Another stone fell into the water, and then the rasp of several pebbles.
Geers' reaction was a mixture of excitement and fear. The fear won. He dared not move by himself. He yelled for Fleming.
His voice was a falsetto, and the urgency brought Fleming back as fast as he could clamber up the slope.
'Hi' he said. 'What's up?'
'Didn't you hear anything? Find anything?' Geers demanded.
'It's a deep pool, like the other. I think it's just behind the rock face of the main cavern. When you get deep pools like these in cave holes they are sometimes connected at the base - like a U-tube. What goes in one may come out of the other.'
'But nothing has?'
Fleming shook his head.
'No, but a body could be caught at the bottom. They'd better drag the second pool as well.'
Geers shivered, though it was not as cold in the cave as outside. 'Not a nice death, even for a creature,' he muttered. More loudly he asked, 'Did you throw stones into the pool.
Fleming shone his torch on the other's face. 'No,' he answered. 'Why do you ask?'
At that moment there again came the faint noise of moving pebbles. In the echoing and re-echoing of the tiniest sound it was almost impossible to identify the direction of the noise.
'There it is again. The noise. Stones moving,' whispered Geers.
'Dislodged by me, and still not settled. It always happens.'
Geers wasn't satisfied. He moved a step or so along the right hand passage, the light from his lamp swinging along the sides of the pool cavern. The rocks were wet and grey, with here and there pyrites glistening as the light caught them.
Fleming also switched on his torch and the beam reached right across the pool where the rock face curved gently into a rounded surface at the edge of the water. In a recess the light caught and held a blob of white.
'What is it?' whispered Geers, clutching at his companion's arm.
Fleming shook off Geers' hand and moved forward. The torch beam probed into the crevice.
'What is it?' Geers repeated urgently.
'Her, of course. Give me a hand to get her out.'
Fleming eased forward, cautiously seeking a foothold on the slimy rock. Geers did not follow.
'At least play the light so I can see,' Fleming shouted angrily.
When he reached Andre he thought she was dead. Her dress was saturated and clinging to her body. She felt stone cold as Fleming put his hands under the waist and shoulders to half-lift half-drag her back.
Difficult as the job was, he realised how little she weighed, how fragile this man-made femina sapiens was.
Gently he laid her on the dry sand at Geers' feet, leaning against the rock face while he gasped for air. Geers stood transfixed.
'Is she - ?' he whispered, placing the lamp on the ground so it illuminated the girl's face. She looked like the death-figure of a young goddess, slim and fair and palely beautiful.
Fleming squatted down and pulled up an eyelid. The blue iris seemed sightless. There was no visible contraction as the light caught it. He groped on the ice-cold wrist for the sign of pulsation. There was a tremor of movement. He could not be sure whether it was in his own fingers or proof that Andre still lived.
'I'm not a doctor, so I can't be sure. But I think there's a flicker. She once said she had a better constructed heart than humans.'
Fleming once more put his hands under her shoulders and pulled her to a sitting position. When the upper part of her body was upright her head fell forward. And she moaned.
'She is alive,' shouted Geers exultantly.
'Just.' With his free hand Fleming fumbled in his jacket pocket and pulled out a flask.
'Try a drop of the hard stuff, duckie,' he said. With his teeth he unscrewed the cap.
'You shouldn't force her to drink alcohol. It's a fallacy that - '
'To hell with your boy scouts' first aid rules! Here, my sweet,' he murmured to the girl, 'it's the real McCoy.'
He let a few drops of whisky seep through Andre's pale, clenched lips.
Not daring to move, both men waited for the reaction. It came gradually. The lips relaxed and parted a little. The tongue tip emerged and moved across them.
Fleming gently brushed the matted blonde hair from her face. He was rewarded by a momentary flickering of the eyelids.
'That's it,' he murmured close to her ear. 'Now try to swallow a mouthful.' He forced the mouth of the flask between her lips and against her teeth, tipping in a spoonful of spirit.
Andre gulped, spluttered, and then swallowed it. Fleming could feel her body relaxing against his encircling arm.
'How did she get here?' Geers demanded.
'There must be a siphon between the two pools. She'd sink on one side and come up on the other. God knows how she managed to hang on the side and pull herself up. Not with those injuries.'
He nodded towards Andre's hands, lying close together in her lap. They were grotesquely swollen and discoloured, the bloated whiteness of the back and knuckles contrasting horribly with the seared flesh of the fingers where the computer had burnt them.
Geers shuddered. 'Can we carry her out of here?' he asked doubtfully. 'We must get her to the mainland as soon as we can. Then perhaps we'll find out the truth about this business.'
The impatience in Geers' tone infuriated Fleming. 'Give it a rest, can't you? The girl's half dead and all you can think of is putting her in thumbscrews.'
He believed that Andre half understood what was being.
said. Her body tautened in his arms and she made a pathetic attempt to shift away.
Awkwardly Fleming struggled out of his duffle coat without releasing his hold on her and draped it around her shoulders. 'You're okay,' he reassured her. 'It's all over now.
We'll go away for a nice long holiday. You know who I am, don't you?'
Her clouded eyes opened wider and stared at his face. She nodded almost imperceptibly.
He felt ridiculously pleased. 'Fine! I'm going to lift you up. Keep your hands just where they are and they won't get rubbed. Here we go!'
Geers made no attempt to help. He watched Fleming grasp Andre and lift her like a baby, shifting the weight until he had her held securely, her head against his shoulder.
Satisfied that they were leaving at last, Geers bent down to pick up the torch. Fleming was just behind him. With a quick shove from his boot he sent Geers sprawling. Then he kicked the lamp away. There was a tinkle of glass as it hit the rock-face and the light went out.
Fleming laughed aloud. 'Hold tight, darling, we're taking off,' he whispered to Andre. Half crouching to avoid bumping the cave roof, he loped ahead helped by the fitful, jerking light from his own torch. Geers' wails of fright and fury echoed behind him.
Fleming reached the cave entrance with no more than one bad bump on his shoulder. There was a stretch of thirty yards to the boat. He noted with satisfaction that the tide had turned and the stern was already afloat.
He was wading in deep water before Geers stumbled from the cave entrance, bawling Fleming's name and alternately threatening punishment and appealing for him to wait.
Fleming lowered Andre into the bottom of the boat. She groaned pitifully as her hand struck a rowlock.
Fleming crouched over the motor. If only the damned thing would fire first time. Outboard engines were temperamental until they got heated up. He forced himself methodically to check choke and fuel control before he wrenched at the starter cord. He whipped it out with all his strength. The engine fired with a staccato burst of noise, spluttered, and then settled into a steady rhythm.
With a kick over the side that filled his boot with sea water Fleming pushed off stern first. A couple of yards and there was room to veer. He gave the engine full throttle and the boat swung seawards. Geers was standing impotently up to his knees in water, shaking his arms and burbling incoherent imprecations. Fleming didn't trouble
