Authors: Delos W. Lovelace
"There'll be plenty of clouds to hide the moon," he predicted. "It'll be a dark night. And that isn't going to help."
"Mr. Denham is right," the Skipper joked him placidly. "You've gone soft over Ann. A dark night won't hurt. We're too far off shore for the natives to try a surprise."
"I don't like those drums!"
The drums continued to trouble Driscoll as the quick, tropic twilight fell and deepened, but when he sat down to supper he tried to conceal his anxiety. This was harder because Denham kept them all waiting for his promised plan.
"I told you I'd figure out the next step," he finally began at the close of the meal, "and I have. I've got no further; but at least I've made up my mind to this. I'm going ashore bright and early tomorrow. With a strong party there'll be no danger. And I've absolutely got to find out about Kong."
Driscoll pushed his coffee cup away and looked toward Ann.
"Drink hearty, Jack," Denham smiled. "Ann will stay snug and safe on board ship."
"Good," murmured Englehorn.
"I'm ready to go if you need me," Ann spoke up.
"No. Ordinarily, I'm dead against separating my cast from my camera. But ordinarily my people have to face only dangers I can measure and prepare against. Here we have an unknown quantity. So I'll leave you in safety while I go for a look-see."
"Let me look for you," Driscoll said eagerly. "Of course there won't be any danger, with a strong party. But if you should happen to get hurt, the picture would be held up. If I bump into a tree, or something, it won't matter."
"Oh, won't it?" Ann cried.
"Ready to die for dear old Rutgers, Driscoll, now I've let Ann off?" Denham chuckled. "Well, you can go straight to hell, son. When I organize a parade, I always lead it.
"But just the same," he went on, "I take back part of what I said about you going soft I guess you're soft in only one spot."
Driscoll flushed down to his neck and back to his closely set ears.
"I've got some work to polish off below," he said and retreated before Englehorn's and Denham's laughter.
"I," said Ann with great dignity, getting up, too, "am not amused." But she smiled back at them as she went out to the deck.
The drums were still droning thoughtfully on Skull Mountain Island. On the deck, at intervals, the armed guards made watchful silhouettes. A few other sailors were out, too, seeking relief from the heat which had succeeded the fog. Lumpy was one of these. Stretched out on a hatch, in his frayed trousers, he played lazily with Ignatz.
"Good evening, Lumpy."
"Evenin', Miss Ann. Move over, Ignatz; give the lady a seat. I hear you had a big time ashore."
"I was pretty scared."
They sat for a little, Lumpy too lethargic to talk, Ann soothed by the soft blackness.
Denham and Englehorn halted on their way to the bridge.
"Hear those drums!" Denham said. "Damn it, if I could take moving pictures by firelight, I'd sneak back there this minute."
"You're a lot better off here, Mr. Denham."
"
I
know! But I hate to miss anything."
"It's all right with me if we miss a lot."
"Look here, Skipper! It's enough to have Driscoll worrying."
"I'm hardly worrying. But I'm glad a guard is set. And I have a notion not to turn in."
"Pshaw! All the natives are busy ashore."
"I suppose so. But still, I think I'll stay around."
"I'll stay, too, then," Denham laughed. "We'll start a good game of pinochle."
Lumpy sat up and peered at Ann through the darkness.
"What ever happened ashore to get that cold old turtle so het up?" he demanded.
"I think," said Ann slowly, "that it must have been the girl."
"Girl?"
"The one they were sacrificing ... to Kong."
"Oh, yeah!" Lumpy nodded. "Some of the boys were telling me. The bride."
"The bride of Kong!" Ann whispered, and shivered. "Lumpy, what do you suppose Kong is?"
"Ah-h-h!" Lumpy declared scornfully. "Just an old heathen god. Every tribe has a god. Usually an old log or mud statue. I'll bet Kong's just a lump of mud, and that the bride never gets within a mile of him. The old witch doctor probably could tell you better where
she
goes. Them old witch doctors usually have a harem hid off somewheres."
Ann laughed, and shifting a little for a more comfortable position sat on Ignatz's leg. That sensitive monkey squeaked and fled indignantly.
"Catch him, Lumpy," Ann said. "He'll get into the cabins and break something."
