The Cannibals Read online

  “You get up on that ledge and don't move until morning. Do you hear me?” he said. “Now!”

  Early did as he was told. We watched him slink into the darkness, and heard him scramble up the cliff. A scurry of pebbles came skittering down.

  “Now who wanted a story?” said Mr. Mullock. “Well, I'll tell you one, boys. I'll tell you of a fellow who went from rags to riches, and back to rags again. I'll tell you 'ow the world wore 'im down like grain in a grindstone. Is that the one you'd like to 'ear? Is it, then?”

  Gaskin blinked back at him. “I'd rather hear about the Mullock what went to London.”

  “Hah!” Mr. Mullock buried his fist in his beard. He tugged hard, as though trying to wrench the hair from his chin. Then his arm fell to his side and he said, “Oh, what's the use? Am I to be a wet nurse to the lot of you?”

  He sat again, in his place. He took his axe from his belt and curled up on his side. The drumming went on in the distance, and the cannibals' fires glowed through the trees like tiny, watchful eyes. Soon a chink and grind of metal started up and I saw that Mr. Mullock was honing his axe on the stone.

  “If you've any sense you'll sleep,” he said. “It's in the twittering hour that the junglies come.”

  His blade scraped back and forth. His breaths were heavy sighs. I nodded off, snapped awake, then wouldn't allow myself to sleep again. All through the night, Mr. Mullock ground his axe. At the first sign of dawn he stopped, flicked his thumb across the blade, then stood. His feet straddled Benjamin Penny, who lay more twisted than ever. Midgely was sleeping beside me. I could hear the drums still beating in the east, like a faint heartbeat of the island itself.

  Mr. Mullock stepped from the rock to the grass.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  He drew in a short and startled breath. It was the only sign that I'd surprised him. “Up to the cliff,” he said, without looking back. “I'll take the morning watch.”

  I trailed him with my eyes until he passed out of sight around the corner of the cliff. There were no sounds of animals, no cries from the jungle. A heavy stillness seemed to smother the island, and it took a moment for me to realize that the drumming had finally stopped.

  The sun came up, a bright slash to the east, and every bird greeted it with a song. It was a cheery chorus that twittered back and forth and all around. I shifted to the side of the pool and took a drink from the clear water. I scooped it to my mouth, splashed another handful on my face, and walked down into the glade.

  Up the cliff I looked. Neither Mr. Mullock nor Early was there. The ledge was empty.

  My first thought was that Mr. Mullock had gone for the boat. I imagined him racing through the jungle, whipped by branches and vines, hurtling down to the river. I looked all around. I shouted, “Mr. Mullock!”

  Then out from the trees came an abominable shriek, and Early Discall cried out, “God save me!” He screamed again. He shouted, “No!”

  There came a crashing of branches. “Help!” cried Early. “Oh, God, won't somebody help me?”

  On the rocks by the pool, every boy leapt to his feet. Midgely grabbed my arm. “What is it, Tom?” he asked. “What do you see?”

  “Nothing,” I said. The jungle was a dense wall. A parrot soared up from the midst of it, flapping crazily to the south.

  “Is it the junglies?” he asked.

  Nobody moved. We could hear poor Early thrashing. He called once more for help, but the plea ended in the most horrible scream. It sent more birds flurrying from the trees.

  I saw Benjamin Penny touch his tongue to his lips. His eyes were gleaming bright, his cheeks flushed. He seemed excited, even happy.

  Bushes moved at the edge of the glade. The ferns parted, and out came Mr. Mullock. He came at a trot, his hair and his beard streaming back. In one hand he carried his axe, and from the other swung Early Discall's shoes. Halfway across the glade he stopped, threw down the shoes and kicked off his own. “Look lively, lads,” he said. “There's not a moment to spare.”

  “Where's Early?” I said.

  “Never mind 'im.” Mr. Mullock knelt to pull on his new shoes. “There's no 'elp now; it's too late.”

  “You killed him,” I said.

  “Are you mad?” Mr. Mullock looked from face to face.

  “Why would I kill the boy? For his bleeding, blasted shoes? Is that what you think?”

  “No, not for shoes,” said I. “He was starting to remember things. He was coming close to your secrets.”

  “Hah! What secrets are those?”

