Chapter XV: Adrift in the Depths

All went well with Johnny on his undersea photographing trip until he had reached the fifteen-hundred-foot level. Then he called in his loud-speaker to Doris, who was directing the controls:

"Sorry, Doris. On that last, ten-foot shot, I made a double exposure. Hike me up a bit, will you, please?"

"O.K. Johnny," was the answer. To the men at the hoist she said: "Up ten feet."

"Up ten feet," the men repeated.

Johnny waited for the rise. His floodlight was on. Some strange creatures with amazing teeth, were passing, and he snapped his camera.

"Interesting place, down here," he thought. "Hate to stay down here all night, though." His leg felt cramped. He tried to shift to a new position, but at last gave it up. "No sort of place for an active person," he sighed. "Wonder why I don't go up a bit--I'd like to get this over!"

"Hey, up there!" he called into the phone. "What's wrong?"

"Sorry, Johnny," Doris drawled. "Something's wrong with the hoist. It won't work. But they'll get it fixed pretty soon, I guess!"

Something wrong with the hoist! Johnny experienced a cold chill. Suppose someone had been tampering with that hoist--had done something really serious? What then? You couldn't take hold of a fifteen-hundred-foot steel cable with a two-ton ball at the end of it, and haul it by hand like a fishline. Johnny realized all too keenly that his life depended on that hoist.

"It could have been tampered with," he told himself. This was all too true. While the boat had been in the harbor it had not been any too carefully guarded--and Johnny had been off duty one whole night! "Might cost me dearly--that night!" he thought.

To ease his mind he began watching the passing show--fire-glowing shrimps--flying snails, and a host of other strange creatures. He snapped his camera again and again.

"I say, up there," he exclaimed impatiently, "what's keeping us?"

"Sorry, Johnny. It's the hoist. We--"

Doris stopped suddenly. Johnny felt a shock--as if his cable had been struck by something hard and heavy. At the same instant the ball began drifting away from the submerged wall of rock.

"Hey, there!" he called, in genuine alarm, "what's up now?"

There came no answer. He called again, and yet again. No answer. His heart began pounding madly.

"This won't do," he told himself, savagely. "Probably nothing--just nothing at all! It--"

Then came a second, jolting shock, and--ceasing to move in a circle--the ball began drifting quite rapidly away from the rock and out to sea.

Johnny knew at once what had happened. One of the anchor cables holding the boat in place had been struck and broken.

"By that submarine!" he burst out savagely. Then as if it were right out there in the water in front of him, he seemed to see the green arrow of light, and to read:

"_We will strike_--at the earliest possible moment!"

"They have struck!" he thought. "The second cable has been broken by the added strain--and we are drifting out to sea!"

He tried to think what this meant. The hoist was broken, so he could not be pulled up. Out to sea some three or four miles were coral reefs and beneath these, no doubt, a rocky wall. Moving at its present rate and striking that wall, the steel ball might crack!

Only one cheery thought came to him at this moment. If the boat's small motor was strong enough to counteract the force of wind and current, he could be held in one position until the hoist was repaired.

Even as he thought this, Doris came back on the air: "Awfully sorry, Johnny, but something has severed an anchor cable--and then the other one broke! The hoist won't work. We'd have the motor going, but that, too, seems to have gone wrong. Keep your chin up, Johnny. We'll get you up out of there before it's--too late." Her voice faltered at the end.

Johnny found it impossible to utter a single word in reply.

* * * * * * * *

In the meantime, Mildred still was following the signs of the green arrow trail.

As she advanced, the trail grew steeper and rougher. She followed it between dark pines, where the shadows were like night, along a narrow ledge to an abrupt descent into a low ravine.

More than once, as if contemplating retreat, she turned and looked back. But always, she went on.

At last, weary from climbing, she dropped down on a flat rock in the shade and dabbed at her damp cheeks with a white, red-bordered handkerchief.

As she rested she turned her head quite suddenly to listen. All the usual sounds of the tropical wilderness--the call of monkeys, the shrill squawks of parrots, the piercing screams of jungle birds--these all were familiar to her. But did she hear some strange sound--perhaps a human call? Listening intently for a moment longer, she rose and journeyed on.

Some ten minutes later she paused once more. She had come to a spot where the trail led round a towering cliff. In an involuntary gesture of dismay her hand unclasped and she dropped her handkerchief. It fell unnoticed among some large leaves--a bit of red and white amid the eternal gray and green of the jungle.

Summoning all her courage, Mildred proceeded along the rocky trail. Like a soldier she tramped straight on until, with a startled cry, she stopped abruptly, on rounding a sharp turn in the path.

There, directly ahead, was the ancient castle that might once have been a fortress or a prison. Standing before its door and staring intently at her, was a man with a rifle. Turning to flee, in complete panic--she found herself facing another man, similarly armed.

A man in front of her, and one in back--a towering cliff above--a precipice below. She was trapped.

* * * * * * * *

Darkness came to the Kennedy cottage, but no Mildred returned to join its worried owner at his evening meal.

He ate alone and in silence. In silence he smoked his pipe on the veranda until midnight. Then he went to the house of Pean, his head native.

"Pean," he said, "she has not returned. At three o'clock, unless I come again, tell Camean to make _wanga_ with the drums."

"Make _wanga_ at three. Can do," said Pean.