"Here, you varmint!" Lumpy called and ran.
Ann rose, and lifted her arms sleepily. She was rested and relaxed by the talk with Lumpy; she could forget Kong now. She walked slowly down to where the deck became a narrow alley leading past the deckhouse.
For just an instant she hesitated there. The light from the deckhouse glinted on her yellow hair, before she moved on, into the thick swallowing darkness. The drums on Skull Mountain Island swelled to a deafening clamor, then fell to a low chuckling tattoo.
Up on the bridge Denham talked confidently to Englehorn.
"We'll make friends with 'em, all right, Skipper. They didn't like our breaking into the ceremony. But we can convince them that was an accident."
"I don't know," Englehorn demurred. "They said we spoiled the show. They probably meant they'd have to find Kong another bride."
"Great! If they do it all over again, I'll get a picture as sure as shooting."
Englehorn looked at his employer in incredulous admiration.
"You're the limit," he declared, and felt around with a foot for the cuspidor he knew was somewhere in the darkness.
Driscoll came up, wiping his forehead.
"I've just made the rounds," he said, "and everything looks as right as rain. Where's Ann?"
"On deck somewhere, I suppose. How long is it since you saw her?" Denham chuckled. "A whole half hour?"
"I'm glad," Driscoll drawled, "that
I'm
no cold-blooded fish," and he strolled down to the main deck.
Lumpy was there, looking at the hatch with an air of puzzlement.
"Seen Miss Darrow, Lumpy?"
"She was here ten minutes ago, sir. We wuz talkin' and the monk got loose, and she sent me off to catch him. I thought she'd still be here when I got back."
"Probably she went in to her cabin," Driscoll surmised.
Lumpy, leading Ignatz, started away in disappointment. His path led down the narrow alley into which Ann had disappeared, and as he stepped into it, his foot struck something. He stooped, picked it up, brought it back to the lighter area by the hatch.
"On deck!" he shouted the next instant. "On deck! All hands on deck!"
The guards took up the cry, and sailors appeared from everywhere. Driscoll, running back, came up against Englehorn and Denham as they raced down from the bridge. All three closed in on Lumpy.
"Look, sir!" the old sailor stammered. "I found this on deck!"
"A native bracelet!" cried Denham.
"Some of them heathens've been aboard, sir!"
"Search the ship, Skipper," Denham ordered.
"Where's Ann?" Driscoll cried.
Englehorn and Denham looked at one another; then the Skipper flashed off to direct the search.
"In her cabin ..." Denham began soothingly.
"She isn't! I've just looked!"
The voice of a guard on the island side of the
Wanderer
floated to the two men: "No, sir! I never heard a sound. Not a thing." Then Englehorn's crisp, commanding tones. "Bos'n. Man the boats. A rifle to every man."
The darkness became alive with sounds. The bos'n's whistle. The creak and thump of davits. The rattle of arms. The low, directing cries of the sailors at work.
Denham stared at Driscoll.
"The boats!" he said explosively. "The boats! Here, Skipper! You don't really think ..."
"I don't know," Englehorn replied. "But we won't lose any time finding out. Mr. Driscoll, you take charge of the party searching the ship. And work fast, my boy! Work fast!"
Hot, native hands thrust Ann down to the bottom of the silently racing dugout. One was pressed over her mouth, and though she twisted wildly she could send no cry back through the darkness to the
Wanderer
.
No single cry had been permitted her from the first instant of capture. Hot, pressing hands had bound and gagged her always. Her mouth had felt them first, as she stepped into the narrow, black aisle beside the deckhouse; and mouth, arms and legs had been clamped as she was passed from hands to other hands down the ship's side.
Ann was afraid in a way that she had never imagined. No book she had ever read, no story she had ever been told could equal the terror which swept her in increasing waves. It was a terror which made her feel that every inch of her insulted body was alive with unmentionable things. It went beyond the midnight horrors of childhood. It went beyond the horrors of dreams. Her single conscious thought was to cry out for help, but she told herself despairingly that even if the hand lifted from her mouth it would do no good. Her throat, she knew, would refuse to give forth utterance.
Her legs, released at last, did indeed refuse to act When the dugout grated ashore and her captors jerked her to her feet on the beach, she could not stand.
