JOY RIDE
Fighting was rampant on deck. Mohallet and his followers, without exercise for days, were getting it aplenty now. From the sounds, they were not doing so badly.
“They’re welcome to whatever headway they make,” Doc thought grimly.
He knew he had not sent Mohallet and the rest to any fate which they would have escaped had he not released them. Left imprisoned, they would certainly have been captured.
A swarthy man, streaming crimson from a head cut, fell down the control-room companion, and ran along a steel-walled corridor. Half a dozen breech-clothed, white-haired savages pursued him. More followed.
Doc swept the girl forward. They exchanged no more sign talk. There was not time for it.
A try at submerging the Helldiver would be useless. It was moored to a rock hump ashore with a hawser which the best efforts of the engines would not snap.
Wrenching open a small cabinet, Doc took out two diving “lungs.” These consisted of little more than nose clips and mouthpieces, from which a hose led to an oxygen and air-purifying tank which could be strapped on the back.
In another cabinet lay other diving equipment, pressure suits for deep-water work. Heavy leaded ankle weights were there. Doc seized some. They would be necessary in this buoyant salt water.
The diving lock—a chamber which permitted ingress and egress under water—was situated near the bows. He made for it, closing the water-tight pressure door behind them.
Five minutes sufficed to don the “lungs” and the heavy anklets of lead. Doc instructed the girl in the simple operation of the apparatus, repeating his directions several times. Then he thrust the lever which opened the diving compartment to the water.
Brine rushed in, filling the little chamber. The buoyancy of it lifted them; the weights tugged at their ankles.
Doc dropped out. He sank perhaps ten feet. It was possible to keep his eyes open in the water. The stuff was remarkably clear, for all of its salt content.
The girl glided down to his side. Her hair—it was not inclosed by the diving lung, which was hoodless—seemed even whiter beneath the surface.
Doc grasped her hand. They walked away, leaning far over to move against the weight of the water.
Having retained his sense of direction, Doc set a course parallel to the shore, veering in a bit where the depth was not so great—possibly twenty feet above their heads. The pressure there was not uncomfortable.
Brilliant sunlight, penetrating the brine, seemed to dispel its body. It was as if they were walking in a strangely solid air. Such bubbles as arose, and there were a few, resembled jewels.
Past experience had told Doc about how far they would go in a given time. Distance covered was deceptive under water, since it required a great deal more effort, and their steps were short at the best. Fifteen minutes later, he angled over, found a low place which meant a gulch, and quitted the water.
The white-haired girl tramped at his side. They were in a wash with gently sloping, sun-heated sides. Doc motioned the girl to remain where she was. Stripping off diving lungs and weights, he clambered up the slope.
Affairs at the submarine had taken a turn different than he had expected.
* * * *
Mohallet was palavering with the whitish, apish men. The swarthy fellow was waving his arms and talking with great vehemence. His followers were gathered behind him. They seemed to have suffered few casualties.
Doc discovered his own five friends. They had been bound tightly, flung down on the sand, and were under heavy guard. Turning, Doc beckoned the girl. Obediently, she scrambled up to his side.
He spoke slowly and carefully in a dialect peculiar to certain inland nomads of Arabia.
It was evident that she comprehended many of his words, but not quite enough to get his meaning. This proved what he had surmised. Her tongue was merely an inland dialect of Arabia.
He reverted to the fingered words. “Does Mohallet speak the language of the White Beasts?”
“My own tongue and that of the White Beasts is almost the same,” he read from the girl’s fingers. “Mohallet learned to speak with me, so he can converse with the others.”
Doc decided to settle a point which had puzzled him from the first.
“How does it happen that you can transmit English on your fingers, yet do not speak or understand the tongue?”
She smiled slightly—a grand tribute to her courage.
“Some forty years ago, a man of your own race came to my people out of the desert. He had been unlucky enough to be captured by the White Beasts, and we rescued him in a raid upon their village.”
Doc nodded. The wanderer who had come to her people must have been some unlucky explorer.
“The White Beasts had tortured this man—they had cut out his tongue before we arrived, and thrust sharp thorns into his ears, rendering them useless,” continued the girl, her slender fingers flashing letters rapidly.
Doc nodded once more. The explorer had been the same as deaf and dumb. He saw the light. He watched the girl’s fingers go on.
“Unable to hear our language, this man looked in a book which was in his supplies, and from it taught us a way of talking on our fingers, that he might converse with us,” the abbreviated finger talk continued. “He lived with us the rest of his life. I knew him in my youth. He taught me the language, and grateful for my kindness to him in his old age, he made me many small presents.”
Her youth could not have been long ago, Doc reflected. She was not more than twenty, if he was any guesser.
He squinted at the submarine. Nothing radical had developed. Mohallet was still haranguing. He turned his attention back to the girl, anxious to get her story.
“How did you get out of this place?” he questioned.
“The White Beasts captured me,” she replied, then looked as if that explained everything.
