So it is a familiar scene that meets our eyes: the blue and sun-kissed sea gently creaming a golden strand of the Main; the Frantic Frog riding at anchor; the raffish figures of the buccaneers delving a great pit in the sand just below high-water mark; Happy Dan Pew, now fully restored, sitting on a cask with a feather in his hat exclaiming: “Ah, les bucket-et-spades pour faisant les châteaux de plage! Où sont les souliers bains de mer de Marcel, les gym-shoes et les donkey-rides?”; Vanity all distraught in her maroon velvet between two hairy sentinels, and Blood with his hands pinioned being lowered into the pit above the treasure, and buried up to the neck. That's the picture – but we're not the only ones watching, by the powers! From the dense jungle fringing the beach, unseen 'midst the foliage, fierce black eyes glare and sharp ears catch the distant sound of the pirates' voices, and the shrill protests of the victim.
“Haven't ye any gratitude, ye foul Frogs?” he was demanding as they shovelled in the last spadefuls and tramped it down nice and tight under his chin. “If it hadn't been for me, devil a doubloon would ye ha' seen! Pew, ye muckrake, give me a sword an' I'll cut your dirty soul out – or better still, let's toss for it, eh? Heads ye turn me loose, tails …”
“Ah, oui?” said Happy Dan, interested. “Tails?”
“We can discuss that later!” cried Blood desperately. “Be a sport, man – is this fit end for an officer an' gentleman? Ye know it isn't! And it's … it's unnecessary! What's the point? Ye could maroon me just as easy!”
“Some fun, that, par example!” scoffed Happy Dan. “This way, fooleesh Mick, the tide approaches itself slowly, first one wave ovair your 'ead, then anothair, an' anothair, until glug-glug-glug, adieu! C'est artistic, non? An' the bones of your squelette, they mark the place where the oof est enterré, parfaitement!”
The pirate crew applauded with fiendish glee, and watched as the first wave of the incoming tide broke against Blood's chin and retreated hissing over the wet sand. Then another wave, which splashed his face, and a third which broke clean over his head, leaving him spluttering. Vanity could endure no more.
“Ah, of your pity, fell and cruel men!” she cried. “Can't you shoot him, or hang him, or … or knock him on the head, or something—”
“Do us a favour!” roared Blood, spitting sea-water.
“Captain Pew, this is beastly!” cried Vanity, and proudly faced the foppish filibuster. “Unless you release that man immediately, you shall never have me to wife! Not that you will anyway, but that's beside the point. I shall knock off food, and grow thin and unattractive, furthermore I shall mock your rotten French pronunciation and recite ‘petite poire’ until my mouth meets at the back, and—”
What effect these dire threats would have had we'll never know, for at that moment an uncanny, wailing cry sounded in the depths of the jungle, and an eery silence fell over the sunlit beach, broken only by Blood's snorts and cries of “Jayzus!” All gazed about them in wonder – and suddenly something sang in the air like a great wasp, and Happy Dan staggered back, plucking at a feathered shaft quivering in his arm and ruining his cuff. With oaths and yells the pirates sprang to their muskets, as a positive hail of arrows came winging from the trees, followed by the shrill war-whoops of lithe, half-naked brown figures breaking from ambush, feathers in their hair and faces grotesquely daubed with paint.
“Indiennes! Les sauvages rouges!” cried the startled pirates.
“Aaarrgh, je suis blessé dans le bras!” gasped Happy Dan.
“Serve you right, and I hope it hurts!” snapped Vanity.
“Whoop-whoop!” shrieked the Indians, charging home.
“Fetch a shovel, for God's sake!” roared Blood, his head awash.
Further conversation was lost in the din of battle as pirate closed with Indian; muskets banged, arrows hissed, cutlasses and spears clashed, Vanity stamped in vexation, Blood gurked and gargled, and on both sides men fell wounded and, in extreme cases, dead. Judging the combat with the eye of one who has cheered on countless boyfriends in Rugby scrums, Vanity decided that Blood would probably drown before half-time, and gallant girl that she was, heedless of the foam that threatened to damp her pumps and ruin her silk hose, she knelt and began to scoop out a hollow round his head, on the theory that the water-level would drop. It didn't.
“Give us the kiss o' life!” spluttered the Colonel.
“Really!” exclaimed Vanity, scooping away. “Don't you ever stop getting fresh?”
“Oxygen!” gasped Blood weakly. “Fill thy lungs an' breathe into me mouth, acushla, so shall I draw life-giving air from thy sweet lips!” And if I don't, he thought ardently, what a lovely way to go.