  “I don't know them all,” I said. “But I know about Botany Bay and the priest you murdered there. You've been a busy man with that axe, Mr. Mullock. How many is it now?”

  The look he gave me might have melted stone. He came to his feet, encircled now by the boys. I said to them, “He's a convict. He's a killer and a convict, and I say we leave him here.”

  “Maroon him?” Midgely said.

  “Hah! You are mad. The whole lot of you,” said Mr. Mullock. He was turning in his place, looking to Weedle, to Gaskin, to Carrots, to Midgely. “You're crackers. You're moonstruck. And you're the worst of all, Tom Tin,” he said, coming round to me again. “I knew from the start that you were the one. It was you—”

  “The priest was the first.” I guessed at the truth from what I had seen in the caves. “You chopped the boat in two so no one could leave the island, and you killed the others one by one.”

  “Did I?” said Mr. Mullock. “Hah! What a tale.”

  “The Gypsy was the last. But you didn't quite kill him, Mr. Mullock,” I said.

  There was still a wildness in his eyes. But he managed to gather himself, and took on some of what I thought was the dignity of his imagined lordship. “There's not a word of truth ever came from the Gypsy,” he said. “Provising he spoke a word at all to you, that is. I'm of the hopinion that 'e didn't.”

  “If I want your opinion I'll ask,” I said, mocking his words.

  He looked as though he might explode with anger. But he kept his voice calm. “If you don't believe me about Early, Tom,” he said, “why don't you go and look in the jungle?”

  A sound came from there, just then. It was a slither and snap that might have been anything.

  “Well?” said Mr. Mullock. “Go and see what 'appened, why don't you?”

  I hesitated too long. Weedle laughed. “He's scared,” he said.

  “As he should be. As he should be,” said Mr. Mullock, holding up a hand. “I'll tell you lads, what it was that got your friend. I tried to save 'im, but I couldn't. There were too many.”

  “Too many what?” asked Midgely.

  “Dragons,” said Mr. Mullock. “That's what it was, lads. There's dragons out there.”

  Midgely gasped. “There ain't no dragons, are there?”

  “Of course there's not,” I said. “Is that the best you can do, Mr. Mullock? Dragons?”

  “Hah!” He brushed bits of grass from his sleeve. “Off you go then, Tom. Myself, I'm for leaving the island before the junglies come. So what will it be, lads? Who's with me, and who's with Tom?”

  I wasn't surprised by the outcome. When Mr. Mullock headed down to the river, down to the waiting boat, everyone but Midgely went with him. Even Midge himself might have gone, if he'd had eyes.

  “Oh, Tom,” he said. “What do we do?”

  There was another slithering sound from the jungle. It seemed to be passing the glade, moving in the same direction that Mr. Mullock had taken. I wanted very badly to see for myself what had happened, but I feared being left behind on the island. I heard in my mind Early's terrible cries and knew that, for whatever reason, Mr. Mullock was right that he wasn't alive any longer. Feeling very much the coward, I told Midgely, “It's true; we can't save him.” I took my friend and pulled him away, and together we raced for the boat.

  Through the ferns and through the bushes, round the trees we ran. I didn't look back, or to either side. I paused once, to listen for the riv
er, then started off again.

  We came to a trail and turned along it. The ground was soft, broken by the footprints of all the boys and Mr. Mullock. Midgley stumbled and fell. I pulled him up. “Hurry,” I said, dragging him on.

  As we came to a bend in the trail I heard a shout from Mr. Mullock. Branches snapped; he swore and cursed. A moment later we rounded the corner, and I saw with astonishment that he was dangling head down from the trees.

  Like a toy man on a string, he swung there, writhing and twisting. A loop of rope encircled his ankles, and his little turtle helmet was rolling on the ground. Curses and oaths poured from his mouth one after the other.

  Gaskin Boggis was standing below him. “It snatched him up,” he said. “He was running ahead, and all of a sudden he was swinging in the air.”

  “It's a man trap,” I said.

  fourteen

  DRAGONS IN THE LAND

  Midgely snorted. “That ain't no man trap.” He was squinting at what must have been a great black shadow dangling above him. “The people here are friendly, Tom. You know that; you read the book.”

  “Never mind your bloody book,” said Mr. Mullock. “Get me down, you loonies.”