“I do not understand,” Doc persisted.
“The White Beasts throw their prisoners, dead and living, into the mouth of the underground river, as sacrifices,” she transmitted. “It chanced that the stream was very low when I was thrown in. The seasonal rains had not come, and the sun had sucked up the waters until they were low. I got through.”
Doc perceived how that was possible. The salty brine would make it simple, since a human form floated easily in the stuff. From this, it was evident that the mouth of the underground stream at Crying Rock was occasionally exposed.
“What did you do for food?” he queried.
“I did without. I was very weak, and could not run away when a raiding party from Mohallet’s main band found me.”
Doc was catching her abbreviated words more easily now—he found that repeating them under his breath as they were formed helped. Of course, a person could go downstream much faster than the submarine had come up. But her long voyage underground must have been a ghastly ordeal.
“Why is Mohallet so anxious to get to the Phantom City?” he asked.
“I do not know.”
“Is there any platinum in the city?”
“I do not know what platinum is.”
* * * *
Doc considered, then decided to go deeper into the platinum subject. “It is a grayish, shiny metal.”
“There is much of that.”
“There was a man lying dead on the shore,” Doc explained. “He was evidently one of your people. He wore garments made of plates of a shiny metal. Is that the same metal of which you have so much?”
She showed distress. “The White Beasts kill many of my people, and have done so for years, until there are but few left. Yes; that is the metal.”
Doc scratched his head thoughtfully. It was not often that he made any kind of gesture when thinking.
“Were you wearing garments of this metal when Mohallet found you?” he asked.
“No. They were too heavy. I threw them off.”
“But you told Mohallet of the stuff?” he asked.
“Yes. I told him how much there was. That was before I knew him to be an evil man. My words seemed to excite him greatly.”
“I don’t doubt it!” Doc said aloud. But he sounded puzzled. He reverted to fingered words.
“Were you not wearing bracelets or rings of white metal?”
“Yes. One bracelet. It was very dear to me because——”
“Wait!” Doc rapped in English, then held up a hand to make himself understood.
Mohallet’s confab with the White Beasts had come to an end. An end favorable to Mohallet! Some sort of an agreement had been reached.
The White Beasts, it was evident from what now ensued, had accepted Mohallet and his swarthy villains as allies, temporarily at least.
Doc’s five friends were lifted and carried to the submarine. They were not taken below, but dumped on deck.
As many of the furry white savages now clambered aboard the Helldiver as could cling. Many of them went below. From the way they fingered around, stroking the guard rails, opening and shutting the hatches, and laughing wildly, it was apparent they were intrigued by this great steel toy.
The mooring cable was cast off and hauled in. The vibration of the surface Diesels came to Doc’s sensitive ears. The Helldiver began to move.
“Wonder what they think became of us?” Doc pondered on his fingers, giving the girl a smile to insure her confidence.
The smile had a somewhat different effect than Doc had hoped for. The entrancingly pretty, white-haired girl returned it with a look Doc had seen before on the features of members of the fair sex.
He made his bronze countenance sober. It was invariably something like this when he was thrown with a young lady. Whatever race the girl belonged to, the same thing happened. And it always made Doc genuinely uncomfortable.
The white-haired girl was stricken with the bronze man’s undeniable good looks. She would be affected more as time passed.
It was always that way.
As had many another, she was headed for disappointment. Doc had long ago made up his mind that the fair sex had no place in an existence such as he led—a life in which hardly a day was without its deadly peril, not only to Doc, but to those associated with him.
He made a very intent job of watching the submarine. Mohallet’s followers were evidently taking their savage allies for a little joy ride.
* * * *
The Helldiver swept some distance offshore, then cruised along at a fair pace. The white-furred savages did much squawling in their low dialect, and jumping around. They took turns diving below to inspect the marvels there. Since some had to come up before others went down, it was evident the interior of the underseas boat was jammed.
Something happened.
The sub veered suddenly for shore. It put on great speed. Spray flew from the bows. Terror seemed to sweep the decks. Mohallet’s men piled wildly out on deck and crowded for the bows, as if greatly desiring to get that much nearer land. Then the truth became evident.
The submarine was sinking. Going down by the bows! The presence of Mohallet’s men on deck showed the submersion was not deliberate.
Some accident had occurred below.
“One of them opened the door of the diving compartment, not knowing what it was, and they can’t get it closed!” Doc informed the girl in the sign language. “Water is coming in—flooding the sub!”
The scene which followed would have thrown a movie director into ecstasies of delight. It was mob terror in its most spectacular form. Long before the Helldiver reached shore, men began leaping overboard.
It was not necessary for them to swim. The salty water floated them like corks.
“There’s machinery which will close the diving-compartment door!” Doc yelled, making an effort to save the craft.
He had put himself in plain view. His great voice romped across the briny surface with surprising volume.
But there was too much yelling confusion aboard the sub for him to be heard.
The Helldiver sank perhaps a hundred yards offshore.