Dennis Wheatley - They Found Atlantis

The workers redoubled their efforts tearing their nails and fingers as they wrenched out the jagged stones. The McKay lay on his face passing back the loose shale while Vladimir performed prodigies in increasing the size of the opening so that their leader could work more freely.

'Be quick—be quick!' cried Lulluma. 'The herd are coming!'

The McKay gave a yell of triumph almost at the same moment.

'I'm through,' he called. 'I'm through if only I can shift this blasted lump next to my shoulders.'

Two terrible moments followed. They could hear the brutes now padding towards them, but Sally was terrified for the McKay. She feared that in moving the block he might bring down another fall of rock which would crush him.

'I've done it!' he shouted. 'Down on your tummies— through you come.' Then the beast men were upon them.

Axel pushed Lulluma down into the hole as he turned with Vladimir and Nicky to face the attack. They still had their steel levers which they had taken from the bathysphere and they used them savagely as the white leprous faces showed up in the torchlight.

The McKay, with his shoulders thrust into the far end of the passage he had made, grabbed Lulluma's hands and pulled her through, then Sally, then Camilla; Nicky abandoned the fight and wriggled in hard on Camilla's heels. The five of them waited with pounding hearts for the others.

After a moment Axel's head appeared and he held out his hand. 'Your gun,' he gasped to the McKay, 'quick—give it to me.'

Bozo's pistol held three bullets, the part-reload that the McKay had kept in his pocket. He thrust it on Axel without a second's delay and the Count squirmed back through the hole to the far side of the barrier where Vladimir was fighting for his life against the score of skinny clawlike hands that sought to drag him down.

There were three deafening reports, then silence. Almost immediately afterwards Axel appeared again and Vladimir after him. The shots had temporarily quelled the herd and enabled them to get away before the foul creatures recovered.

'We'll remain here, knock them out one by one as they come through, muttered the McKay and he had hardly spoken when the first parrot-beaked brute thrust its narrow head through the opening.

Vladimir clove the head at a single blow, and it died without a whimper. The body was pulled back and another head appeared. They killed its owner too and a half dozen others that came after him. Then the attempts ceased but the clink and fall of rock could be heard from the side where the herd were gathered.

'They're enlarging the opening so that five or six of them can come at us together,' said Axel. 'We may slaughter half a hundred but they'll wear us down before we can kill one tenth of them.'

'You're right. We'd best block the hole this end as best we can—then go on,' the McKay responded. 'It will take them some time to shift the whole barrier.'

They did as he suggested, then marched up the hill again but their speed decreased in an alarming manner. Zakar had only cleared the tunnels as far as the point where he had met his death; from there on the whole floor was littered with masses of stones and rubble over which they stumbled, and in some places there were belts of debris shoulder high that could only be crossed by clambering on all fours.

These painful delays held a new menace, for where before they had been able easily to outdistance the herd by running, they could no longer do so. Once their pursuers were through the barrier the lead held by the hunted humans could not be increased again.

Another barrier reared itself up before them and their hearts almost stopped beating. For a second it looked as if they were finally trapped, but it was found that the stones did not quite reach the roof.

Luiluma had not spoken for an hour but, without her warning, they knew that their apparently implacable enemies were after them again. They could hear them slithering over the rocks behind and their horrid bird-like twitter.

The McKay scaled the new barrier and reported that they could get through under the roof as far as he could see. Utterly weary now the others hauled themselves up beside him and wriggled along over the sharp corners on their stomachs.

The blockage continued for fifty yards and downward-jutting rocks in the roof made the passage still more difficult. Before they had reached its further end they could smell the stench of the fish eaters entering it behind them.

Camilla dropped exhausted on the far side of the rocks. Vladimir picked her up, slung her over his shoulder and pushed on, leading now; Axel and Nicky were in the rear both sobbing for breath as they staggered up the steep stony uneven way.

Other passages began to branch off from the tunnel. They passed twenty openings in less than five minutes but Luiluma never hesitated, calling directions to Vladimir as she followed swiftly on his heels.

'I can't go on,' yelled Nicky suddenly.

The McKay turned and flashed his torch upon him as he ran. His eyes were glaring, his face dead white and ghastly, his fair hair matted on his forehead.

'What the hell's the matter with you man,' shouted the McKay. 'Didn't you unload all that gold as I told you to?'

'No,' sobbed Nicky. 'No—all I could—but—but the rest's tied round my waist and legs—to—to distribute the weight. I've had no chance to—get—rid—of—it.'

Vladimir was carrying Camilla. Luiluma ran with set teeth just behind them. The McKay had Sally by the arm and was still thrusting her on although she was half fainting.

Axel was nearly done himself and finding it a terrible effort to keep up with the party. None of them could help Nicky now.

He gave a despairing cry and pitched forward on his face —picked himself up and lurched on again—but he had lost a dozen yards, and the beast men, their feet hardened to these stony floors were close behind.

A wild burst of exultant gibbering came as Nicky fell again, the stench of rotting fish was all about him, and then they were tearing at him with their talons.

The others were so desperately pressed that they did not realise what had happened until it was too late to attempt his rescue. While the front ranks of the herd ripped him to pieces the other humans gained a momentarily increased lead, but Axel's strength was failing.

Lulluma felt it instinctively and paused till he came up— then she flung out a hand to pull him forward.

'It's not far now,' she breathed. 'It's not far now. We'll do it unless we are stopped by another barrier.'

His breath came in choking sobs as he grabbed her hand and pressed it. 'The chart of the mines—it weighs me down so. I'll have to drop it.'

'What!—you took that?' she pulled up with a jerk. Her tone held indescribable horror and reproach.

'Yes,' his voice was thick and rasping as he halted beside her. 'In case we lost our way—I—went back to the temple for it—afterwards.'

Yet as he spoke he knew he had not told all the truth. Even the slender chance that they might escape had filled him with an overwhelming desire to bring something back to the upper world which would definitely prove the existence of Atlantis. The chart of the mine galleries was composed of twelve sheets of heavy copper delicately hinged so that it could be spread out like a map and engraved upon it were countless directions and phrases inscribed with the utmost care in Atlantean hieroglyphics; that lost language which Doctor Tisch had so stoutly maintained was the root of both Egyptian and the Maya of Central America—linking them to their common parent.

Just as Nicky's god had been Gold so Axel, through all his life, had worshipped Wisdom. The thought of needing the chart to find their way had been sufficient to excuse him to himself when he took it, because he did not know that Lulluma would prove so sure a guide, but now, as he faced her in the darkness, he knew that he would have told her that he meant to do so if he had not been impelled to the theft by a second motive.