  He was high enough that his reaching hands couldn't quite touch us. They were turning very red, and I imagined his face was the same. But his beard had fallen across it, and he sputtered now to spit the whiskers from his mouth.

  “Get me down!” he cried again. “You can't leave me like this.”

  The thought hadn't really occurred to me. But now that he'd said it I could imagine doing just that. It would be a pleasure to go on our way without Mr. Mullock.

  He kicked in the noose, and set himself swinging so violently that he crashed against a tree. The noose tightened, the rope popping at his ankles. I could see that it was Early's shoes that held him, and that without those his feet might have slipped right through the loop.

  “Look,” he said. “Please. If you want me to beg, I'll beg. Just don't leave me here for the junglies.”

  “Tell us the truth,” I said. It hurt my neck to look up at him. “You killed Early. Say it's true.”

  “I didn't,” he said. “It was dragons, I told you.”

  Back and forth he went, a green and hairy bell.

  “Say it,” I told him.

  “Blast you, Tom Tin,” said he. “I wish I'd never laid eyes on you. I wish—”

  “Come on, Midge.” I pulled his arm. “Gaskin, let's go.”

  “No!” roared Mr. Mullock. “No. Don't go!”

  Midgely held back. “Tom, we can't leave him,” he said. “Please let him down. The junglies will be here soon.”

  “But, Midge…”

  “Please, Tom,” he said, so I sighed and said I would.

  The rope led up to the branches of a bending tree, then down a side of the trail. Many times it looped around a fallen log and ended in a massive, tangled knot. I called up to Mr. Mullock. “Throw down your axe, and I'll cut you loose.”

  “Hah!” said he. “Not on your life.”

  I could hardly believe he'd refuse me. “Well, suit yourself,” I said, turning away.

  “Wait!” cried Mr. Mullock. “Untie the knot. Or tell that great clumper to break it.”

  “Don't call me names,” said Boggis.

  “Oh, never mind him, Gaskin,” I said. “We'll leave him where he is.”

  Mr. Mullock swore. He struggled harder in the noose. He swung the axe wildly, trying to hack himself free, but only spun farther and faster. Then he cried out, and there was fear in his voice. “God almighty, something's coming.”

  I heard it too. A plodding on the trail, a hissing in the jungle. A massive head appeared between the trees, and a terrible creature stared at us all. It looked like a huge hound made of leather, with lizard's eyes and a mouth full of jagged teeth. Its skin was gray and lumpy, its legs stout—too short—so that its barrel of a chest nearly rested on the ground. Its head swayed side to side; then out from its mouth shot a spurt of fire.

  “A dragon!” shouted Gaskin Boggis.

  Midgely held me tightly. “Is it true? Is it a dragon?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Holy jumping mother of Moses.”

  It came lumbering closer, rolling as it walked. The ground hollowed beneath its huge, clawed feet.

  Mr. Mullock called out from above us. “Here, Tom. Catch it!”

  His axe came spinning down. It landed with a thud, its blunt end in the ground, the blade sticking up. At the flashing of light, the dragon's head turned. Another fiery flicker sparked from its mouth.

  There was a grunt, or a cough, and behind it came a second dragon, even larger. Like the first it had a long, thick tail, and from end to end it must have measured the height of two men.

  I stepped forward for the axe. The heads of both the dragons turned toward me. They hissed; they spat their fire.

  Again I moved. And they rushed me.

  Their speed was terrifying. Their feet pounded; their long tails lashed in the bushes. In an instant they traveled four yards, then stopped just as suddenly. My heart racing, I stood absolutely still.

  I thought one would pounce right then—pounce or roast me in its fiery breath. But both the dragons stood as still as I. Their skin was loose and scaly, their eyes set in bulging sockets on the sides of their heads. I could smell their fetid stench. The nearest hissed again; it blinked.

  Above me, the rope creaked around Mr. Mullock's ankles, through the branches, and down its length. The axe and helmet lay at my feet.

  “Don't move,” I said. “If we stay still they can't see us.”

  The nearest dragon took one more plodding step. Its legs jutted like buttresses from its shoulders and hips, and I could see the flaps of skin wrinkle and shift. The tiny nostrils puckered. The lips cracked open, and the fire came out.

