She dug away at it feverishly. The water was washing more and more into her face so she had to strain her neck muscles in order to be able to breathe. Still she battled on. Then holding the dagger in her other hand she explored what she had done. The stake was whittled down.
“One of them—I cut at it—” she said.
But there still remained a tough core she could not break.
“Hold very still,” Crewe’s voice was somehow heartening. “I am going to move up, so you move back. I will go one small space at a time. One—”
Persis had sheathed the dagger again. Now she edged a short distance down the dugout. A moment later that heaved under her. She held on with both hands praying that it was not going to completely sink and fail them. Crewe was moving up its length toward the stakes.
“Two—” Again at this count Persis changed position, steadied herself against the resulting bobbing as Crewe advanced. They had then to wait between such changes of position before they dared to try again.
“Three—” Persis spat out the water which washed suddenly against her lips. And this time she was sure that Crewe’s countermove would sink their own support.
She heard a grunt through the dark and at first envisioned one of the turtles waiting just beyond. Then the canoe rocked perilously again. Her hands slipped so that she nearly screamed aloud in her horror of being flung off that very precarious support. There was another sound, a cracking, and then Crewe’s voice:
“It’s open. But we can’t get the dugout through!”
“Then how—? She could not swim, nor, she was sure, could Crewe, not with his shoulder encased in the heaviest bandages Dr. Veering could devise and his left arm strapped to his chest.
“Work your way back to me.” She almost resented that he sounded so controlled, so sure of himself. “Then hold on to the stakes. The pool is not too deep— and we have no choice.”
So once more, inch by inch, she drew herself along the length of the dugout. Only this time it rode higher and she guessed that Crewe had taken to the stakes for support. Then, reaching out, her hand closed once more on sodden cloth with strong, well-muscled flesh under it.
“Good enough. The stakes are here.” She groped out blindly with one hand, her other one still clinging to Crewe as if not even death now could drag her from that hold. And he was somehow moving ahead, drawing her with him.
The turtles! In her mind she cringed, waited for some paralyzing snap upon arm or leg. But, though she could pick up some odd splashing sounds, those were not near. Perhaps their own presence frightened the sea monsters as badly as they did her.
She floundered in the water and there was a thick, unpleasant smell in the place. But ahead—yes there was a lighting of the heavy darkness which had encased them since Grillon and Lydia had left. Did that mean they were near the outer world at last?
“Along the wall,” Crewe’s voice, still calm and quiet, steadied her. Once more her outflung hand hit hard against what could be a rocky surface. But there were fingerholds there; she could catch them.
“You—your shoulder—”
“With three good hands we can manage. It is not far. Keep moving!”
Persis obeyed, heading for that lighter strip in the dark.
15
Crewe had said it was not far; to Persis the distance stretched through time and space like a full-day’s journey. Her whole body ached with the effort she put out. At each advance, drawing herself along that inner wall of the pen, she paused to reach back and tighten her hold on her companion. She could hear the whistle of his breath, as if he were straining his own powers to the uppermost. Yet they did not speak, saving all their energy for what must be done.
Once she nearly screamed, feeling the touch of something else swimming free—certainly one of the captive turtles. But her heart quieted its frantic beat, for the creature must have sheared off again instead of pressing the attack she had feared from the first. Somehow they did continue, though at times her hands slipped vainly down a slimed wall and she had to search for the smallest hold.
Then-
There were more stakes here and beyond them grayish light. She pressed her face against the stakes and caught a glimpse of moon-touched water.
“There is a gate here.” Crewe’s voice was as measured as ever, but weaker, she was sure of that. “The latch is on the outside. To your left—can you reach it?”
Persis pulled herself from one stake to the next until she could thrust her bruised and scraped arm nearly to the shoulder between two of the stakes. She felt up and down the outside frame of this door until she did indeed find the fastening Crewe mentioned. A pin was wedged in to hold it shut—and the water must have swollen that for her tugging did not move it in the least. Finally she felt once more for the dagger, drew that and chopped at the wedge which might well have been of steel so fixed was it.
Just as she had gouged away at the stake which had let them into the pen, so now did she hack awkwardly at the wedge, prying at it with a spurt of energy which was largely rooted in despair. She needed no warning from Crewe—his strength must have been so tried by the ill usage he had suffered that he could not possibly hold on one-handed for much longer, though his shoulder now rubbed against hers and she knew he gripped one of the door stakes determinedly.
Finally the dagger struck deep into the upper part of the wedge and Persis pulled, with much of her remaining strength. It came free so suddenly that the door of their cage swung open spilling them out into the small lake which washed the mound on three sides. And she clung to the door as her only hope of support.
“Crewe!” Water swirled up into her face, half-smothering her call.
When he did not answer she felt out along the open door. Her hand caught at sodden clothes. He was down! His head was underwater! Why had she never learned to swim? Her shoulders were racked with pain as she tried to lift him. He was giving her no help at all and his dead weight in the water was too much!
In the moonlight she could see the side of the mound not too far away. She had to reach that, drag him with her—she must!
She heard a gasp—and then felt him move a little.
“Crewe—the mound!”
He did not answer but out of the water his head raised, he reached his good hand and she caught at it. There were the rest of the stakes of the pen—they reached to the foot of the mound—if she could work along them—
“Float—” the word was hardly distinguishable. “Turn on back-float-”
He was moving with weak purpose against her hold. And it took her a minute or two to realize what he meant. Then she did not release her grip on his body but, even as she had striven to overturn the dugout, so she fought to get him on his back.
Once that was done she slipped her free arm about his throat, trying to make sure that his head was above water enough for him to breathe, and turned back to the grim task of dragging them both from stave to stave toward land.
Again that seemed an endless task. Her breath came in short gusts which never quite filled her laboring lungs. And she hoped for only one thing, the feel of the thick earth and shells beneath her hands again.
So worn was she with the battle that when her knees struck the shelving of the mound under the water she could not believe at once she had made it. But her hand came down hard against what could only be one of the shells worked into the earth there, and the pain aroused her better than a shout might have done.
Persis turned her head. To the left was the short landing where long ago she had seen Askra moor her dugout (it seemed years ago now), and she knew that she did not have strength enough to climb out of the water onto that refuge. On the other hand, rough as the surface of the mound seemed to be, she had no hope of clambering up that—not with Crewe. But she pushed her head and shoulders up against the earth in spite of the bite of broken shells and pulled Crewe around so his head was well out of water.
What now?
There was that faint path she had seen Askra use on her first coming to Lost Lady. But the steps of that were hardly more than niches gouged out of the earth. Perhaps, after she rested she could attempt to climb those. But she was sure Crewe could not make it. And, were she to leave him here, with the tide rising, it would be the easiest thing in the world for the water to lift him from the mound—give him the death that Ralph Grillon had planned.