'There — up on Ship Rock!' Linn said.
It was lighter over the sea than below our cliffs. Then I spotted the figure high up — Heaven knows how he had got there — clinging to the face of the massive pillar.
'God help him, Linn — we can't.'
'John — we can't leave him!'
'It will be a mercy if he drops off soon,' I replied slowly. 'He's only prolonging his own agony. He'll never last, up there.'
She turned away in silent grief and hid her face in her hood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The growing light — it was after six o'clock — revealed a grim, savage scene both out to sea and on land.
Vaalkop's 200-metre crater was out of sight immediately behind us, but nearby another splendid crater-topped pair of cones known as Moeder-en-Kind (Mother-and-Child) was visible. Between Vaalkop and this group was a sloping valley like the centre section of a gigantic saddle. Mist swirled about the double cones. This mist was the only soft thing about Prince Edward.
There are about ten other major craters on the island, which is only nine kilometres long and seven broad. I had often viewed these old volcanoes through binoculars from a safe distance out to sea. They rose in succession to the splendid 670-metre summit called Van Zinderen Bakker Peak in the middle of the island. The aggregation of these great red crater cones, the undertaker's black of the lava flows, the precipitous sea-cliffs, the princely escarpment and the coastal plain in the north and east with its emerald-green coves of weather-defying plants, all make Prince Edward's landscape as strange as a new planet. As I shifted to get a better view of the high scarp which backed Mother-and-Child towards the island's central dominating peak, an eddy brought to my nostrils the unique smell of Prince Edward — a lava-born odour, harsh, ammoniacal, raw and primitive.
'Get moving!' It was Wegger. He gestured impatiently up a slope between the rocks.
'Which way?' I asked.
There's only one way,' he retorted. 'I should know. I used it for months looking for a ship to rescue me.' "What do you mean, Wegger?'
The cave of course. We go along the coast between Ac sea and the cliffs. There!' He pointed eastwards.
The cave's on the other side of the island!' I exclaimed. 'We're all done in. We're in no shape to walk there at the moment!'
I didn't like the way he answered. 'It's eight kilometres and a bit. I know every inch. That's the way we're going — now.'
'We'll never make it!'
'Get this clear, Shotton,' he said with menacing deliberation. 'You are still useful to me. I need you to help me load the gold. I need you to help sail me to Mauritius.' He addressed Linn in the same hectoring tone. 'You're still useful too, in a small way. You can make food, help keep us going. But I warn you, don't try shamming or coming any feminine weaknesses over me. It won't work. Don't either of you try escaping either. There's nowhere to run to. I should know — God, I should know!'
The forces driving him clipped his words tight with tension.
'Don't think you can escape to Marion — you can't The channel's a death-trap. Marion's twenty-two kilometres away — you may get a sight of it, if the sky clears. Most likely you won't. I sighted it only half a dozen times in all the months I was marooned here.'
'Wegger,' I said, 'we're lucky, damned lucky, to be alive at all at this moment. The Best we can hope for is to survive. Forget that dream of yours about gold in the cave. There isn't any there. Jacobsen said so, and he must have known. The British lifted it years ago — it's in the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank in America…'
He strode over and struck me across the face with the back of his talon-like hand. I grabbed it but he tore free and had the pistol on me with the other. I never saw it move, he was so quick.
'If the gold's gone, you're no use to me anyway,' he replied roughly. 'Neither you nor the girl. You both know too much. The trip to the cave will take us five, maybe six hours. At the end of it, depending on whether the gold is there or not, you'll know whether you're going on living. Now — march!'
'Come, Linn,' I said.
I helped her over the serrated teeth of the rocks. Slowly we climbed out to the cliff-top. Wegger followed, ordering us this way and that, until we had skirted Vaalkop's wedge-shaped crater high above us and were on a scarp about 50 metres high which followed the coastline for the next two kilometres. At that point it seemed to run dead against the seaward edge of the base on which stood the great central block of craters.
It was a wild scene. The valley between Vaalkop and Mother-and-Child, viewed from close-up as we were, was a series of deep gullies radiating inland and then mounting in a succession of transverse lava ridges to the top of the twin summits. The banded platforms between the lava blocks appeared filled with a cement-like covering of old lava ash. There did not seem to be an inch of level ground anywhere which was not cluttered with conelets, balls or blocks of broken lava. Higher still, where the surface rose towards the main central scarp, the plate-like layers were covered with balls of mosses and here and there patches of rough tussocky grass which looked like a porcupine's quills.
Where we were standing the surface was a collection of rounded chunks of black lava interspersed with irregular lumps which looked like pats of cow-dung, big spheroidal 'bombs' deeply embedded, and curiously-shaped pieces shaped like the fangs of an extinct sabre-toothed tiger. A light scattering of snow was melting between them, making our onward path slippery and dangerous.
Wegger came up to us. 'I'll lead.' he cast about the grim, lunar-like surface like a hound looking for a scent and then headed diagonally across the small platform on which we stood. His sea-boots slipped on the uneven ground; both Linn and I were wearing thermal boots, which were warmer, but softer. I wondered how long they would last over that terrain.
I took a last glance at Ship Rock. The survivor was still there. Linn wouldn't look.
When Wegger was out of earshot, Linn asked, 'Is that true about Marion, John?'
'Yes. I've heard of survivors wrecked on Prince Edward who had boats but waited a year for a day favourable enough to attempt the crossing.'
'Only twenty-two kilometres to safety!'
'Linn — it was the toughest of luck to be blown ashore at Prince Edward. A slight shift of the gale and it would have been Marion. Then all this nightmare wouldn't have happened. If only I'd had an idea of.Botany Bay's position!'
'You couldn't have known, John. I only hope the transmitter is still working.'
'It's safe?'
'Right inside here.' She smiled and tapped the region of her left breast.
I tried to return the smile but it was a poor attempt. 'I fear for us when he finds the cave empty, my darling.'
'He's mad, isn't he?'
'Mad, mad, mad. Also, he's got a grenade and a gun.'
'Here!' shouted Wegger. 'Stop dragging your feet! Hurry! I've located my old path!'
We headed up the ridge, slowing down and slipping as we negotiated what looked like gigantic fossilized roots stretching from the summit of the hillock where Wegger waited. In fact they were lava tubes spreading down the loose slope.
When we joined Wegger we saw ahead a scene in strange contrast to the unending black lava. As far as the eye could see there was a mosaic of swamp, herb-field and formations of tussocky grassland between the scarp and the sea. It overlay, and was pierced by, outcrops of black and maroon-red lava. The astonishing greenness of some of the patches, mixed with darker browns and russets, gave the vista a colour as unreal as Wegger's own dream of gold.
It wasn't a dream when we reached it. It was a nightmare. Wegger led. I didn't realize we were into a swamp until I saw the crust of ice on either side of the narrow path Wegger was scouting. Ice-needles, squeezed out of the ground by freezing and topped with tiny pebbles, made the path resemble a fakir's bed. Our boots crunched and squelched. Wegger quickly forged ahead. We lost his path. In a miry place I selected what appeared to be a firm patch of peat. In a moment I was up to the waist in icy water.