Island Gold/Chapter 19

think she fainted. It was just that her forces had failed her. She lay quite motionless in my arms, her red-brown hair a splash of colour against the white sleeve of my coat. But a few yards, as I have said, separated us from the shelf, so I lifted her up. I felt a soft arm steal round my neck as she steadied herself. I glanced at her face. Her eyes were open.

“Hold tight,” I bade her, “and whatever you do, don't look down!”—for at that height the clear drop down the side of the cliff was enough to make an Alpine guide dizzy. Looking steadfastly ahead and fighting down a horrible feeling of giddiness, I carried the girl up the path and at length stood upon the ledge.

It curved round the face of the rock, a mere shelf not more than two paces wide, but slanting inwards, which improved one's foothold. From it the face of the cliff dropped sheer to the nullah hundreds of feet below. I ventured a peep over the side and my brain fairly swam; for I am no hand at heights. From somewhere above us a great bird suddenly went up with a vast flutter and, with a few strokes of its powerful wings, propelled itself through the air until, level with us, it hovered motionless at an immense height above the stony valley.

“I'm going to set you down now,” I said to the girl. “Lie quite still and don't move until I come hack. I'm going along the ledge a bit to see if it broadens out at all or if there's a cave.”

As gently as I could I put her down. The wind blew invigoratingly on the pinnacle of the crag and I hoped it would revive her. I stood and listened. No sound came from below. But I knew that until I found a spot from which we could survey the ascent we should not be safe.

I edged my way along the shelf as it curved round the rock. A few steps brought me in sight of its termination. It ended in nothing; but what caught my eye was the tall pillar chiselled out of the rock upon which the flash from my mirror had rested. Beside it was a low opening in the back wall of the cliff.

The pillar was merely a high expanse of “dressed” stone, as the masons say, which had been carved out of the soft surface of the peak. From pictures I had seen of the images on Esther Island, I knew it to be the first state of one of those uncouth effigies, relics of a departed era, which are found in more than one island of the Southern Seas. The pillar was not inscribed or carved in any way. It stood just as some native mason had left it, waiting for the sculptor's hand.

A touch on my shoulder; Marjorie stood at my side.

“I'm a poor kind of soldier, partner,” she said, “to fail you at the critical moment. I was at the last gasp when you picked me up. How ever did you manage to bring me up here?”

“Don't ask me,” I laughed. “I was terrified for fear you'd look over and get scared...”

“I don't mind heights,” the girl rejoined simply; “we live a great part of the year in our place in Wales, you know, and I've done quite a lot of climbing in my time. Oh! Look! Did you ever see anything so wonderful?”

We were side by side on the ledge with our backs to the pillar, and as she spoke she stretched forth her hand and pointed across the valley. Above the jagged crests of various isolated peaks in the foreground a gigantic solitary image raised its tall black form against the deep azure of the ocean which was spread out to the horizon. Its back set to the sea, its features, stern and enigmatic in expression, turned towards us, and, clearly visible in that transparent atmosphere, it dominated the little rocky plateau on which it stood, dwarfing the tremendous blocks of stone strewn about its base. Before it, as if from a sacrificial altar, a thin spiral of black smoke slowly mounted aloft against the blue sky. It seemed to rise from the ground at the foot of the effigy.

It was, in truth, a wonderful sight, a spectacle of sheer majesty. That lonely Colossus with its cruel face seemed to embody the suggestion of sinister mystery which, I had felt from the first, brooded over Cock Island....

Marjorie gave a little shudder.

“This island frightens me!” she said. “To think of that awful-looking image standing there gazing out across the valley for all these hundreds of years as if it were waiting for something. Somehow it reminds me of that clubfooted man, so hard, so ruthless, so ... patient! Grundt makes my blood run cold!...”

He had not molested her, it appeared. When I had left her to enter our cave on the beach, men had suddenly surrounded her and carried her away to the sheds. There she had been handed back to the custody of the mulatto, who had locked her in the room behind the galley where I had found her.

“At meal-times,” she added, “they brought me out to their open-air mess in the space between the huts. No one spoke to me. But they eyed me silently, especially Dr. Grundt. He always seems to be thinking, that man, and I'm sure his thoughts are wicked. And the man they call Black Pablo! He kept edging towards me and leering with his one eye. Oh! it was horrible...” She had seen nothing of Custrin since the encounter with him in the forest.

Clubfoot, she told me, had had some trouble with his men. They were grumbling at him for having let me go. The Germans, especially the blond young officer, were particularly bitter. But Clubfoot had rounded on them and said that, as long as there were trees on the island to hang mutineers on, he would have no questioning of his authority.

Somewhere in the green tangle of woods far below us a single shot rang out sharply. The report went reverberating down the valley and from the tree-tops a cloud of birds swooped up affrighted. I did not hear the flight of the bullet, so I could not see that the shot was meant for us. Yet there were only Clubfoot's men on the island now. Was Grundt asserting his authority?

The girl had dropped to her knees, and now seated herself cross-legged on the ground.

“If you and I are partners,” said she, “don't you think the time has come to take me into your confidence?”

She invited me with a gesture to seat myself by her side. I glanced down at the valley. Below us and to the left the ascending path twice wound into view. From our coign of vantage one might infallibly pick off any one who tried to rush our position from the path. Though I was inclined to think that the gang had had their fill of fighting for the day, I was glad to be in a position from which their next move must be unerringly revealed to me.

