CHAPTER 16 : Prisoners In The Dungeon
PRESENTLY the Blue Phantom faded out and was
gone. Darkness like a blanket pressed down on Pete.
He tried once more to wriggle free and only got
himself more tightly tangled in the big net.
What a fix! he thought glumly. Instead of nabbing
a harmless old fellow who was playing at being a
ghost, they had been nabbed themselves. The two
characters who had netted them had looked tough
enough. And they had obviously been ready and
waiting.
Pete thought of Bob and Worthington waiting for
them down the canyon road. Would he ever see them
again? Would he ever see his Mom and Dad?
He was feeling as miserable as he had ever felt in
his life when a light began bobbing across the room
towards him. As it came closer, he saw that it was an
electric lantern in the hand of a tall man. This one was
wearing the long silk robes of an Oriental nobleman.
The man reached Pete and bent over him, shining
the lantern in his face. Pete could see cruel slant eyes
and a mouth full of gold teeth.
“Small fools,” the man said.“Why could you not
be sensible and stay away, like the others? Now we
must take care of you.”
He drew a finger across his throat and made an ugly
noise. Pete got the message. His blood ran cold.
“Who are you?” he asked. He stuttered a little,
getting the words out.“What are you up to?”
“Ha!” the man said.“To the lower dungeon!” He
picked Pete up like a sack of potatoes, threw him over
his shoulder and started back the way he had come.
Slung over the man’s shoulder, Pete couldn’t see
much in the almost total darkness. He knew they went
through a door, down a passage, then down a very
long flight of winding stairs. They came out in a
corridor that felt damp and chilly, went through some
more doors, and wound up in a small room like a cell.
A dungeon cell. There were rusty ring-bolts attached
to the walls.
Something white, like a cocoon, was lying in a
corner. The smaller Arab sat beside it, sharpening a
long knife.
“Where is Abdul?” the Oriental asked. He dumped
Pete on the stone floor beside the cocoon, which
turned out to be Jupiter, still wrapped in the net
which had caught him.
“He went to get Zelda,” the small Arab said in a
deep, guttural voice.“She and Gipsy Kate are hiding
the pearls. We are going to take a vote on what we
shall do with these puppies we have caught.”
“I say we just lock the door to this cosy little room
and leave them,” the second man said.“No one will
ever find them, and soon the old castle will really be
haunted.”
“It’s not a bad idea.” The Arab grunted.“But just
to make certain, we ought to let a little blood first.”
He ran the edge of his knife along his thumb, and
Pete, watching him, swallowed with difficulty. He
wanted to whisper to his stocky partner, but Jupiter
was lying so still beside him that Pete was afraid he
might be hurt.
“I’ll go and see where Zelda is.” The Arab sheathed
his knife and stood up. He cast a glance at the two
bundles on the floor.“Come along and give me a
hand hiding our tracks. These fish won’t get out of the
nets very fast.”
“You’re right. We must make haste.” The tall
Oriental hung his electric lantern on the wall so that it
clearly illuminated the two boys. Then the two men
hurried out. Pete could hear their footsteps growing
fainter. Then he heard a grinding sound, as of a large
rock being moved. Then silence―until Jupiter spoke.
“Pete,” he asked,“are you all right?”
“It depends on what you mean by all right,” Pete
told him.“If you mean no broken bones, yes, I’m fine,
I’m dandy, I’m peachy-pie.”
“I’m glad you have not been injured.” Jupiter
sounded very upset.“I must apologise for leading you
into unsuspected danger. I was too sure of my own
deductions.”
“Aw, it could happen to anybody,” Pete answered.
“I mean, it sounded so logical. Who could guess we
were going to run into some kind of gang? Especially
when we didn’t find any traces outside of anybody
using this place as a hangout.”
“Yes, and I was so sure Mr. Terrill must be the one
who was responsible,” Jupiter said,“that it never
occurred to me to suspect otherwise. Tell me, can you
move your hands?”
“I can wiggle my little finger, if that’s any help,”
Pete said.“I’m all tangled up in these meshes”
“Fortunately I have the use of my right hand,”
Jupiter told him.“I am making some progress
towards freeing myself. Maybe you can help by telling
me where to cut next.”
Pete flopped over on his side. Jupe did likewise.
Now that his partner’s back was towards him, Pete
could see that Jupiter had managed to get at a Swiss
knife that hung from his belt. Its eight blades included
a screwdriver and a pair of scissors. Jupiter bad
opened the tiny pair of scissors and had snipped
several of the net’s meshes so that he could get his
hand out.
“Cut over towards your left,” Pete whispered.
“You’ll be able to get your left hand free ... That’s
it.”
The scissors were small and the net seemed to be
made of tough nylon, but with Pete directing Jupiter
made progress. Soon he had both bands free. After
that he was able to make much faster progress. He
was starting to cut off the whole bottom half of the
net when they suddenly heard footsteps.
For a moment they were too terrified to move. Then
Jupiter’s wits began to work, and he rolled quickly
over on to his back, to hide the cut net. They waited
with pounding hearts.
