I bade her wait there while I fetched from the cave the knapsack I had packed and the Winchester.
I advanced cautiously down the shore. I wondered what Grundt was doing. How oppressive the island silence was! It unsettled me. I thought of the strange unnatural hush which is said to precede an earthquake.
I bent down and lifted the pall of creeper screening the mouth of the cave. As I entered a bulky form rose up from one of the beds. There was no mistaking that massive figure, its slow, deliberate movement. I sprang back but the creeper hampered my movements and before I could gain the open, my shoulders were firmly grasped, my arms pinioned. I sought to twist myself free but I was held by those who must have held a man before and I could barely struggle in that iron grip. As I thus stood helpless I heard Marjorie cry out.
CHAPTER XVI
BLACK PABLO MAKES HIS PREPARATIONS
They pushed me into the cool dimness of the cave. An odour of unwashed humanity, which blended gratefully with a searching smell of garlic, hung about my unseen captors.
"Herrgott!" cried Grundt, "it's as dark as pitch in this hole. Cut away this cursed plant, some of you, and let's have some light!"
The creeper fell away. The golden sunlight that flooded the cave showed me Clubfoot, his black-tufted hands folded across the crutch handle of his heavy stick, grim and lowering.
Black Pablo and a regular Hercules of a man, a broad-chested, yellow-bearded giant, a good type of the German bluejacket from the Frisian seaboard, were holding me. Grundt made a quick gesture of the hand.