  Then I saw that it wasn't fire at all. It was only a tongue I was seeing, a bright orange tongue that flickered like a snake's.

  But Gaskin was farther away. And Gaskin saw fire. He shouted and screamed and turned on his heels. I heard him running down the trail, and the dragons thundered after him. They passed on either side of me, so close a thick tail of one rasped against my knee. One of the beasts planted his foot in Mr. Mullock's helmet and sent it cartwheeling in the air. The other trod right upon the axe, and let out a horrid sort of shriek. With each step, it left a splatter of blood behind it.

  I looked back and saw Midgely on the ground. He was curled like a hedgehog, his head in his hands. Slowly, he stood. “Tom?” he asked. “Tom, you ain't eaten, are you?”

  I took the axe and chopped the rope. Mr. Mullock tumbled heavily to the ground. The fall thumped the breath right out of him, but he found it again soon enough. He pulled the noose from his ankles, then crawled across the trail and retrieved his little green helmet. He didn't ask for the axe, and I had no mind to give it up.

  We could hear the dragons along the trail. There was that quick thumping of their feet, a startled cry from Boggis. And there followed such a furious struggle that the very earth was shaking.

  Mr. Mullock, to his credit, didn't hesitate a moment. He darted down the trail, and I—with the axe—took Midgely and went after him. Beyond a bend, and beyond another, we found the two dragons locked in a terrible struggle. They rolled and tumbled, and they slammed against the ground, writhing in a mass of teeth and fire and swinging tails. Beside them stood Gaskin, looking hale and hearty, but scared to death.

  “They turned on each other,” he said. “One was bleeding and wounded. The other went after it.”

  So the axe, I supposed, had saved us. Or was it the noose that had snared Mr. Mullock and forced him to give it up? Perhaps it was Early's shoes that had caught the rope.…I shook my head. There was no sorting out the little stream of fate. It seemed only that—for once—it had flowed in my favor.

  We drew back into the jungle, meaning to circle round the dragons and reach the longboat. But we came instead to the edge
of the island, to a cliff above the sea. From there we looked out and I saw that the tide of fate hadn't turned at all.

  Out on the ocean, a cable or two from the shore, the longboat was riding on the waves. Carrots was rowing, Weedle was steering, and Benjamin Penny stood in the bow.

  Mr. Mullock turned the air blue with his oaths. He leapt up and down with fury. “Come back!” he bellowed. “Come back, you young curs!”

  But the longboat rose and fell on the waves, and Weedle didn't even turn around. In the height of sauciness, he raised one hand and gave a cheery little wave with his fingers aflutter. I heard Benjamin Penny laugh.

  Mr. Mullock nearly exploded. “You blackbeetle boy!” he cried, his face an alarming red. “You'll perish; you all will. The devil take the lot of you!”

  Carrots worked his oars at sixes and sevens. He was even worse at rowing than Weedle had been, so bad that he seemed to be doing nothing more than bashing the water with his blades. But the boat kept moving, and soon rounded a point, and the last I saw was Carrot's red head as he stood to ply his oars.

  I had never felt so hopeless. I very nearly hurled the axe after the boat.

  “This is your doing,” said Mr. Mullock. “If you 'adn't delayed me, if you 'adn't hinsisted on getting that axe …”

  “Then you'd be going with them,” I said. “You'd be in that boat right now on your way to Shanghai. And you know, Mr. Mullock, I wish it were so. If I'm to be stranded, I'd rather it wasn't with you.”

  “Hah!” He turned away to gaze at all the empty ocean.

  Midgely was pulling at my arm. “We ain't stranded, Tom. Not really,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I keep telling you,” he said with annoyance. “Sunny Wheeler, Tom. That trader, he'll help us.”

  I hadn't really believed in his trader. But he'd said the man was a crocodile trapper, and we'd certainly found a trap. “Where does he live?” I asked.

  “Somewhere on the eastern shore,” said Midge. “He's got a hut on the beach.”

  It seemed our only hope, and we all went off to find it, along the trail at first, then downhill through the jungle. I gave the axe to Boggis, who led the way and hacked a tunnel through the bushes. But it was slow going—or perhaps our course was less than straight—and dusk still saw us struggling along. I thought we would have to spend the night in the jungle, but then we heard the cries of seabirds, and just before dark we came out at a sandy beach.