“Oh, I see,” said Vanity, frowning. “A bit kinky, is it not? Still, here goes.” She gulped air, locked on to the Colonel just as he submerged, and tried to imagine he was a Christmas balloon. She went under a brunette, and came out a breathless blonde, and Happy Dan, pausing in his pistolling, clutched his pallid brow.
“Dieu caillou les corbeaux!” he cried aghast. “Regardez sa chevelure! She 'as flipped 'er wig! What do I see, me? Un moment, ma belle brun, le next une bébé peroxide! C'est trop fort! A moi, garçons! It's all going wrong! To les bateaux!”
Seeing their leader quail, the filibusters lost no time in legging it for the boats and rowing hastily for the Frantic Frog, with Pew babbling weakly in the stern-sheets. The Indians, nightmare figures in their paint and gold ornaments, were left in possession of the beach where, having cut the throats of the enemy wounded with quartz knives and danced the Hawaiian War Chant to bongo accompaniment, they gathered round the interesting spectacle of a sodden blonde in maroon velvet apparently trying to eat the head of a white man under two feet of water. Vanity, half-drowned herself, was aware of their strange guttural grunts which, although she knew it not, meant:
“Man, these honkies! Hey, Coatlputl, what this chick tryin' to do, you reckon?” “Don't look at me, Patzlqtln. Maybe she's a priestess worshippin' the Great White God from the East, but if that's him, brother, he's wet!” “How 'bout that? Think we oughta dig'm up'n take'm back to Cohaclgzln?” “Why not? He's gonna look real lousy stickin' out the beach when the tide goes back. Okay, men, dig-a-dig-dig!”
Thus it was that as the Frantic Frog weighed anchor, with Happy Dan sniffing smelling-salts and weeping while the crew read him “Marcel et Denise à la Cirque” to soothe him, a weird barbaric procession was winding its way deep into the tropic jungle. Dreadful warriors with filed teeth and fiery black eyes chanted the blood-chilling song of the Great White God and the Damp Blonde Discovered Necking Under Water; their bone-whistles shrilled and their war-drums boomed in melancholy cadence as they filed down the jungle trail; the westering sun gleamed on their quartz blades, gaudy plumage, and gold bangles, and on the fair head of the lovely captive borne in a bamboo cage by stalwart savages, her nylons hung on the bars to dry. Last of all came a pathetic sight, the Great White God himself slung helpless from a pole, leaking salt water at every step. Ah, pity their plight, reader, as they are carried ever deeper into the steamy forest swamps, for their destination is the dread Lost City of Cohaclgzln, long sought by Conquistadores for its fabled wealth of gold, high-grade drinking-chocolate, and native art so revoltingly ugly that later generations of settlers would revere it as work of genius. In fact, the Cohaclgzlns were just rotten sculptors, and their un-imagined ferocity stemmed directly from the frustration they suffered in their continual failures to design the wheel, which they attempted by carving enormous lumps of rock, none of which would ever roll properly, whereon they were piled up in gigantic step-pyramids which the Cohaclgzlns defiantly described as temples but which everyone knew were just industrial pollution. So this unhappy people waited bad-temperedly for a Great White God who, legend had it, would give them wheels that worked; in the meantime they put by the time in sun-worship, cannibalism, human sacrifice, and orgies on drinking-chocolate which made them sick and worse-tempered than ever.
What hideous fate awaits Vanity a
nd Blood at the hands of these cruel and unartistic primitives? Let's find out, as the procession debouches from the jungle into a valley where step-pyramids loom skyward on every hand, their summits wreathed in mist. In the central stone-flagged plaza, a-rumble with the sound of discarded wheel-prototypes being dragged away by panting slaves, a discontented crowd of semi-clad barbarians waited as the prisoners were dragged before the stone dais on which stood Brasso, cacique of the tribe, a hawk-nosed elder with folded arms, wrapped in Imperturbable Dignity and a cloak of frog fur. His agate eyes flashed cruelly at Vanity, proudly erect in her off-the-shoulder maroon velvet, and Blood, who looked like an unsuccessful beachcomber. Brasso, with stately flowing gestures, addressed their captors in incomprehensible grunts.
“Great White God my ass!” was what they meant. “I ask you, Patzlqtln, do he have wheels? He don't. Fact, man, I ain't seen such a un-wheeled cat since Popocatepetl erupted. He looks like you dug'm up some place.”
