There came a slight crashing sound, and then the helicopter suddenly swung over to where Jack and the girls were. They had to dodge out of the way.
Bill’s voice came on the air. “Jack! Are you there!”
Jack ran to the helicopter as Bill switched on a powerful torch. “I’m here, Bill. The coast’s clear. Nobody’s up here. Gosh, it’s good to have you! Is Philip all right?”
“Quite all right. He’s down on the mountainside with Johns, the fellow who came with me, waiting for us. Get into the helicopter, all of you, and we’ll go while the going’s good.” Bill switched his torch round to see where the girls were, and in a moment all three were being helped up into the machine.
“I couldn’t quite see where to land,” said Bill. “I must have hit something coming down. I felt a good old jolt, and the helicopter swung round like mad. I hope she’s all right!”
“You went into part of the rocky parapet, I think,” said Jack, helping the girls in. “Oh, Bill! This is grand! How did you . . .”
“All explanations later!” said Bill, and began to fiddle about with something in front of him. “Now — here we go!”
The helicopter rose a foot or two in the air and then swung round in a peculiar way. Bill put her back to earth again at once. “Now what’s wrong? She shouldn’t do that.”
Lucy-Ann was so longing to be off that she could hardly bear this. “Let’s go, let’s go,” she kept saying, till Dinah nudged her to stop. Snowy was on Lucy-Ann’s knee, as good as gold. She held onto him tightly, tense with excitement.
Bill tried again. Once more the machine rose into the air, and then did its peculiar swing-round. “Something’s wrong with the steering,” said Bill, in an exasperated voice. “Why did I leave Johns down there? He might have been able to put it right. But I didn’t think this machine would hold him as well as you three!”
In deepening dismay the children sat while poor Bill tried his best to get the helicopter to rise and fly properly. But each time it swung round violently, and Bill could do nothing with it. He was secretly rather afraid that it would get completely out of control and swing right off the mountain-top. He could not risk an accident with the three children on board.
For at least an hour Bill experimented with the steering of the helicopter, but it would not answer to the controls at all. He made the children get out to see if lightening the load made any difference, but it didn’t.
“It must have got damaged when you struck the parapet,” said Jack. “Oh, Bill — what are we going to do now?”
“What about that way out by the wall?” said Bill. “Philip told me all about it — something about a rope-ladder and so on. As a matter of fact, I did go to find the entrance there, when I came to look for you the other day — you spoke of it in your note, you remember — and I went behind the green curtain, found the crack in the rock and went in. But I couldn’t go any further than that curious cave with no roof and the black pool at the bottom.”
“No. Nobody would find how to get out of that cave except by accident,” said Jack. “We discovered how to get the rope-ladder down from above — by turning a wheel under the water in the pool. Down came the ladder!”
“Well — it seems to me we’ll have to try to get out that way,” said Bill. “This pest of a helicopter won’t answer to her controls now. I daren’t try and take off. We’d crash — and we haven’t any wonderful wings to save us, either!”
“Oh, Bill — can’t we really fly off in the helicopter?” said Lucy-Ann, her heart sinking like lead. “Oh, I don’t want to go down into that horrid mountain again! We might lose our way. We might get caught!”
“We’ll have to try, I’m afraid, Lucy-Ann,” said Bill. “Never mind — I’m here to protect you now. And after all it’s the middle of the night, and nobody is likely to be about.”
“If only that helicopter would go properly!” said Jack. “It’s a piece of real bad luck that it won’t. It’s such a giveaway too. As soon as anyone sees it, they’ll know something’s up and will come to look for us.”
“All the more reason why we should get a move on now,” said Bill. “Come on. Gosh, what’s this banging against me? Oh, it’s you, Snowy. Well, if you come too, you’ll have to keep at our heels or you’ll give the game away! By the way — where’s Kiki? I haven’t seen or heard her tonight.”
“We don’t know where she is,” said Jack miserably. “We haven’t seen her for days — not since we were captured. She may be caged somewhere — or hiding in the mountain — or even killed!”
“Oh, no!” said Lucy-Ann. “Don’t say that. Kiki’s too clever to let herself be captured. Perhaps we’ll find her tonight!”
“Where’s the way out of this place?” asked Bill, switching on his torch. “Over there? Are there steps that go down into the mountain? Well, come on then. Every minute is precious now.”
They left the damaged helicopter in the yard and went towards the stone steps that led down into the mountain. Lucy-Ann shivered.
“I hoped I’d not go down there again! Take my hand, Bill, I’m scared!”
Chapter 26
FLIGHT THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN
SOON they were right down inside the mountain. They had passed Jack’s cave, passed by the stores, and gone down the steep spiral stairway, cut in the rock.
It was very difficult to choose the right way to go, because all the dim lamps that lighted the passages were out. It was quite dark everywhere. Bill’s powerful torch sent a bright ray in front of them, but he had to use it cautiously in case someone saw the light, and was warned of their coming.
There was a lot of standing still and listening, a good deal of argument on Jack’s part and Dinah’s about the right way to go. Bill was very patient, but his voice was urgent as he told them to think hard and choose the right way.
“If we followed Snowy, we’d probably go right,” said Lucy-Ann at last. “He would know the way.”
“Well — but he doesn’t know where we want to go,” said Jack. “I mean, if he knew we wanted to go to the rope-ladder cave, he could lead us there all right — but we can’t make him understand that.”
They ended up in being completely lost. They found themselves in a dark tunnel, with a very high roof that none of the children recognised at all.
Bill began to feel desperate. If only he had been able to land without damage, this long trek through dark, unknown passages wouldn’t have been necessary.
They went down very deep, and, quite suddenly, came out on to the high gallery that overlooked the pit. Bill drew in his breath sharply when he saw the mass of brilliance suddenly showing when the curious floor slid back for a moment. He and the children felt the strange feeling of lightness at once, but it passed immediately the floor slid over the glowing mass again.
There was nobody in the pit. Apparently the floor worked automatically by machinery of some kind, though there was none to be seen. That was the curious part of the works in the mountain — there was no heavy machinery anywhere. Whatever power was used was not conveyed by iron or steel machines, and there was little noise except for the heavy rumbling that sounded before the shaking of the earth.
“There’s obviously some metal in this mountain that can be used for that fellow’s experiments,” said Bill. “Some rare metal or other — like uranium, which is used for splitting the atom. There are a few mountains in the world which contain various rare metals — but usually they are mined for it and the stuff is taken out. In this case they haven’t mined it — they are using it where it is! It’s possible that they have to do that — in order to use the enormous thickness of the rocks in the mountain to protect the outer world from whatever rays they are experimenting with. Very ingenious!”
“I think we know the way back now,” said Jack, quite thankful at having found some place they recognised, even though it was the frightening pit!
He pointed behind them, up the wide, uphill passage that he knew went up and up for a long way. Bill switched his torch on it. “Is that the way?” he said. “Well, come along then.”