Chapter Six

All through the night the fog thickened. Hours before daylight the Wanderer, headed by Captain Englehorn toward the Norwegian skipper's incredible island, had slowed to little more than steerage way. When morning came she was still creeping through a yellow-white blanket, miles in extent.

Against the penetrating dampness of this blanket no garment was proof. The clothes of everyone drooped in loose, sodden folds. Water dripped everywhere, from spars, stays and walls, and gathering on the cold deck ran in slow, uncertain rivulets.

At a distance of a dozen feet, men and such solid objects as masts and ventilators became vaguely wavering wraiths. At greater distances they vanished behind the soft, yellow-white silence. Up on the bridge Denham and Englehorn, Driscoll and Ann could see nothing of the sailor who heaved a lead in the bow, or of the other sailor who tried to pierce the thick veil from the high vantage point of the crow's nest. These could be heard, however. By some atmospheric trick their voices seemed to ring more loudly through the fog than they had ever come through clear sunlight.

"This triple-damned fog!" Denham choked. He could scarcely speak from excitement. He was as tense as a man on a tight rope, and he never stopped staring forward into the enwrapping cloud. "Are you sure of your position, Skipper?"

"Sure!" Englehorn murmured placidly, and cut himself some fresh plug cut. "Last night, before this stuff closed around us, I got a fine sight."

"Jack!" Ann whispered, taking a fresh hold on Driscoll's hand. "If we don't get somewhere soon, I'll explode. I never was so excited in my life."

"Don't bounce around so," Driscoll warned her. "Next thing you know you'll be rolling off the ship. And don't," he added more soberly, "keep doing things to get me excited. I'm fit to be tied right now. I'd like to throw my cap up into the air and yell Blue Blazes. But when I think of what we may be taking you into, I know I've got to keep my head."

"If your position is right, Skipper," said Denham, "we ought to be near the island."

"If we don't see it when this fog lifts," Englehorn murmured confidently, "we never shall. We've quartered these parts. Either we're on top of it or we've found blue water in the place it should be."

The high, intent voice of the sailor in the bow came sharply up to the bridge.

"No bottom at thirty fathoms."

"Of course," Driscoll ventured, almost hopefully, "that Norse skipper was just guessing at the position."

"How will we know it's the right island?" Ann asked.

"I told you!" Denham rasped impatiently. "The mountain!" His eyes tried to pierce the fog. "The mountain that looks like a skull."

"I'd forgotten," Ann apologized. "Of course. Skull Mountain."

"Bottom!" The high voice shot back from the bow, and at that triumphant cry they all stiffened. "Bottom! Twenty fathoms!"

"I knew it." Englehorn chewed placidly. "She's shallowing fast. Dead slow, Mr. Driscoll. Tell 'em!"

Driscoll tore into the wheel house and spoke down the engine room tube. Bells jangled below in reply and the Wanderer dropped off to a speed that was scarcely more than drifting.

"Look!" Ann cried. "Isn't the fog thinner?"

"Sixteen!" came the voice from the bow. "Sixteen fathoms!"

"What does she draw, Skipper?" Denham demanded.

"Six!" For the first time, Englehorn was stirred out of his customary placidity. He was like Denham now, staring intently, listening even more intently.

"Listen!" Ann whispered.

"What do you hear?" Denham whispered back.

Ann shook her head, and with the other three continued to listen. Suddenly the young, nervous voice of Jimmy dropped down from the crow's nest.

"Breakers!"

"Where away?" Driscoll shouted.

"Dead ahead!"

Driscoll leaped for the wheel house and the engine room tube again. His order came out to the others sharp and clear, and its dying note was followed by the jangle of the engine room's bells and the roll and thunder of the Wanderer's reversing engines.

"Ten fathoms!" called the man in the bow.

"Let go!" Englehorn roared mightily.

Up forward dim wraiths leaped to action. A chain clanked and rattled through a hawse pipe. An anchor splashed. More bells jangled below. The Wanderer was suddenly motionless and still. Everyone listened.

"That's not breakers," Driscoll declared roundly.

"It's drums," Englehorn murmured, placid once more.

The fog, which had been thinning almost imperceptibly, lifted while they listened. Before the edge of a brisk, sheering wind it parted and rolled away. The blue sea lay exposed under a sun but faintly veiled. And a little way off, hardly more than a quarter of a mile, a high wooded island with a skull-like knob reached out toward the ship with a long, brush-covered finger of sand and rocks.

"Skull Mountain!" Denham flung out a victorious arm. "Do you see it? And the wall! The wall! The wall!" He struck Englehorn's back a mighty blow. "There it is. Do you believe me now?" Just short of hysteria he half climbed, half slid down from the bridge and raced toward the bow of the ship. "Get out the boats!" he shouted back. "Get out the boats!"

