“Of course we’ll make it,” Kate wheezed as she strained forward. “We just need to . . . Hey, what’s that?”
The others saw it, too, a lumpy black object on the ground ahead. The object blended in almost perfectly with the rocky ground, and because of the mists they hadn’t seen it until they were almost upon it. It wasn’t a large rock, or even a group of rocks, but appeared to be a long, shallow pile of mud — though where such a lot of mud would have come from was impossible to guess. And then, as the children came closer, they saw that the object was Milligan.
Kate cried out and stumbled forward, landing on her knees beside her father, who had opened his eyes at the sound of her voice. As she wiped mud from his face and begged him to tell her he was all right, Milligan gave her a relieved smile. “Now that I see you’re all right, I can’t compl —” He was cut off when Kate threw herself upon him, mindless of the mud.
Milligan groaned, then whispered hoarsely, “Better stop hugging me, Katie-Cat. Afraid I’ll black out again. From the pain, you know. It’s considerable.”
Kate had drawn back with a horrified expression. “Oh! I’m so sorry! How badly are you hurt? Did you really fall off a cliff ?”
“Jumped, actually,” said Milligan.
“But how did you get here, then? McCracken said you must have broken every bone in your body!”
“Not all of them,” Milligan muttered. (He seemed to be trying not to move his mouth very much.) “And I got here by dragging myself, mostly. I was on my way to save you.” He swiveled his eyes toward the other children and Mr. Benedict on the sledge. “Is everyone all right, then? How is Mr. Benedict?”
For a moment Kate couldn’t answer. She simply shook her head and stared. Now that she’d gotten over the shock of discovering Milligan here, she was coming to realize just how bad he looked. She’d seen him in a frightful condition before — in fact it was only a year ago that she’d seen him covered in mud just like this, and injured as well — but this was much worse. He looked as though he’d been trampled by a stampede. His face was so bruised and swollen with hornet stings he was scarcely recognizable; his shirt and trousers were in tatters; his hat and jacket were gone . . . and yet he’d been coming to save her. Kate took his hand and held it, noticing as she did so the handcuff and short length of chain dangling from it. She felt anger swelling up inside her.
Milligan winced, and Reynie, standing behind Kate, gently reminded her not to squeeze.
“Mr. Benedict’s all right,” Kate said, easing Milligan’s hand back to the ground. “We’re all fine. But how did you survive if you fell — I mean jumped — into a ravine?”
Milligan swallowed with some difficulty and said, “The bottom was all mud. I’d been there earlier looking for the cave, so I knew.”
“But McCracken said it was more than fifty feet down!”
“Well . . . I was able to slow myself a bit by dragging along the face of the cliff, and of course I had to land just so . . .” Milligan winced again, though no one had touched him, and his breath came in ragged bursts. “Still, I’m afraid in the darkness I . . . slightly misjudged the distance.”
“Kate,” Reynie murmured. “We need to get him into the trees.”
“Right! Okay, Milligan, we’re going to lift you onto the sledge and —”
Milligan made a noise of dissent. “Listen, Kate, I think I’m going to . . .” he swallowed “. . . black out again, so listen carefully. Leave me — cover me with pebbles or something if you must — and make for the bay. You can’t escape if you’re dragging me, and I am ordering you to escape, do you hear? Go now . . . leave me behind . . . That’s an order, so don’t even think —” Milligan abruptly closed his eyes and fell silent.
“Can’t anyone stay awake around here?” Constance moaned.
“Let’s get him onto the sledge,” Sticky said, coming around to help lift. “I assume we’re disobeying his order.”
“Of course we are,” said Reynie. “We have to save him.”
“I was hoping he would save us,” said Constance.
Kate said nothing. Her grief had rapidly transformed into something else, and she was clenching and unclenching her fists, boiling with anger at the Ten Men for what they’d done to Milligan. She despised McCracken in particular, but all of the Ten Men had played a part. In her fury, Kate wanted revenge more than anything, and for a moment it blinded her to all else.
“Kate!” said Reynie, shaking her shoulder. He’d been calling her name again and again. “What’s the matter? We have to move him! If we can get into the trees, they might not even see us! We’re almost there, Kate!”
Kate looked up and saw the boys staring at her wonderingly. She leaped to her feet — but it was already too late. She saw it on Constance’s face. The tiny girl was staring out into the mist with a look of deepest dread. And the next moment they all heard what she had sensed.
The rumbling.
In horror the children saw the Salamander appear at the far northern edge of the plain, a black shadow moving through the mist like a shark through water. Whipping out her spyglass, Kate found McCracken at the helm — with his own spyglass fixed on her. Beside him stood Mr. Curtain, gesturing angrily, and behind stood Martina, Garrotte, and Sharpe, all awake now and surely seething with vengeful wrath. In the spyglass they seemed close enough for Kate to reach out and hit, and she wanted badly to do just that — they weren’t the only ones seething with vengeful wrath. But even in her anger Kate was sensible enough to realize this encounter was ill-timed. She and the others were doomed. She only hoped she could get a lick at McCracken before he overpowered her.
“How long do we have?” Reynie asked her. “We can’t beat them to the bay, can we?”
“At that speed? With us dragging the sledge? We’ll be lucky to make it ten yards into the trees. At least they’ll have to go to the trouble of getting out. That’s some comfort.”
The others found this no comfort at all, however, and Reynie glanced despondently at the sledge — the prized burden that ensured they’d never make it to the bay. He found himself staring into the eyes of Mr. Benedict, who was sitting up straight and yawning.
“I must have . . . ah, I see,” said Mr. Benedict, running a hand through his hair. He looked at Reynie in chagrin. “I chose a terrible time to sleep, I’m afraid.” He appeared to grasp their predicament at once, for before Reynie could even think of what to say, Mr. Benedict had lifted Milligan from the ground and, with a rallying cry to the children, set off into the forest with the injured man in his arms. The others exclaimed and hurried after him, Kate slinging Constance up onto her back almost as an afterthought.
“Be careful!” she cried. “He’s badly hurt, Mr. Benedict!”
“So I can see, my dear, but I have no doubt he’ll recover,” Mr. Benedict puffed as they ran through the trees. “Your father is the most resilient man I’ve ever known. He’ll be fine.”
Reynie wished he shared Mr. Benedict’s confidence. At the moment it seemed unlikely that any of them would be fine. Already the Salamander had reached the forest edge and veered off to go around — it was too big to pass through the trees — but not before Reynie heard a telltale pause in its rumbling that indicated a Ten Man or two had been dropped off to follow them. The Salamander would skirt the forest and meet them at the shore, whereas any retreat through the woods was now out of the question. Their escape had become, just as Reynie had predicted, an all or nothing situation.
A few desperate moments more and the haggard, gasping group emerged from the trees and stumbled onto the rocky shore of the bay. There was the beached seaplane, still covered by Milligan’s tarpaulin. There, in the far distance, was the Salamander, rumbling around the edge of the forest and turning toward them. And there, in the choppy waters of the bay itself, was . . . nothing.