The Mystery of Adventure Island (10 page)

“No. We
can’t
let the men find our campsite. We have to lead them away from that area.” Will
turned
towards the hill. “Let’s go to the tree house.”

“Good idea.” Joe sprinted towards the hill. As he reached it, he glanced back and saw that the men and were not far behind. He realised they would have a better chance of getting to the tree house if they split up. This would also mean that if the men caught up with them, not all of them
would be captured
.

So
, as they neared the top of the hill, Joe glanced at the others. “We need to split up.”

Amy only took a moment to decide. “I’ll go with Sarah. And if you boys go alone, we’ll only have one man each on our tail.”

“Are you sure?” Joe asked.

“We’ll be fine,” Amy said. “Come on, Sarah.” The girls headed straight down the slope while Will went left and Joe went right.

Chapter 13: The Quarry

 

For some reason, the section of the hill that the girls were hurrying down had the most number of gorse bushes.
And
, because of their prickles, it made it necessary for the girls to slow down.

They
hadn’t
actually gone this way before, and Amy was wishing that she had chosen a different way.
But
there was nothing she could do about it now.

“Stop for a minute, I want to see if there’s anyone chasing us,” Amy whispered. She could hear twigs
brea
king to the left and right of her, but none behind her. Maybe there
wasn’t
anyone behind them.
But then
, what had happened to the third man?

“What do we do?” Sarah asked.

Amy was just about to answer when she heard twigs breaking as someone crashed through the bushes. “Run!” She turned and pushed through the bushes, not bothering whether or not she
got
scratched.

Hurrying down the slope, she was surprised to see the bushes suddenly disappear and found
herself
staring down a steep bed of grass that, eventually, turned into rocks.

Stopping, she was wondering what to do when Sarah bumped into her. The two girls fell and tumbled down the hillside, rolling
over and over
, getting faster with every second.

~

Will
wasn’t
afraid of getting lost as he knew where to hide. The last time they had walked past here, he had spotted an old tree with a hollow trunk.

He headed for the tree and hid inside. Careful to be as quiet as possible, he stood as still as a mouse. He heard the pounding of footsteps as his pursuer raced past.

As soon as the footsteps had faded away, Will emerged from the tree trunk and looked around to make sure no one had spotted him. Satisfied that no one had, he headed towards the tree house.

~

Joe was wishing that he had stayed on the path that he had been
on
. It would have led him to the tree house.
But
, with the man right behind him, or so it had seemed, he had turned right, hoping to lose him in the trees.

However, as he raced forward, he found himself out in the open. The sandy beach was in front of him and, apart from the wood that he had just come
from,
he couldn’t see anywhere to hide. Hearing someone closing in on him, Joe raced along the sand. Seeing some rocks up ahead, an idea came into his head.

He passed two rocks,
then
dropped down, hiding behind the third one. His feet were partly sticking out, so he shuffled some sand over them. He lay still as he heard the man approach. The next minute or two would tell
whether or not
he would be caught.

~

Amy and Sarah came to a stop at the bottom of the hillside. After sitting up in a daze, the girls looked around and discovered they were next to a quarry. Hidden by trees and bushes on all sides, there
were piles of rocks strewn
all over the area. There also seemed to be a hole, which indicated to Amy that it might also be a mine.

“Golly, how come we didn’t see this before?” Amy asked.

“What is it?” Sarah said.

“It must be where they got the rocks from to build the church and other buildings on this island. After all, it would have been a bit difficult to transport all that rock from the mainland.” Amy stood up and walked around, forgetting for a minute that someone was chasing them.

Hearing a noise, she glanced up and saw Marvin as he emerged from the bushes. He hurried down the hill.

Realizing that they had to hide somewhere, she hurried over to the hole. As soon as she saw that there was a ladder, she started climbing down it, her sister right behind her.

The ladder was old, but still in good condition. Once she was on solid ground, she switched on the torch that she always carried in her pocket and swung it
around
. There were at least four tunnels going in opposite directions. She
didn’t
know which one to go down, but as she heard the man’s footsteps, she chose the one closest to her.

The light bobbed
to and fro
as Amy and Sarah hurried down the tunnel. The torch light picked up the wooden supports, and Amy hoped that they
weren’t
going to give out when they were in it.

After they had walked for some distance, Amy slowed down and looked at her sister. “Are you all right?”

Sarah nodded. “I can’t hear the man behind us, so hopefully he didn’t see us go down the hole.”

Amy listened and realised that her sister was right. No sound
could be heard
. She switched off the torch. “We’ll wait here and see if we hear anything.”

~

At the tree house, Will was waiting for Joe and the girls to arrive. He swung his legs back and
forth
as he sat on the platform and gazed down, searching through the leaves for any sign of movement.
But
none could be seen.

A minute later, he caught sight of someone heading towards him. He held his breath as he waited to see who it was. A moment later, he saw it was Joe.