“Right on, chief!” said Patzlqtln. “We dug'm, yasser. But if you can't use'm, how ‘bout the chick?”
“How the hell do I know?” cried Brasso peevishly. He drew himself up and proclaimed: “Let the Princess of the Sun decide!”
At this there was a great clashing of brazen gongs, and a solemn chanting of hidden choirs as the watching thousands prostrated themselves in the dust with moans of awe. Brasso shielded his eyes, a fanfare of horns sounded, and at the head of the temple steps behind the dais the Princess of the Sun made an entrance worthy of a Biblical epic. Preceded by maidens in gauzy skirts who swept the steps with golden fronds and sprinkled disinfectant, came a massive litter of solid gold borne by muscular myrmidons, and in it, stoned out of her tiny mind on drinking-chocolate, sat a bronzed glamazon who looked like Paramount's idea of Tiger Lily. Superbly tall and queenly, with tawny features classical enough to advertise Tabu perfume, she was resplendent in a split conga-skirt of bird-of-paradise feathers, and of gold (as Vanity noted wide-eyed) were her sandals, girdle, bra, and bangles, while precious gems glittered in her towering headdress of plumes and tropical fruit. (Well, you didn't expect her in clogs and shawl.)
Moving in an exotic rhumba rhythm to which the Princess dazedly tried to keep time with a fan of beaten gold, the myrmidons bore her to the dais, and there she bent her sultry, slightly vacant eyes on the captives, while Brasso explained.
“The male cat's white, okay? But, Princess, the Great White God he ain't. No wheels, right? So, zilch! But with the chick, there's altern'tives. You need a hand-maiden, manicurist, temple receptionist, jus' say the word, Princess – or we can dish her up with yams, I mean, 'n' pineapple rings at the next barbecue, jus' the way you like it. Speak, divine daughter of the Sun.”
The Princess sniffed a delicate blast of chocolate dust, shuddered, placed an unsteady slender finger 'neath languid chin, and tried to focus on Vanity. Oh, man, she thought, any minute I'm gonna crash, but not in public, pleeeze dear God, or these yokels may discover I'm a runaway nun from Campeche who's exchanged one habit for another. Oh-oh-oh, steady, girl, easy does it, you're the Princess of the Sun, right? She focused at last, and her eyes narrowed cruelly as she considered Vanity. Nice threads, she thought, but I need you round the temple like a hole in the head; you're the kind who'd seduce my pusher and set me up for a bust. Blood looked cute, she thought, but he wasn't the Great White God, so what the hell? Controlling an urge to do tailspins over the valley, the Princess spoke in a vibrant contralto.
“Man … death … by … maguay! Ugh!” She knew how to talk like a jungle denizen, if no one else in Cohaclgzln did. “Woman … human … sacrifice … Ugh! Make … Sun … God … glad! Ugh!”
“Hot damn!” Brasso snapped his fingers in admiration. “Why didn't I think of that? Okay, cats, you heard the Princess – one maguay, one for the altar, let's move it! See, divine Princess, your people … oh-oh, she's gone into a trance again! Poor kid, this divinity bit is killing her!” And sure enough the Princess had collapsed with a deep groan of “Oh, God!”, and lay twitching and glassy-eyed as her litter was borne up the temple steps and out of sight of the vulgar gaze. Brasso made imperious gestures, and Vanity and Blood found themselves surrounded by excited, tooth-gnashing savages who swept them away, struggling, in opposite directions.
“You say I was hit by falling masonry?” exclaimed Captain Avery, rubbing his slender but muscular neck. “Nay, 'tis passing strange, for yon dungeon seemed admirably designed and stoutly built, such as would hardly shed lumps on its occupants—”
“What does it matter?” husked Black Sheba. “We are here, alone in the depths of the jungle, thou and I… a man and a woman … here in this tropic paradise o' perfumed blooms and succulent fruits … alone, as in a very Garden of Love, like Adam and Eve …” and she slithered sinuously towards him, her hand brushing his cheek.
“Adam and the serpent were more like it!” Avery's words dropped like ice-cubes. “'Tis my belief ye had me clobbered, that I might not rescue yon poor Spanish lady!”
“That puling twerp!” sneered Sheba. “I marked her not. Ah, barracuda mio, what can I think on but that you dared all to save me … again … and that we are free, you and I, and may fly together where we will – aye, to the world's end and beyond, in each other's arms!” She did another slither and embraced his knees, crooning contentedly.
