Chapter Ten

It had been Denham who raced the rescue boats away from the Wanderer; and Denham who had deployed the sailors for the breathless run to the village. But from the moment the great gate swung open Driscoll took charge. It was Driscoll who organized the pursuit after Kong.

He alone had got a fair look at the beast god lumbering into the darkness with Ann's bright head cradled in one arm. The shot which accelerated Kong's last step had been his.

"This is my job," he had said to Denham, and the director nodded. "O.K. Jack. We'll do it together."

"I'll need a dozen of you," Driscoll cried, turning back to the crew. "Who's coming with me?"

"I'll go," Lumpy volunteered, and back of him the others called out with raised hands.

"You keep watch here, Lumpy," Driscoll said. "I'll take you!" he pointed. "And you! And you!..."

"Who's got the bombs?" Denham asked. "We'll need them."

"Here they are," Jimmy cried, and when a bigger man offered to take them, he drew back jealously. "Not much, guy! I lugged them before. I can lug 'em now."

"We'll leave the Skipper in charge here. Right?" Driscoll said to Denham.

The director nodded. Together, the two inspected guns, ammunition and flashlights.

"Single file," Driscoll ordered. "Never lose sight of the man ahead of you. And follow me."

He set off at a trot, Denham beside him. At the altar he paused and measured the height of the pillars with his eyes. When he had done, he looked at Denham incredulously.

"You got a glimpse of it too, didn't you?"

Denham nodded.

"I can't believe it," Driscoll said. "I got a fair look. I saw that Thing's head squarely in line with the top of those pillars and they stand twenty feet above the ground if they stand an inch." He shivered. "Come on," he ended. "This is wasting time."

On the left, as they came to the base of the precipice, they heard water flowing in the darkness. Denham suggested that this might be a guide to some crevice which would lead them up to the plateau; so they stumbled toward it.

They found a stream. In one direction the water flowed off toward the wall. In the other, the bed of the stream ran steeply up through a narrow split in the precipice. The natural crevice inclined just steeply enough to send the water down in a swift deep slide, but no more.

"As good a swimmer as you are, Jack," said Denham, "could come down that chute."

Driscoll nodded and went about the difficult business of finding a trail up. He had just found what looked like a possible path along the water's edge when one of the party called out.

"Here's a track!"

Driscoll turned his flashlights upon the mark of a foot so large that the men stared in unbelief; but it pointed up along the very trail Driscoll had picked out.

"Let's go," he said.

In the darkness it was cruel going. A cracked shin, a bruising stumble marked nearly every yard of the way. Once a man slipped into the swift water and shot down a hundred feet before he found a ledge to cling to.

"I kept my gun," he gasped cheerfully, as he was pulled out.

Up on top of the precipice they encountered jungle at the very outset. Enormous trees, and at their bases a lush tangle of undergrowth. The stream, widening somewhat, extended back into the country which seemed to rise higher and higher.

"We'll find that this plateau slopes gradually back to Skull Mountain," Denham surmised.

Nowhere was there any sign of a trail, and for a moment all were nonplussed.

"Look for a track again," Driscoll ordered.

"Here is broken down brush," a sailor said. "Something big has gone through."

The breaks were fresh, too.

"And here's that track again," cried another.

The track was in a clear space beyond the broken brush, and once more it pointed upstream. It was clue enough, and Driscoll led the way as fast as he could in the darkness.

"There's a bird call," Denham said after a little. "Hear it? A lot of them."

The silence did, indeed, suddenly pulse with bird cries and the reviving whirr and flick of insects.

"It's dawn," Denham exulted. "Now we'll get a break, Jack."

"Now we'll put on speed," Driscoll promised.

For a space, no change was apparent. They still moved through what seemed an utter blackness. Then, slowly, they could catch shadows at a distance. Next, whenever they paused to puzzle out the way, they marched ahead upon a trail grown a little plainer. And finally, unmistakably, light began to filter down.

It was a shaft of this which gave them their next encouragement It pointed to another of the great footprints.

"Look at the size of the thing!" Jimmy exploded, shifting his bombs. "He must be as big as a house."

"He came this way, all right," Denham said to Driscoll.

"And he was headed the way we're going. Come on."

"Keep those guns ready," Denham reminded the men.

"He's telling us," grunted Jimmy.

A wide glade opened to their weary feet Bruised by the trees they had not been able to avoid in the darkness, stung by branches which had whipped them at every step, they stumbled into it thankfully. It was now full daylight. Except for a thin drifting mist every tree, every bush, every strand of knee deep grass was clearly visible.

Once again they came upon a footprint and once again it led on in the direction they had been going.