"Jack!" cried Ann. "Did you ever see anything like it? Isn't it wonderful?"

All the excitement drained out of Driscoll as he looked down at her face. His mouth tightened somberly. He strode forward to direct the lowering of the boats and the stowing of equipment.

After a little, Denham came rushing back to where the crew were loading the boats, and Ann went down to him.

"I'm going ashore with you, aren't I?" she asked.

"You bet!"

Driscoll, overhearing, left his work promptly.

"Ought she to quit the ship before we find out what's going on ... what we're likely to run into?"

"Look here, Jack!" Denham complained cheerfully. "Who's running this show? I've learned by bitter experience to keep my cast and my cameras all together and right with me. How do I know when I'll want 'em?"

"But Mr. Denham!" Driscoll half turned from Ann, to keep her from hearing. "It's crazy to risk...."

"Get back to work, Jack," Denham directed bluntly. "Go on! Deal out rifles and ammunition. See that a dozen of the gas bombs are taken. And pick me a couple of huskies to carry my picture stuff."

Driscoll wavered, and then with a helpless shrug and a last frown in Ann's direction turned to his sailors. Denham shook his head in amiable exasperation and winked at Ann.

"Have somebody get the costume box up and into one of the boats," he said. "If we're lucky we may get a swell shot right away."

As Ann went below, Denham mounted to the bridge. There Englehorn was sweeping the island with his binoculars.

"See anything, Skipper?"

"Nothing but those few huts at the edge of the brush on the peninsula."

"I took a look from the bow, and I think there are more and bigger houses back in the thicker brush."

"It's the first native island I ever called at where the whole tribe didn't come down to the beach for a look-see."

"The tribe is somewhere, sure enough. Hear those drums?"

Englehorn nodded and both men listened. A deep, soft clamor rolled across the intervening water, and slowly resolved itself into a swift, importunate rhythm.

"Funny they haven't spotted us," Denham said.

"Every last native ought to be out and down at the water's edge," Englehorn insisted.

"Maybe they have seen us, and are signalling."

"You've heard native drums before, Mr. Denham," Englehorn demurred calmly. "You know those ain't signal beats. There's some ceremony inland. A big ceremony, too, if you ask me."

He descended from the bridge and walked quietly over to where by now Driscoll had practically completed the work of lowering the boats and loading them. He watched for a space and then looked toward the forward deck.

"Fetch the boatswain," he commanded.

That petty officer, a thick, heavy sailorman, hurried up.

"This man will stay aboard with fourteen sailors," Englehorn said to Driscoll. "You choose the fourteen. All the others will go ashore with us."

Driscoll nodded soberly and went about the selection. He chose Lumpy first of all, to that veteran adventurer's audible chagrin.

"Who'll be in charge of my gas bombs?" Denham wanted to know.

"You take 'em, Jimmy," Driscoll ordered.

Jimmy stooped over the box, hefted it experimentally, looked slightly injured at the weight of it, and then bore his burden over to the last boat.

"Of course you're coming, Skipper?" Denham asked.

"Got to keep my record clear," Englehorn nodded. "Never yet missed looking over a native island once I caught up with it."

"You're likely to be a big help. You'll probably have to do the talking. Their lingo isn't likely to be one I've picked up."

"All right," Driscoll said. "Both boats are ready."

Englehorn and Denham climbed down into the first one, and at the order of the former the crew pushed off. Driscoll motioned the second boat to wait where it swung on its davits. Ann was hurrying across the deck. He helped her in silently, then directed that the boat be lowered. While it settled into the water he took a last look around deck.

"Better serve out rifles and ammunition," he said to the boatswain. "And it wouldn't hurt to do some figuring on the range from here to the island."

With a last look, he swung over the side and joined Ann.

"This is the first time I ever saw the whole crew together," Ann said. "I hadn't realized it was so large."

"Twenty men in each boat," Driscoll told her. "And," he added gloomily, "we'll need 'em."

"Nonsense! Probably the natives will be as friendly as reservation Indians."

"More probably not. Hear those drums? I overheard the Skipper tell Denham they were beating up some kind of ceremony. I wish I knew what kind."

"Maybe they're announcing some pretty girl's engagement."

Driscoll looked at her. Her yellow hair was bare to the sun and blowing about her flushed excited face.

"Speaking of pretty girls' engagements," he said, and looked back up at the crow's nest.

But the drums grew louder with every tug of the boat's oars; the rhythm grew more distinct; and as Englehorn had said, it sounded too majestic to be a mere signal. Driscoll's momentary elation left him.

