Chapter 22

Later Green thought that if ever the time came when he should have cracked up, that instant of loss, white and sudden as the lightning itself, should have been the one.

The others cried out loudly in their grief and shock, but he was as silent as the empty stone shelf. He could not move nor utter a word; all seemed hopeless, so what was the use of motion or talk?

Nevertheless, he was human, and human beings hope even when there is no justification for it. Nor could he remain frozen until the next stroke of lightning would reveal to the others the state of their leader. He had to act. What if his actions were meaningless? Mere movement answered for the demands of the body, and at that moment it was his body that could move. His mind was congealed.

Shouting to the others to scatter and look about in the brush, but not to scatter too far, he began climbing up the slope of the hill. When he had reached its top he left the path and plunged into the forest to his right on the theory that if the yachts were anywhere they must be there. He had two ideas about where they might be. One was that the Vings had spotted them and had sent in a party aboard a gig to push them over the side of the island. Thus, when the island had begun its nightly voyage it had left the ‘rollers sitting upon the plain. The other theory was also inspired by the presence of the Vings. Perhaps the savages had hidden their craft because of just such an event as his first theory put forth. To do that they would have had to haul the ‘rollers up the less steep slant of the cove.

At the point where he would have looped a rope around a tree and used it to pull a yacht uphill, he saw all three of the missing craft. They were nestling side by side just over the lip of the slope, their hulls hidden by brush piled up before them. Their tall masts, of course, would be taken for tree trunks by anybody but a very close observer.

Green yelled with joy, then whirled to run back and tell the others. And slammed into a tree trunk. He picked himself up, swearing because he’d hurt his nose. And tripped over something and fell again. Thereafter, he seemed to be in a night-mare of frustration, of conspiracy between tree and night to catch and delay him. Where his trip up had been easy, his trip back was a continued barking of shins, bumping of nose, and tearing loose from clutching bushes and thorns. His confusion wasn’t at all helped when the lightning ceased, because he’d been guiding himself by its frequent flashes. And Lady Luck, alarmed at all the hard knocks she was getting, struggled out of his shirt pocket and slipped into the forest. He called to her to come back, but she had had enough of him, for the time being, anyway.

For a brief moment he thought of the fantastic device of grabbing hold of her tail and following her through the dark. But she was gone, and the idea wouldn’t have worked, anyway. More than likely she’d have turned and bitten his hands until he released her.

There was nothing to do but make his own way back.

After ten minutes of frantic struggling, during which he suddenly realized he’d turned the wrong way and was wandering away from the edge of the island, he saw the clouds disappear. With the bright moon came vision and sanity. He turned around and in a short time was back at the cove.

“What happened to you?” asked Amra. “We thought maybe you’d fallen off the edge.”

“That’s about all that didn’t happen,” he said, irritated now that he had been so easily lost. He told them where the yachts were and added, “We’ll have to let one down by a rope before we can connect it to the davits. It’ll take a lot of pushing and pulling, a lot of muscle. Everybody up on the hill, including the children!”

Wearily, they climbed up the slope to the top and shoved one of the ‘rollers up the slight incline of the depression to the lip of the hill. Green picked up one of the wet ropes lying on the ground and passed it around the tree. Its trunk had a groove where many ropes had worn a path during similar operations. One end he gave to half of the party, putting Miran in charge of them. The other end he tied in a bowknot to a huge iron eye which projected from the stern of the craft. Then, ordering the other half of the women to help him push, he got the ‘roller over the lip and down the slope, while the rope gang slowly released the double loop around the tree in short jerks.

When the craft had halted by the davits, Green untied the rope. His next step would be to back the yacht in between the davits so that he could hook up its ropes and lift it. Fortunately, there was a winch and cable for this. Unfortunately, the winch was hand-operated and had been allowed to get rusty. It would work only with great resistance and with loud squeaking. Not that more noise mattered, for the party had made so much that only the fact that the wind was from the east could have kept the savages in ignorance of the survivors’ whereabouts.

It was as if his thinking of them had brought them upon the scene. Grizquetr, who’d been stationed in a tree as a sentinel, called down, “I see a torch! It’s somewhere in the woods, about half a mile away. Oh! There’s another one! And another one!”

Green said, “Do you think they’re on the path that leads here?”

“I don’t know. But they’re coming this way, winding here and there, wandering like Samdroo when he was lost in the Mirrored Mazes of Gil-Ka-Ku, The Black One! Yes, they must be on the path!”

Green began feverishly tying the davit-ropes to the axles of the craft. He sweated with anxiety and cursed when his fumbling fingers got in the way of his haste. But the tying of the four bowknots actually took less than a minute, in spite of the way time seemed to race past him.

That done he had to order off the yacht some of the women who had climbed aboard. Only the women who had to take care of very small infants and the older children were to be on that boat.

“Just who do you think is going to work the winch?” he barked at the too-eager. “Now, jump to it!”

One of the women on the ‘roller wailed, “Are you going to stay on the island and leave us all alone on this ‘roller in the midst of the Xurdimur?”

“No,” he answered, as calmly as possible. “We’re going to lower you to the ground. Then we’re going back up the hill and shove the other ‘rollers over the edge so that they can’t be used by the savages to come after us. We’ll jump off and walk back to you.”

Seeing that the women were still not convinced and softened by their pitiable looks, he called to Grizquetr.

“Come down! And get on the boat!”

And when the boy had run down the slope and halted by his side, breathing hard and looking up at him for his orders, Green said, “I’m delegating you to guard these women and babies until we arrive. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Grizquetr, grinning, his chest swelling because of the importance of the duty. “I’m captain until you climb aboard, is that it?”

“You’re a captain and a good one too,” said Green, slapping him lightly on the shoulder. Then he ordered the winches turned until the ‘roller was hoisted into the air a few inches. As soon as the rusty machines had groaningly fulfilled their functions he had the craft lowered over the edge and down to the plain. The transition was smoothly made; the yacht’s wheels began turning; the nose lifted only slightly because of the superior pull on the ropes tied to the bow; the stem ropes were paid out a little to equalize the strain; then, obeying Green’s gesture, the women aboard it pulled at the bowknots, which untied simultaneously. Not until then did he breathe a little easier, for if one or more had refused to slip loose as swiftly as another, the craft might have been pulled up on one side or dragged around by either end and thus capsized.