Driscoll had started off at a trot when Denham called out in alarm. Halting, Driscoll looked to a flank along the line of the director's extended arm. Behind him the sailors burst into panic-stricken cries.

"Kong!" someone cried. But it was not Kong.

An immense beast was emerging from the jungle, a beast with a thick, scaly hide, a huge spiked tail and a small reptilian head upon a long swaying neck. It walked in an awkward squatting posture upon tremendous hind legs. Its forelegs were carried elevated far up toward the base of the long neck and were more like paws.

The sailors stared in confused unbelief, but Denham and Driscoll grew cold from their first full realization of the true scope of the island's mystery.

"Jimmy," Denham cried. "Where are the bombs?"

He seized one as the beast turned in their direction.

"When I throw," he called loudly, "everybody must drop in his tracks, and keep his face pressed close to the earth."

Still at the edge of the jungle, the beast widened its nostrils and drew in the puzzling scent of the strange creatures in the glade. Full of this, it started upon a clumsy, open-mouthed attack.

The sailors scattered, Jimmy a slow last because of his burden now become doubly precious. Only Denham and Driscoll stood fast. The latter pumped two rifle shots into the swaying head with no effect. Denham waited patiently for the target to come closer.

"When you drop," he said unhurriedly, "keep close to me and don't get up until I do."

Then he threw.

The missile struck squarely in front of the beast's feet. Its instant explosion enveloped feet, scaly body and small head in a thick blue vapor.

"Down!" Denham shouted, and flung himself to the ground.

As Driscoll dropped alongside, the director put a hand on his mate's face to make sure it pressed close to the ground.

Driscoll breathed in the damp rich smell of earth, and the sap of growing roots grew bitter upon his lips. Just forward the ground shook from the fall of a great weight. He would have got up, but Denham's hand pressed warningly. Finally the hand lifted and then tapped his shoulder.

Driscoll stood up. Scarcely the length of his own body away lay the outstretched, twitching head of the beast. Back of the head the body rose like an enormous mound. The mate was amazed at the beast's proximity.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "It came a good fifty feet after it got the gas."

"But I stopped it," Denham said triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you one of those bombs would stop anything?"

"Is it dead?"

"No," Denham said. "But that's just a detail." He picked up his gun, walked forward, felt for the beast's heart and shot twice. The great body started convulsively and then grew rigid. Denham hesitated, then for good measure sent a bullet through the reptilian head.

Backing off to Driscoll, he stared with something of the unbelief of the sailors who now came slowly back.

"Prehistoric life!" he ejaculated, and turning to Driscoll he cried out: "Jack! She was right last night on the ship. Ann, I mean. But she only had the start of it. She guessed the beast-god was some primitive survival. But if this thing we've killed means anything, the plateau is alive with all sorts of creatures that have survived along with Kong."

Driscoll looked to see no dirt had fouled his rifle, and beckoned the sailors.

"Look for tracks!" he ordered.

"My own guess," he said slowly, as the men scattered, "is that you'll find plenty of survivals. And that you won't like them half as much as you think."

Tracks were easy to find in the light of day. A half dozen men reported them, and in a little while the trail was resumed. It still led along the stream, but the land now sloped downward.

"The mist is thickening," Jimmy complained.

"Thickening!" Denham said. "Look there!"

A hollow lay ahead of them. The stream ran into it, and where the hollow sank deepest the morning mist had become almost a cloud of fog. In the midst of this, they heard a splashing.

"Think it's him?" Denham said.

"We'll find out," Driscoll cried, and raced ahead.

He was waiting in exasperation at the water's edge when the others caught up with him. Beside him was a fresh footprint not yet filled with water although that seeped quickly into any depression made on the bank.

"He got across," he said, and waved to the stream which widened almost to a small lake in the hollow. "We've got to swim."

"That's out." Denham shook his head. "We can't swim with guns and bombs."

"Then we can do better," Driscoll said and pointed to two logs resting against the shore. "We'll build a raft."

"Good!" Denham agreed.

"All right, boys," Driscoll called. "We're going to ferry over. On a raft."

The sailors nodded, but before they could spread out to hunt for more logs and for stout, pliable vines to use as ropes, Driscoll beckoned them soberly.

"Here's something you ought to know," he said and briefly told of the conclusion he and Denham had drawn after studying the beast just slain. "This may be more than you bargained for," he ended. "If anyone of you wants to go back, now's the time to shove off."

The men looked at one another. Finally Jimmy put a question.

"You say that maybe we'll want to back out because we've never seen any of these big lobsters? Is that the idea?"

Driscoll nodded.

"Well!" Jimmy said with a pleased glance at his bombs, "they haven't seen us either. That makes it fifty-fifty. I guess we'll stick."