Wasting no time, two bulking shadows swung her to their shoulders and raced off through the darkness toward the village. Several times in the course of the flight the bearers were changed. This always followed a high-pitched command. And the third time she heard it Ann's heart leaped to a realization that the speaker was the witch doctor.
The ceremonial court before the wall's great gate was bright with torches. The tribe was massed there, just as it had been massed in the afternoon. The same ordered rows lined either side of the skin-covered bridal dais. The same black gorilla men occupied the two front ranks. The king had taken his same aloof stand, clad in the same magnificence of feathers, grass and fur. And the witch doctor, leaving Ann's bearers to stand guard where she had been put down, promptly took his own proper position.
The dais, halfway up the broad stone stairs, was empty. Ann's fear-numbed mind, however, failed to see the significance of that. Close by her, a pitying face stood out from the crowd, and Ann vaguely recognized the flower-garlanded girl of the afternoon, dressed now as all the other women were dressed. That meant nothing, either. And when, at the witch doctor's signal, she was picked up and borne to the dais she sat there in an uncomprehending stupor.
Nervous haste had pulsed behind the command which put Ann into her place. The witch doctor had belabored his paddlers all the way back from the
Wanderer
. He had forced Ann's bearers to their highest speed on the race to the village. Now he was even more swift to set the ceremony going. Ann realized dimly that so much haste was due to a conviction that rescuers would be quick in pursuit. But the realization aroused no hope. She had been totally without hope from the moment her first cry had been stifled. She had had her own inescapable conviction that the mystery of this ancient island had trapped her and that no rescue was possible.
At a signal, the massed natives began a familiar chant. Their serried ranks swayed in the torchlight in an hypnotic rhythm. The witch doctor advanced to the dais and once more performed his oddly supplicating dance. Once more the gorilla men leaped out from the chanting host.
And now, as in the afternoon, another signal brought the king into the ceremony. He stepped forward, and at his commanding arm ten warriors rushed at the two smoothly trimmed half logs which held the great gate shut.
"Ndeze!"
Ann needed no knowledge of the language to know the king had shouted, "Open!" Five men to each bar, the gate-tenders strained and slowly drew the wooden bolts back through massive, time-pitted iron sockets. With still greater straining each group began to pull its half of the great gate open.
"Ndundo!" the king shouted.
Instantly a warrior who had been standing on the gate's high portal struck a mighty blow against the metal drum suspended above. Briefly aroused by the rolling sound, Ann realized that the signal forecast by Driscoll had been given.
It was a signal to others besides whatever bridegroom waited in the wilderness outside the wall. At the blow upon the drum the chanting ceased. The massed ranks on either side of the dais broke. With cries of mingled excitement and apprehension the tribesmen, and the women and children as well, fled to the wall. By frail ladders, they scrambled to the top.
Once on the lofty rampart the tribe resumed its chant, to the accompaniment of swaying torches held so as to cast most of their smoky light beyond the wall.
"Tasko!" the king shouted.
Now the guards picked Ann up, dais and all, and rushed her through the opening gate.
"Watu!" the king shouted.
Instantly the gate-tenders all but joined the doors of the gate. Only the narrowest gap was left, and then ten men braced themselves to close even this on the instant of the return of the dais bearers. Indeed, from their grim expressions, it was plain they meant to close the gap, if necessary, before the bearers got back.
"Ndundo!" the king shouted, and once again the drummer rolled thunder out to the black wilderness.
High on the walls the tribespeople tipped their torch for a better view.
Beyond the wall a brief plain ran off and lost itself in the darkly shadowed base of the precipice. In this plain, a few rods out, stood a stone altar as ancient as the wall it faced. Its steeply ascending steps were spotted with hoary lichens. Its platform, some dozen feet above the ground, lay under inches of furry green moss which soaked up the torches' light. Two worn pillars, splendidly carved, rose out of the platform a short arm's width apart.
"Tasko! Tasko!" the king shouted.
As his voice leaped through the crack of the gate Ann's bearers raced her at a redoubled speed up the slippery steps of the altar and swung her into position between the pillars. Two spread her arms while two more tied grass ropes to her wrists, cast loops around the pillars and drew them tight. Ann hung, barely conscious, her eyes closed.