I followed the girl's invitation; for I was very weary. To tell the truth, I welcomed the chance of resting quietly for a spell. I needed to think out the grave difficulties besetting us. It was clear that we could not stay where we were, for I had only five rounds of ammunition left. And Marjorie, who sat by my side, her rich brown hair blowing out in the wind, her eyes fixed dreamily on the hideous image staring sardonically across the valley at us—I had to think of her. Henceforth, any risk I took must inevitably imperil her safety ... it was a horrid thought.

When would the Naomi come back? And could we risk holding out till the promised gun announced her return? She could not arrive at the earliest before the evening, I calculated.

I brought out the bread and meat I had taken from the galley and we ate it together, side by side. Although the sun had not long risen there was already a heat in its rays which warned me of what its noonday fierceness would be. And I was keenly alive to the fact that we had no water.

“I can see by your face,” said Marjorie suddenly, “that you are worrying about me. And I want to be a help, not an impediment. I made you an offer of partnership once before!”

“I know,” I rejoined, “but I didn't know you then!...”

“I was so anxious to help,” she said. “And you would tell me nothing!”

“I'm afraid I don't know much about women,” I said.

“Major Okewood,” exclaimed the girl, turning round and looking me full in the face, “you surprise me!”

“It's true...” I began.

But Marjorie laughed merrily.

“You're too delightful for words,” she said. “Why, my dear man, if you understood women you'd have...”

She broke off hastily and added:

“There are only two kinds of men: those who say they do understand women and don't, and those who admit they don't and don't. But all the same, don't you think it's rather insulting to one's intelligence to find a man locking up his secrets in his heart simply because he's read or heard somewhere that woman is not to be trusted?”

I looked at her with interest. This young girl, with her ridiculous clump of reddish-brown hair, her slim straight limbs, her calm childlike eyes, made me feel like a naughty little boy being reprimanded by his mummy.

“Yes,” I said limply, “I suppose it is!”

For a minute her eyes encountered mine and in them I read her reproach. She dropped them almost at once and a sort of embarrassment silenced us. Then it suddenly occurred to me that she and I were alone; I wondered to find that neither the prospect of spending the night—maybe, several nights—in the company of a man of whom she knew next to nothing, nor the danger to which she was exposed, had shaken her out of her serenity. This girl was full of character. My wish, that poor man's wish which I had hardly dared to own to myself on board the Naomi, rose to my mind with such force that I felt the blood mount to my face.

But Marjorie took my hand and patted it as she might have patted a child's.

“Tell me about your mission!” she said.

I kept her hand and, seated at her side in the shade of that ancient pillar, with the fresh breeze caressing our faces, I told her how Fate had put into my hands the message left by Ulrich von Hagel for Clubfoot and his gang. I described to her my efforts to unravel the cipher, which I repeated to her.

“How does it go in German?” she asked; for I had given her the English version.

“You know German?” said I.

She nodded.

“I used to have a German Fräulein,” she answered. “She was a dear old thing, and as a small girl I often went over to Boppard to stay with her people. I knew German rather well.”

“Well,” said I, “here goes!”

And I repeated the rhyme which had hammered its jingling measure into my brain:

I broke off suddenly.

“By Jove!” I exclaimed. “By—Jove!”

I have spoken of the peaks which stood up in the valley between us and the stone image. The words of von Hagel's doggerel sent my gaze roving interrogatively across the open space, and presently it fell upon a tall slender rock with a smoothly rounded crest which raised itself erect in the foreground. And it dawned upon me that here was the Sugar Loaf of which von Hagel spoke.

I glanced across the valley from right to left, past the image frowning through the wisp of smoke at its foot, to where other peaks raised their crests aloft to the blue sky.

Suddenly I turned to Marjorie.

“If you've been to Boppard,” I said, “you must know the Lorelei. Look where I am pointing and tell me if you see any rock which resembles it!”

Leaning over until her hair brushed my cheek, the girl followed my pointing finger.

“Why, yes!” she exclaimed, “that squat grey rock leaning over is rather like the Lorelei...”

At last I felt that I was within measurable distance of the end of my quest. But between me and my goal was interposed that unsurmountable four-barred obstacle, those enigmatical notes of music.

I had identified the peaks, but what did they signify? What bearing had they on the hiding-place of the treasure? I felt utterly non-plussed and, for the first time discouraged.

“What does it mean?” asked Marjorie at my elbow. “What has the Lorelei to do with the treasure?”

I laughed rather bitterly.

“If I were a musician,” I answered, “I should probably be able to tell you. As I am not...”

“Please don't be mysterious,” the girl bade me. “Tell me what you mean.”

I told her of the four bars of music.

“They're part of some German tune or other,” I told her. “It's vaguely familiar to me, but I'm blessed if I can put any words to it. And I take it that the words are the thing!”

“Can you hum the melody over to me?” asked Marjorie.

Singing is not my forte. A combination of bashfulness and a cigarette-smoker's throat produce from my larynx when I attempt to sing sounds which I have always felt must be acutely distressing to my hearers. But Marjorie, listening gravely with her head on one side, made me repeat my performance.

Then she said:

“But do you know you're trying to sing a song that was all the rage in Germany when I was there just before the war? Listen! I'll sing it to you!”

And in a clear young voice she sang:

Then she checked herself suddenly and clutched my arm. “'Puppchen'!” she said. “Oh, partner, don't you see?”

“No!” I replied dejectedly, “I confess I don't! I know that Puppchen means a 'doll' or a 'little doll'; but I really don't see...”

Marjorie raised her hand and pointed a slender finger at the saturnine image on the opposite side of the valley, seen between the Lorelei on the and the Sugar Loaf on the right.

“There's your doll!” she said.

And I knew at last the riddle was read.