Englehorn's boat had reached the beach and Denham was already ashore, putting his camera on its tripod. While Driscoll's crew spurted through the surf the producer burdened one sailor with the mounted machine, another with a case of films, and a third with a box containing costumes. Meanwhile Englehorn was dividing cases of trade goods among the others. Jimmy, showing his grievance in every line of his young face, shouldered the heavy container which held the gas bombs.

"You stick close to me, Jimmy," Denham directed. "And watch your step. There's enough trichloride in that case to put a herd of hippos to sleep."

"Are we going to see any hippos?" Jimmy wanted to know.

"Something a lot more exciting, I hope. Where's Driscoll?"

Driscoll came trotting over, followed by Ann. His boat was beached alongside the other.

"Leave an armed man in charge of each boat."

"All attended to."

"Stay by me, Ann."

"I'll look after Ann," Driscoll announced quickly.

Denham chuckled. The wild excitement of those moments preceding the sighting of the island was gone. He was once more solid, indomitable, and quick with a characteristic tolerance.

"All right, Jack. All set, Skipper?"

Englehorn nodded. He and Driscoll signalled, and the two boat crews fell into a loose double column. Denham, already striding vigorously toward the scattered houses visible at the edge of the brush, automatically became the head of the line of march. Behind him paced the men bearing camera and films, then Englehorn, then Driscoll and Ann.

As the party sloped up from the water line and achieved some small elevation the wall began to bulk large, although still far off. It was enormous. The Norwegian skipper's crude sketch had poorly estimated the mighty barrier which ran the full extent of the peninsula. Brush closed in upon its base. There were even occasional intervening trees. But all growth stopped far below the rampart's top. Its vastness was not dwarfed even by the overhanging precipice. It was made chiefly of huge logs. At one point, however, there seemed to be a gate hinged to massive stone pillars supporting the story of the structure's antiquity.

The cadenced drum beats grew louder as the Wanderer's party approached, but no living persons were seen in the straggling huts first met up with. None appeared even when the explorers were past the outskirts of the village. The size of this indicated a tribe of several hundred members, filling an area of six or eight city blocks. The houses were all large, and quite widely separated. Each was enclosed and partially masked by the thick brush. Narrow paths through the undergrowth were the only connecting links. Each stood otherwise by itself in the center of a bare circle beaten to dusty surface smoothness by many feet. One extraordinary detail made the village different from any which either Englehorn or Denham had ever seen. This was the scattering of magnificent, broken columns of carved stone, and fragments of skillfully built walls. These stood on every hand, but the majority were forward, closer to the wall.

"My guess," said Denham pointing to the barrier, "is that it must once have been the outer defence of a sizeable city. Isn't it enormous?"

"Colossal," Englehorn agreed.

"It's almost Egyptian," Denham mused.

"Who do you suppose could have built it?" Ann asked in an awed tone.

"I went up to Angkor once," Driscoll remarked in solemn admiration. "That's bigger than this. Nobody knows who built it, either."

"What a chance!" Denham exulted. "What a picture!"

Still no one was sighted. But suddenly between two steps, the roll of the drums softened. And now, above their low, purring note, voices rose in a wildly swelling chant. Driscoll halted and flung up an arm in warning. Ann clutched Driscoll's sleeve and the sailors looked at one another apprehensively. The sound of the chant came from somewhere close to the wall. Denham motioned to Englehorn, and pointed to an unusually large house ahead.

"If we get around that," he said, "I'll bet we will see them."

"Do you hear what they're saying?" Ann whispered to Driscoll. "They're shouting, 'Kong! Kong!'"

"Denham!" Driscoll called. "Do you catch that? They're at some god ceremony."

"I hear!" Denham said. "Come on."

Moving forward cautiously, he beckoned Englehorn closer.

"Think you can speak their lingo?"

"Can't catch any words yet." Englehorn listened acutely. "It does, though, sound a bit like the talk of the Nias Islanders."

"What luck if it is enough alike," Denham laughed.

They were directly at the masking house now, and Denham halted, waving the rest of the column to close up and gather near. He, himself, advanced guardedly, to the corner of the house.

"Easy now!" he whispered. "Stay here till I see what is going on!"

He disappeared while Driscoll, with Ann keeping close, eyed his men to measure their degree of readiness and Englehorn bit off another half inch of plug cut. He came back with his eyes blazing.

"Holy mackerel!" he whispered. "Englehorn! Driscoll! Get a look at this thing. But be quiet."

Himself ho eager for quiet that he moved upon tiptoes, he motioned to the camera bearer, took over the machine and tripod, and slowly began to work it around the corner of the house.

While he maneuvered, the drums rolled softly. Above their murmurous rhythm the explosive shout of many voices rose like thunder. Ecstatic. Triumphant. Awed. Fearful. All these emotions were conveyed by turns. Irresistibly drawn, the sailors and Ann drifted slowly forward until, standing clear of the masking house, they looked upon the chanting host.