“Oh, pack it in!” said Avery. “I enlarged thee because I'm shot if I'll leave anyone, however depraved, to the devildoms o' Spain. But know that I purpose to deliver thee to British justice as soon as I have tooled back to Cartagena and abstracted Donna Meliflua.”
“Has that clock on sconce disordered thee? Tool back – with Don Lardo's soldiers already in pursuit? – for I marked the gleam o' their arms behind when our canoe foundered at dawn – and thou a-swoon, so that I must bear thee afoot in my arms (and in these heels, too), and so brought thee to this glade and nursed thee, and soothed thy brow wi' cooling water, and massaged thy poor hurt …” Her voice dropped to a murmur, and her fingers strayed on his arm. “'Zounds, you've got smashing muscles, and the cutest little mole on your chest – I kissed it as you slept, all unaware …”
“Of all the crust!” Avery's cheek glowed like middle-cut salmon. “Have ye no shame? No, of course you haven't!” He took a big breath. “What's the use? I thank you for your … efforts – but now restored, I must return for Donna Meliflua—”
“Ah, cospetto!” Sheba leaped up, and raged to and fro in the remnants of her white trouser suit. “Has she bewitched thee, this Spanish punk? Fiend take her, I could rake her sheep's eyes out!” She whirled like an infuriated Lena Horne. “And what o' thy darling Vanity, then – thy English milk pudding?”
“For your information,” quo' Avery icily, “my fiancée awaits me in care o' my trusted agent -” that's what he thinks, poor sap “ – and we shall be reunited and spliced as soon as I have rescued Donna Meliflua, consigned thee to the coop, and mopped up the rest of your associates. Where is Bilbo, by the way, and that other brute who doesn't shave?”
“Who can say?” murmured Sheba evilly. “Hunting thee, perchance. There's little gratitude in him, my captain, or in Firebeard … so why not make the most of what's in me?” She undulated towards him, hands on hips, and then, creature of impulse that she was, hurled herself on him and knocked him flat on his back, smothering him with hot kisses. “Ah, barracuda … come to my black castle on storm-lashed Octopus Rock,” she panted. “I promise I'll get rid of my Swedes and beach boys, and love none but thee! Shalt lie soft, and feed o' dainties, and go surfing and scuba-diving and have captive commanders to wait on thee and press thee new silk cravats daily … or we shall cruise to the Indies and put the pleasure resorts to sack and pillage … casinos aflame, merchant bankers sold into slavery, the spoil o' palaces and supermarkets to drip through our fingers … ah, we shall rule the world together and—”
“Do you mind?” said Avery coldly. “The grass is damp and you're no fly-weight, so if you will please to remove …??
?
“I don't believe it!” Sheba ground her teeth. “Art insensate? Art immune to – love?”
“Certainly not,” said Avery, brushing himself down. “Mummy loved me, and Aunt Pru, and Golightly, my nanny …”
Sheba gnashed and clutched her temples. “God's blood! I mean – LOVE!!!”
“I'd rather not discuss it,” said Avery rising and shrugging his splendid shoulders in a way which made her feel all faint. “Now, I must determine our precise whereabouts in this trackless jungle, and then -” He stiffened suddenly, his face alight with intelligent inquiry. “Hist! What was that?”
Sheba was on her feet, every nerve a-quiver. All around was deathly still, save for the roar of the river, the scream of parakeets and chatter of monkeys in the green, the hum of insects, and the snuffle of tapirs rooting for truffles. And yet – her perfect ears quivered …
“Odd's guts!” she hissed. “'Tis a human voice … aye, in dire torment! A far-distant, wordless scream o' agony—”
“But with an Irish accent!” breathed Avery. “We are in South America, aren't we?”
“Can Don Lardo's soldiery be practising on some hapless prisoner?” gasped Sheba. “Nay, or fiendish Indians trying out their poisoned darts? Whatever on't, we had best away—”
“What, and leave some poor soul (from Belfast, unless I'm mistaken) to perish by inches? Not a chance.” Avery's jaw creaked with resolution. “Here, you take the sword.”
“But you? Peerless master o' the rapier that ye are, 'twere best you had it -”
“You forget, I have my bare hands,” said Avery calmly, and slipped into the undergrowth with an athletic smoothness that would have made Nureyev look like a shambling drunk. Sheba followed, half-dazed with worship. What a demi-god was this! If only he didn't get these Boy Scout impulses. But she'd educate him, one of these days, when she'd got him to Octopus Rock and thrown away the key …