In a moment a stooped old crone came into the
room, holding an electric lantern high over her head.
She wore tattered gipsy robes and had huge gold rings
in her ears.
“Well, my pretties,” she cackled,“resting nice and
comfortably? So you wouldn’t take the warning that
Gipsy Kate, good Gipsy Kate, went to so much
trouble to leave you! And now look what’s happened
to you. Always heed a gipsy’s warning, my pretties,
and you’ll be the better for it.”
Something about the stiffness with which they lay
attracted her attention, for she hurried directly to
their sides.
“Tricks, my pretties, tricks?” she cackled. Deftly
she turned Jupiter over and saw the cut net.
“So that’s it! The chicks want to escape!” She
grasped Jupiter’s wrist and twisted it. The knife fell to
the floor. She scooped it up.“Now we must teach you
a lesson, pretty ones,” she said, and raised her voice.
“Zelda!” she screamed.“Ropes! Ropes! Our birdies
want to fly away.”
“I’m coming, Kate, I’m coming,” a voice answered
in English accents. In a moment a tall woman―well
dressed―appeared in the doorway. She held a length
of rope in her hand.
“They’re clever, very clever,” the gipsy crooned.
“We must tie them tightly, tightly. You help hold this
one while I truss him up.”
Pete could do nothing but watch as the two women
made short work of securing his partner again. First
they cut the net loose from Jupiter, then tied his hands
securely behind his back. Next they tied his feet.
Finally they ran a rope from his wrists to a rusty old
iron ring set into the stone wall.
Since the net that held Pete was still intact, they just
wound the rope round him a few times and tied it
well.
“Now they’ll stay, Zelda,” the old gipsy cackled.
“They’ll never leave. I’ve convinced the men we
mustn’t be cruel. Oh no. we mustn’t be cruel, we
mustn’t spill blood. We’ll just leave them and close
the door to this dungeon cell. They’ll never tell anyone
what has happened.”
“It’s a pity,” the Englishwoman said.“They seem
like nice boys.”
“Don’t get soft now, Zelda,” the gipsy screeched.
“We voted, and you can’t go against the vote. Hurry
now, we must hide our tracks and be gone.”
She took the light from the wall and scurried out.
The Englishwoman held the other lantern and played
its beam down on the two helpless boys.
“Why did you have to be so stubborn, ducks?” she
asked.“Everyone else got scared and stayed away.
One little tune from the terror organ, and no one else
has ever returned. Why did you have to keep coming
back?”
“The Three Investigators never give up,” Jupiter
said stubbornly.
“Sometimes it’s more sensible to give up,” the
woman replied.“Well, it’s time for me to say
goodbye. I hope you won’t be frightened in the dark. I
have to go now.”
“Before you go,” Jupiter said―and Pete had to
admire the way he kept his voice steady―“may I ask
a question?”
“To be sure, boy, to be sure,” the woman said.
“What criminal enterprise are you and your
confederates engaged in?” Jupiter asked.
“La, such long words!” The woman laughed.
“Why, young man, we are smugglers. We smuggle
valuables from the Orient, mostly pearls, and use this
old place as our headquarters. For years we’ve kept
everyone from coming near it by making it seem
haunted. it’s the perfect hiding place.”
“But why do you wear such noticeable costumes?”
the boy asked.“Anyone who sees you is bound to
notice you.”
“No one sees us, young man,” the Englishwoman
said.“And I mustn’t answer all your questions or you
won’t have anything to think about. Goodbye now, in
case we never meet again. And I don’t think we will.”
She took the electric lantern and hurried out. As
she slammed the cell door shut, darkness wrapped
itself around the two. Pete felt his throat getting dry
and his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.
“Jupe!” he said,“say something! I want to hear
some noise.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Jupiter sounded absent-minded.“I
was thinking.”
“Thinking! At a time like this?”
“Why, yes. Did you notice that when Gipsy Kate
left us a few minutes ago she turned to the right and
went down the corridor in that direction?”
“No, I didn’t notice. What difference does it
make?”
“Well, that’s the opposite direction from which we
came. So she’s not going back upstairs into the castle.
She’s going deeper into the dungeon. That suggests
there must be a secret entrance somewhere. Which
would also explain why there’s no sign of anyone
going in and out outside.”
Whiskers! Even tied up in a dungeon and left to
starve, Jupiter couldn’t keep his grey cells from
buzzing.
“I don’t suppose while you’ve been doing all that
thinking,” Pete said,“you’ve thought of any way to
get us out of here?”
“No,” Jupiter said.“I haven’t. I can’t think of a
single, solitary way for us to get out of here
unassisted. Please accept my apologies, Pete. I made a
bad miscalculation in this ease.”
Pete couldn’t think of anything to say to that, and
in silence the two boys lay and listened to the tiny
sounds in the darkness. Somewhere a mouse
scampered. And somewhere else water was dripping.
The slow drops, as they fell, seemed to be measuring
off―one by one―the minutes that were left.
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