone, said, 'See who's here, Mr Holy! It's the spit image of Dora. Don't you remember Dora your cat El Dorado?'

'Dora?' he muttered doubtfully, rubbing his brow. 'One of the cats of El Dorado?'

'That's the ticket, Mr Holy. You'll remember soon enough! And this one's got a message, too, I'll be bound. Yes it has! Another page from that dictionary.'

Tom Tildrum, said the name on the leather disc. And the leaf of paper informed them: 'To coax. To wheedle, to flatter, to humour. A low word.'

Under the printed words the same desperate little hand had written in dark-brown ink, 'For pity's sake, help me! I am suffocating in the dark. Elen.'

'Elen,' said Mr Holystone hoa.r.s.ely. 'Elen?'

A silence fell around him, as if he were standing on an island.

Lieutenant Windward cleared his throat and said, 'Ahem! We really must -'

'Elen,' said Holystone. 'In the dark. Where? We must find her. How can we find her?'

The cat mewed insistently at his feet.

'Why!' exclaimed Dido, 'don't you see, it's dead simple! Moggy here will lead us to her won't you, puss? I'm a prisoner on Arrabe, the second note said. That's Arrabe that big black hill up there on the left.'

'We haven't time ' Lieutenant Windward began.

'Oh, come on, Mr Windward! Some poor girl's shut up, we got to rescue her, don't we? Look, the cat's started already -'

The black flanks of Arrabe were broken, stony and drear, as if they had been gashed and chipped and sc.r.a.ped raw by some great volcanic explosion. Here and there a bunch of rough ichu gra.s.s thrust out of a crack; there was no other vegetation. But the slope was not hard to climb. Leaving the burros hobbled on the lake-bed, the party began scrambling up and around and in among the ragged and tumbled boulders, following the cat, who trotted ahead purposefully, tail in air, every now and then stopping to glance round as if perplexed by the slowness of their progress. The wind, which had been rising all day, howled lugubriously, and a few pellets of hail dashed in their faces.

'Best get a move on there, puss,' called Dido, who being light and agile was ahead of the rest. 'We're all liable to be blown to blazes if we don't find this poor perisher soon.'

Then she stopped short in dismay. For, after threading its way up a narrow gully, the cat jumped lightly up to the top of a ma.s.sive boulder leaning against a rock-face, and then, next instant, slipped through a crevice behind the boulder, and vanished.

'The blessed cat went in behind that-there rock,' Dido said to Mr Holystone, who, surprisingly, in spite of his recent disability, was the first of her companions to come up with her. 'Now what's to do?'

Although he was so changed and queer, she had at once fallen back into the habit of depending on his advice in difficulties.

He stood frowning, leaning on the sword, staring at the rock, as if trying to recall something.

Noah Gusset, arriving next, surveyed the rock, and said dubiously, 'Reckon some'un's in behind there, Miss Dido? Us'll never s.h.i.+ft that. Tis nigh as big as a house.'

'The cat has led us on a fool's errand!' irritably exclaimed Lieutenant Windward, arriving at this moment.

'Wait, though!' said Mr Multiple, who was close behind him. 'I've a notion.' Bringing out a s.h.i.+p's whistle, which he carried on a string round his neck, he blew a long and piercing blast.

The sound was almost swamped by a great gust of wind that flung more hail in their faces. But not quite. And it had two unexpected results. From somewhere up above them on the rock-face two huge mountain owls came flapping down; and from inside the rock a faint voice called, 'Help!'

'There! What did I say!' shouted Dido triumphantly. 'Somebody is shut up behind that rock! Hey! Murder! Lay off me, you nasty brutes!'

For the two owls, yellow eyes blazing, wings beating like flails, had swooped at the rescue party and were furiously attacking them.

'Devil take the fiends! Watch out for your eyes!' yelled Windward, who was already bleeding from a savage peck on the cheekbone. 'Ugh! Get away, curse you -' slas.h.i.+ng at one of the birds with his cutla.s.s. They were as big as swans, and quite as fierce.

'Maybe that's their nest in behind -' gasped Dido, clasping her arms over her face to protect it, as one of the owls alighted on her head, digging razor-sharp claws into her scalp. 'Croopus - it's nigh pulling my head off-'

The next moment she almost had her breath knocked out as a body collided violently against hers; the cruel grip of the talons on her head suddenly slackened. She shook her head, abruptly freed from the owl's weight, and looked round her, rubbing drops of blood from her eyes.

'That has done for one of them!' said Mr Holystone. He was surveying the blade of his sword, which now seemed darker than from mere rust.

The owl that had been on Dido's head flapped away down the gully, bleeding and shedding feathers; it perched on a rock, then slowly toppled off it, and was lost to view among the boulders on the ground. Its companion, screeching and hooting mournfully, circled around once or twice, then planed away into the distance and did not reappear.

Mr Holystone hardly glanced at the vanquished owl; he had gone back to studying the surface of the rock that confronted him. Now, with a soft exclamation of satisfaction, he found what he was looking for: a small slit in the surface of the stone. A little lichen grew over it, which he rubbed away with his thumb.

'Looks like a keyhole,' Dido said, and was immediately reminded of the great c.u.mbrous keys in Bath, shaped like swans or dragons, with keyholes to match. 'But where's the key?'

Mr Holystone, without answering her question, inserted the tip of his sword into, the rock and thrust inwards strongly, so that the weapon, by slow degrees, vanished up to the hilt.

'All very well,' muttered Windward, 'but now what?'

'Help!' the faint voice called from inside the cave.

'We're here! We're a-trying to help you!' Dido called rea.s.suringly.

Mr Holystone laid both hands on the hilt of the sword. His forehead bulged, his veins swelled; beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks into his beard. His wrists and forearms knotted with exertion. He began to twist the hilt.

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