[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

bottle foist. I never see nobody get de woiks wit' a toist in him like I got."
With all of them crowded in there, the sweltering heat had filled up the room
so that it was like a physical compression, which cramped breathing and
weighed into the brain with a relentless pressure that tempted thought into
the hazy liberty of delirium. Another snake might have rustled under the floor
beneath Peter Quentin, There might have been a repetition of the scuffling
sound that he had heard before, the thin creak, and the snap, and a muffled
thudding that was not quite the same. The shadows that had been still might
have begun moving again. He would not have been sure.
He said roughly: "I hate to remind you, but we weren't talking about your
grisly past. We were in the middle of a hot spelling game, and it's up to you,
Hoppy. It goes R-I-F-L. And I think we've got you for another life.
"O," said the Saint.
Nobody stirred. It was a stillness in which pins could have dropped on velvet
with an ear-stunning clatter.
"I'll challenge you," Peter said at last. "There's no such word."
"Riflolver," said the Saint.
There was a quick march of steps outside, and the door was opened. The single
light went on.
Heinrich Friede stood in the entrance, with the sentry just behind him, His
lips were flattened over his teeth in a smile of sneering vindictiveness that
embraced them all, so that the creases that ran down from his nose cut deeper
into his face.
"We are about to leave," he said. "I hope you have enjoyed the anticipation
of your own departure. You will not have much longer to wait-perhaps half an
hour. I shall press the button as soon as we have reached open water."
Peter and Patricia and Karen and Hoppy looked at him once, but after that
they looked more at the Saint. It might have seemed like a tribute to
personality or a gesture of loyalty; but the truth was many times more
mundane. They were simply letting their eyes confirm the incomprehensible
evidence that their ears had offered a few seconds before.
Page 160
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
For the Saint was there, sitting at the end of one cot, exactly as they had
seen him last, with his hands behind him and the bruises of Friede's violence
swelling in his face and his shabby clothes sandy and dishevelled. Only
perhaps the reckless disdain of his blue eyes burned brighter and more
invincible.
"I hope you have a nice voyage, Heinrich," he said.
"It is a waste of time to tell you," Friede said, "but I should like one
particular thought to cheer your last moment. You, in your unimportant
dissolution, are only a symbol of what you represent. Just as you have tried
to fight us and have been out-generalled and destroyed, so everyone on earth
who tries to fight us will be destroyed. The little damage you have done will
be repaired; your own futility can not be repaired. Console yourselves with
that. The rest of your tribe will soon follow you into your extinction, except
those whom we keep for slaves as you once kept other inferior races. So you
see, all you have achieved and all you die for is nothing."
The Saint's eyes were unmoving pools of sapphire."It is a waste of time to
tell you," he mocked. "But I wish you could know one thing before you die. All
that you and your kind will destroy the world for is no more in history than a
forest fire. You'll bring your great gifts of blackness and desolation; but
one day the trees will be green again and nobody will remember you."
"I leave you to your fantasy," said the captain.
And he was gone, with another click of the switch and a slam of the door.
They heard him striding away, his footfalls dying on the ground outside,
waking again hollowly on the planking of the pier, then ceasing altogether.
They heard the last crack of command, and a soft splash of water. The seconds
ticked away.
"Simon," said Patricia.
"Quiet," said the Saint tensely.
They had only their hearing to build a picture with, and the sounds that
reached them seemed to come through the wrong end of an auditory telescope.
Even the sentry's footsteps had ceased; and the endless whine of mosquitoes
and the chirrup of other insects built up an obscuring fog in which other
sounds were confused.
But there might have been some scuffling of wood, and the ring of a distant
tramping on metal. There were voices, and a repetition of the deep steady hum
that they had heard before, which drowned out the insects for a while, and
then was bafflingly equal with them, and then sank away until it was lost in
its turn. Then there seemed to be nothing at all but the soft swish of water
against the shore and among the mangrove roots.
The owl came back and began moaning again.
But still the Saint kept silence, while minutes seemed to drag out into
hours, before he felt sure enough to move.
Then light seemed to crash into the room like thunder as he flipped the
switch.
They stared at him as he stood smiling, with his knife in his hand.
Page 161
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"I'm sorry, boys and girls," he said, "but I couldn't take any chances on
being overheard."
"We understand," said Peter Quentin. "You're so considerate that we're
dazzled to look at you."
Simon was cutting Patricia free. She kissed him as the last cord fell away,
and massaged her wrists as he went over to Karen Leith.
As he freed her, she said: "I think-I think we all thought you were loose
before."
"I was," said the Saint.
"Of course," said Peter Quentin, as his turn came, "you wouldn't have cared
to tell anyone."
"I had something to do, Simon said. He finished with Peter and went on to
Hoppy. "I knew there must be a trapdoor in the floor or something, and
eventually I found it. The lock was a bit awkward, but I mixed my wood-carving
and my strong-arm act, and sort of persuaded it. Then I had to do my worm
impersonation with some wriggling and burrowing under the outside [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]