“I wouldn’t give you the pleasure.”
“But you are curious.” Dr. Death smiled his crooked smile. “I shall not keep you in suspense. Your own time, Captain, has not come yet; and before it does I am going to demonstrate my technique to you. It is so seldom that I have a really appreciative audience.” With a calculated gesture he whipped away the sheet which had covered the prone form on the operating table.
Ransom could scarcely believe his eyes. Before him lay the unconscious body of a girl, a girl with skin as white as milk and hair like the sun seen through mist.
“You are interested now, I see,” Dr. Death remarked drily, “and you consider her beautiful. Believe me, when I have completed my work you will flee screaming if she so much as turns what will no longer be a face toward you. This woman has been my implacable enemy since I came to this island, and the time has come for me to”—he halted in midsentence and looked at Ransom with an expression of mingled slyness and gloating—“for me to illustrate something of your own fate, shall we say.”
While Dr. Death had been talking his deformed assistant had prepared a hypodermic. Ransom watched as the needle plunged into the girl’s almost translucent flesh, and the liquid in the syringe—a fluid which by its very color suggested the vile perversion of medical technique—entered her bloodstream. Though still unconscious the girl sighed, and it seemed to Ransom that a cloud passed over her sleeping face as though she had already begun an evil dream. Roughly the hideous Golo turned her on her back and fastened in place straps of the same kind as those that held Ransom himself pinned to the wall.
“What are you reading, Tackie?” Aunt May asked.
“Nothing.” He shut the book.
“Well, you shouldn’t read in the car. It’s bad for your eyes.”
Dr. Black looked back at them for a moment, then asked Mama, “Have you gotten a costume for the little fellow yet?”
“For Tackie?” Mama shook her head, making her beautiful hair shine even in the dim light of the car. “No, nothing. It will be past his bedtime.”
“Well, you’ll have to let him see the guests anyway, Barbara; no boy should miss that.”
And then the car was racing along the road out to Settlers Island. And then you were home.
Ransom watched as the loathsome creature edged toward him. Though it was not as large as some of the others its great teeth looked formidable indeed, and in one hand it grasped a heavy jungle knife with a razor edge.
For a moment he thought it would molest the unconscious girl, but it circled around her to stand before Ransom himself, never meeting his eyes.
Then, with a gesture as unexpected as it was frightening, it bent suddenly to press its hideous face against his pinioned right hand, and a great, shuddering gasp ran through the creature’s twisted body.
Ransom waited, tense.
Again that deep inhalation, seeming almost a sob. Then the beast-man straightened up, looking into Ransom’s face but avoiding his gaze. A thin, strangely familiar whine came from the monster’s throat.
“Cut me loose,” Ransom ordered.
“Yes. This I came to. Yes, Master.” The huge head, wider than it was high, bobbed up and down. Then the sharp blade of the machete bit into the straps holding Ransom. As soon as he was free he took the blade from the willing hand of the beast-man and freed the limbs of the girl on the operating table. She was light in his arms, and for an instant he stood looking down at her tranquil face.
“Come, Master.” The beast-man pulled at his sleeve. “Bruno knows a way out. Follow Bruno.”
A hidden flight of steps led to a long and narrow corridor, almost pitchdark. “No one use this way,” the beast- man said in his harsh voice. “They not find us here.”
“Why did you free me?” Ransom asked.
There was a pause; then almost with an air of shame the great, twisted form replied, “You smell good. And Bruno does not like Dr. Death.”
Ransom’s conjectures were confirmed. Gently he asked, “You were a dog before Dr. Death worked on you, weren’t you, Bruno?”
“Yes.” The beast-man’s voice held a sort of pride. “A St. Bernard. I have seen pictures.”
“Dr. Death should have known better than to employ his foul skills on such a noble animal,” Ransom reflected aloud. “Dogs are too shrewd in judging character; but then the evil are always foolish in the final analysis.”
Unexpectedly the dog-man halted in front of him, forcing Ransom to stop too. For a moment the massive head bent over the unconscious girl. Then there was a barely audible growl. “You say, Master, that I can judge. Then I tell you Bruno does not like this female Dr. Death calls Talar of the Long Eyes.”
You put the open book facedown on the pillow and jump up, hugging yourself and skipping bare heels around the room. Marvelous! Wonderful!
But no more reading tonight. Save it; save it. Turn the light off, and in the delicious dark put the book reverently away under the bed, pushing aside pieces of the Tinkertoy set and the box with the filling station game cards. Tomorrow there will be more, and you can hardly wait for tomorrow. You lie on your back, hands under head, covers up to chin, and when you close your eyes you can see it all: the island, with jungle trees swaying in the sea wind; Dr. Death’s castle lifting its big, cold grayness against the hot sky.
The whole house is still; only the wind and the Atlantic are out, the familiar sounds. Downstairs Mother is talking to Aunt May and Aunt Julie and you fall asleep.
You are awake! Listen! Late, it’s very late, a strange time you have almost forgotten. Listen!
So quiet it hurts. Something. Something. Listen!
