Return to Skull Island by Ron Miller, Darrell Funk Read Free Book Online Page B

spend the rest of my life in here.”
    The man was obviously a contemptible egoist. No wonder the Bolshies lined his kind up against the wall. Well, it was up to me, then. But of what to do I hadn’t the foggiest notion. In my rage I grasped the heavy bars of the cell and shook them with everything I had. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but all I produced was a lot of noise and a shower of rust. Who would have thought such a crappy country could have managed to build such a strong jail?
    “Hey! Hold it down in there! You’ll wake up the whole damn town!”
    Who was that? I turned to my companion, but he was obviously as surprised as I was.
    “Hey!” the voice called again. “Hey! Over here! Mr. Denham!”
    It was someone at the window. I shoved the Count off the cot and dragged it under the little barred opening. Standing on it, I peered into the darkness.
    “Mr. Denham?”
    “Yeah, it’s me, Denham. Who’s out there?”
    “It’s me, Phipps, from the Venture , with the Captain and some other fellows. Is Miss Wildman there?”
    “They’ve taken Pat—Miss Wildman somewhere.”
    “Hold on a second, we’ll get a rope to you.”
    A moment later I saw the end of a heavy rope waving just beyond the bars. I reached through and grabbed it.
    “Tie it round the bars and when you got it, stand back, OK?”
    I made a couple of loops around the bars and then tied off the rope with a good, strong knot.
    I said OK and with that I heard the sound of an engine coughing into life. Gears ground and the cable twanged as it became as taut as an iron rod. I could see what they had in mind and stood well back from the window. They were going to pop it out of the wall so I could crawl through the hole. There was a groan and wide zigzag cracks suddenly appeared and then the entire wall tipped over into the darkness beyond. This happened with a tremendous roar and the building shook as though there had been an earthquake.
    I stood in the gaping opening for a silent moment, admiring the sudden and unexpected panorama of Los Las by moonlight. In the immediate foreground was a dilapidated truck. A rope led from its rear axle to the pile of rubble that had been the late wall of my cell. Beside the truck—too stunned by the magnitude of what they had done, or too abashed—were Phipps, Bart and old Englehorn himself.
    “We’d better get out of here,” he said. “That must have waken up the whole town.”
    I had my doubts about that, looking around at the still-dark windows that surrounded us. I had a momentary flush of admiration for the San Serifian’s dogged devotion to unconsciousness.
    “We’ve got to rescue Pat, Captain. Culebra’s got her.”
    “He has, eh?”
    “Maybe half an hour ago, maybe a little longer. A bunch of his men took her. She killed at least one and crippled a couple of others, but they still got her.”
    “I doubt if she’ll need any help from us, but I suppose we ought to do what we can. Who’s the gink scowling behind you?”
    “Him? Not much, but I guess we can’t leave a white man behind if we can help it.”
    “Thank you very much,” said the count, with a snide little bow. “I appreciate your great generosity.”
    “Yeah, well try not to mention it any more than you can help. You got any idea where they might have taken Pat?”
    “The governor’s palace, without doubt. Culebra has been living there ever since his revolution. It is up on the side of the hill opposite the harbor.”
    “That big white place with all the lights?”
    “That’s it.”
    It was lit like a Monte Carlo casino and I, for one, couldn’t imagine how we could get anywhere near it without being seen. We’d just have to get as many men from the Venture ashore as we could manage and rush the governor’s palace by main force. And hope for the best, I guess.
    There was no shortage of volunteers, of course, once I’d made it clear that Pat was in danger, there not being a man jack of the crew who hadn’t