Joe started climbing up. As he reached the halfway point, he called up. “Are the girls with you?”

Will shook his head. “No.”

Joe frowned and resumed climbing, reaching the top a minute later. As he reached the platform and sat down, he turned to Will. “How long have you been here?”

“About ten minutes,” Will
replied
. “I was just starting to wonder if everyone else had been captured when I saw you through the trees.”

“It took longer than I thought to get rid of the man following me,” Joe confessed. “I had to hide behind some rocks and wait until he passed until I could head for here.”

“I hope the girls are all right,” Will
said
. “We’ll give them thirty minutes. If they don’t show up by then, we’ll start searching, okay?”

Joe nodded. “If they don’t come back in that time, I’m afraid something may have happened to them.”

~

After waiting for what seemed like forever, Amy switched the torch back on. “I haven’t heard anything for a while, so we could head back.”

“Okay,” Sarah replied.

Amy led the way back. She
wasn’t
concerned about getting lost since this tunnel only split into two and the second tunnel was much smaller than the first.

The girls were nearly at the end of the tunnel when Amy heard a noise. She stopped, causing Sarah to bump into her. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought I heard something,” Amy whispered as she switched off her torch. “Wait here.” She continued along the tunnel until she came to the
bend which
was quite close to the shaft.

Peering around, she saw a shadow in the darkness. She wondered what it could be when a cough broke the silence. It was one of the men!

Amy turned and tiptoed back, wondering how long they would have to stay in the mine.

~

With heavy hearts, the boys climbed down from the tree. Once on solid ground, they discussed what to do.

“We should go to the top of the hill and see if we can see anything,” Joe suggested.

Will led the way up the hill. Once they had reached the top, he looked around. No one
could be seen
. “What do we do now?”

“Go the way the girls went,”
Joe
replied. He took the lead and hurried down the hill. He soon encountered the prickly bushes that had slowed down the girls and, while this
wasn’t
good for the arms and legs, it did prove something as he caught sight of something blue.

It was a small piece of fabric. Joe turned to Will. “This looks as though it’s come from Sarah’s shorts.”

Will nodded. “So now we know that they made it this far.” He continued on, stopping when they came into sight of the quarry. “Gosh, I didn’t know this was here.”

Joe shook his head. “Nor me. We must have missed it because of all those tall bushes.” A thought struck him as he caught sight of a shaft going into the ground. “You don’t suppose the girls are underground, do you?”

“It’s a possibility.” Will suddenly clutched hold of Joe and pulled him down to the ground.

“What—” Joe said.

“Quiet!” Will interrupted. He pointed to the shaft as one of the men emerged from it. As he saw his
bald head
, he realised it was Marvin.

As the man looked around, the boys ducked behind a clump of bushes. They froze, wondering if they
had been seen
.

Chapter 14: A Good Trick

 

Apparently satisfied that no one was about, Marvin sat down on a nearby rock.

The boys waited for a minute or two, but the man
didn’t
move. Creeping back a tad, Will whispered to Joe. “There’s only one reason why he would sit there.”

“If he was waiting for someone to come out of the shaft,” Joe said.

Will nodded. “And I don’t think he’s waiting for his friends.”

“No, so it looks as though the girls are down there,” Joe said.

“What do we do about it?” Will asked.

Joe thought for a moment before he answered. “We have to distract the man.”

“What if we throw a rock into the other end of the quarry?” Will said. “While he sees what the noise is, we can slip into the hole.”

Joe grinned. “Good thinking.” He searched the ground for a rock that would be suitable for the diversion. It needed to be small enough to go a long distance, but big enough to make a loud noise when it landed. He found one a few seconds later. “This should do it.”

Will parted the bushes with his hand. Looking down at the man, he calculated where the rock needed to land. After pointing this out to Joe, he waited for him to throw it.

The rock sailed out of Joe’s hand a second later. As it fell towards the ground, he hoped that it would hit the pile of rocks that were past some bushes. That would provide some cover for them when they raced down.

Unfortunately, it
didn’t
get that far. As it landed five feet short of the bushes, Joe grimaced. Still hoping for the best, he waited at the edge of the bushes.

As soon as the rock hit the other rocks, the man stood up, frowned, and walked over to the bushes.

Joe and Will raced down the hill. After reaching the rocky ground, they spurted towards the hole.
But
, before they could get there, the man turned around and headed back.

The boys ducked behind a rock, certain that they
had been seen
. Luckily, at that very moment, there was a yell as someone called out. Peeking out from behind the rock, Joe saw Luke walk towards the quarry.

“I lost sight of my kid,” Luke called. “What about yours?”

“They went down the tin mine,” Marvin replied.

The boys heard his footsteps retreat and they
brea
thed a sigh of relief. They
didn’t
know what Marvin had seen that interested him enough to walk towards them, but it had obviously been nothing since he was now engaged in a conversation with the other man.