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"What about Snowy?" whispered Dinah. "How can we get him down?"
"I wonder how he got up before?" said Philip. "And the dogs too. I
never thought of that. I was just pushed up in the dark, and I was so
scared I didn't think of Snowy or the dogs. They couldn't have climbed
that ladder!"
"There's probably some hole somewhere that they went into," said
Dinah. "A hole outside, I mean  too small for us, but big enough for
Snowy and the dogs."
 As it turned out afterwards, Dinah was right. There was a small hole
near the crack, and it was through this and up a narrow little tunnel
that Snowy had passed with the dogs, who knew the way very well. The
dogs' tunnel led eventually into one of the passages, and that was how
Snowy had got into the mountain but had not been imprisoned with Philip.
Snowy was still with them. He knew the way he had come in by, but
he wasn't going to leave the others. Jack switched on his torch and
felt about for the rope-ladder.
"Where is the wretched thing?" he said. "Surely it was just here!"
Snowy came and pressed close to him, and nearly sent him headlong
down to the black pool. "Hold Snowy!" he said to Philip. "I almost went
over then. I can't seem to find the ladder. It should be hanging down
somewhere about here."
"Let me look," said Philip, giving Snowy to Dinah. He felt about too,
and Jack flashed his torch all round and about to see if he could spy
the rope-ladder up which they had all come.
But it wasn't there  or if it was, nobody could see it! Jack flashed
his torch down into the hole as far as he could. No ladder at all!
"What's happened to it?" he said, exasperated.
"Perhaps someone has turned that little wheel in the pond the other
way  and the ladder rolled up and put itself away," suggested Dinah.
This was a dreadful thought. Jack began to look round the little
chamber to see if the rope-ladder had been pulled up by the machinery
set in motion by the wheel  but he couldn't see it anywhere.
His hand touched a spike on the wall. He focussed his torch on it.
"This may be a lever!" he said to the others. "Look!"
He pulled and pressed at the spike, and it suddenly gave way, pulling
downwards. A slab of rock was moved smoothly  and there behind was
the rope-ladder! How it worked with the wheel below the children could
not imagine.
It certainly wouldn't work for them. It was coiled or folded neatly
in the hollow behind the rock  but how to get it from there nobody
could make out. Some machinery put in motion was needed to set it free.
Then, Jack supposed, it would come sliding smoothly out of the place
it was in, fall over the edge of the rock, and uncoil all the way to
the bottom  hanging ready for any climber to come up.
"How does it work from up here though?" said Jack, for the twentieth
time. All of them had pulled and twisted and tugged at the ladder, lying
so snugly in its hiding-place  but it was quite impossible to move
it.
"Give it up!" said Jack gloomily at last. "No good! We're done for.
It's absolutely maddening, just when we are almost out of this beastly
mountain."
Chapter 20
AN AMAZING SECRET
THEY sat in the little room for some time, disappointed and puzzled.
Time and again they tried to make the rope-ladder slide out of its secret
place, but it wouldn't. In the end they got very thirsty and very hungry.
They drank all the water left in the jugs, and wondered where they could
get something to eat.
They could only think of the room where they had feasted before. "Let's
go back to it and see if the remains of that meal are still there,"
said Jack. "I could do with another lobster or two!"
"Poor Polly!" remarked Kiki, who always seemed to know when food was
being talked about. "Polly's got a cold. Send for the doctor."
"Oh, you've found your tongue again, have you?" said Jack. "I thought
you'd lost it! Now don't start screaming or cackling, for goodness'
sake, or you'll have us caught!"
They found their way back to the throne-room, which was still empty,
and then to the room where the meal had been.
 There were still the remains of the meal there. The children's eyes
gleamed. Good! They felt better at once.
They sat down and reached for the food. Then suddenly Jack put his
hand on Philip's arm and frowned. A noise had come from the next room
 the beautifully furnished bedroom! The children sat as still as mice.
Was anybody there?
Kiki suddenly saw Snowy with her front hooves on the table, reaching
for the salad. In anger she flew at the kid and screeched.
"That's done it!" said Jack. And as he spoke, the hangings at the
entrance to the room opened, and a face peered through.
It was the face they had seen down in the big workroom  the face
with the enormous forehead. It had bulging eyes of a curious green-blue,
a hooked nose, and sunken cheeks, yellowish in colour.
This face stared in silence at the four children, and they, in turn,
stared back without a word. Who was this strange old man with the great
forehead?
"Do I know who you are?" asked the face, a puzzled look coming over
it. "I forget, I forget." The curtains were swung further apart and
the old man came right through. He was dressed in a kind of loose tunic
of blue silk, and the children thought he looked a pathetic old thing.
He had a thin high voice that Kiki immediately copied.
The old man looked astonished, especially as he could not see Kiki,
who was behind a great vase of flowers. The children didn't say anything.
They were wondering if it was possible to make a dash and get away.
"What are children doing here?" said the old man, in a puzzled tone.
"Have I seen you before? Why are you here?"
"Er  we came to look for somebody who was lost," said Jack. "And
now we can't get out again. Could you tell us the way?"
The old man appeared so lost and wandering that it seemed to Jack
he might quite well be foolish enough to show them the way out. But
he was wrong.
"Oh no, oh no," said the old fellow at once, a cunning look coming
over his yellow face. "There are secrets here, you know. My secrets.
Nobody who comes in may go out  until my experiments are finished.
I'm the king of this place  my brain runs it all!"
He finished up on a high shrill note that gave the children a queer
feeling. Was the old fellow mad? Surely he couldn't be the "king" they
had seen in the throne-room?
"You don't look like the king," said Lucy-Ann. "We saw the king in
the throne-room  he was tall and had a great crown, and black hair
round his face."
"Ah, yes. They make me appear like that," said the old man. "I want
to be king of the world, you know, the whole world  because of my great
brain. I know more than anyone else. Meier says I shall be ruler of
the world as soon as my experiments are done. And they are nearly finished,
very very nearly!"
"Does Meier dress you up like a king then, when you appear in the
throne-room?" asked Jack, astonished. He turned to the others and spoke
in an undertone. "That's to impress the paratroopers, I suppose! He
wouldn't cut any ice with them if they saw him like this."
"I am a king," said the old man, with dignity. "Because of my great
brain, you know. I have a secret and I am using it. You have seen my
great laboratory, have you? Ah, my little children, I know how to use
all the great powers of the world  the tides, the metals, the winds
 and gravitation!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]