Return to Skull Island

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Book: Read Return to Skull Island for Free Online
Authors: Ron Miller, Darrell Funk
getting my eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness I would have been more aware of the snicking sound of a half dozen automatics being cocked. The chubby little officer turned to face us and said, “Señorita Patricia Wildman, you an’ yor companion are onder arrest.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    “I have to admit this is something I hadn’t quite counted on,” said Pat from the cell across from the one I had been tossed into.
    “Yeah? I thought you’d thought of everything.”
    “Don’t be such a smart aleck. I’ll get us out of this.”
    “I’m sure you will. You certainly got us into it easily enough.”
    “There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
    She was obviously going to get on a high horse, so I sat in a corner to stew. There were only three cells in the place, one large one in which I was confined, and two smaller ones opposite a narrow passage. It was in one of these that the furious Miss Patricia Wildman paced like a caged leopard. All three cells were little more than cages of rusty iron bars, with adobe outer walls pierced by tiny, barred windows and a brick floor covered with soiled straw. The only drain was in the middle of the passage. The passage itself had only one door, which I knew led to the office of the magistrate.
    “She looks like angry leopard,” said a voice behind me, echoing my own thoughts. I whirled, startled, to see that the other occupant of my cell—who I had until that moment completely ignored, assuming, from an unprepossessing appearance, that he was merely an alcoholic derelict sleeping off last night’s fiesta. But now he was standing and I was inclined to revise my evidently hasty estimation. He was a tall fellow, at least my height, perhaps an inch or two more, made to look even taller by an extraordinary gauntness. He had an aristocratic face topped by a shock of jet-black hair that hung lankly to his shoulders. He looked, I thought, not unlike the pictures of Rasputin, the mad monk of the late Tsar Nicholas of Russia, but without the beard, thank God. His English was perfect—cultured but with the over-precision that betrayed the fact that English was not his native tongue.
    “A magnificent creature,” he was saying, not taking his eyes off Pat.
    “What do you think this is, a zoo?”
    “You think you are being funny, but you are closer to the truth than you think, my friend.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah, indeed. Our gentle host, General Culebra, enjoys collecting exotic creatures such as this for his, ah, amusement.”
    “I heard that!” said Pat. “I’ll make him wish he collected stamps instead.”
    “Ah! The kitten flexes her claws, does she?”
    “Do you talk like that all the time?” she said. “If so, I can tell you right now it’s getting pretty tiresome.”
    “You doubt, then, that the General will make you part of his collection? I do not think he would like to be disappointed.”
    “He’ll just have to bear it the best way he can. If he tries anything funny with me he’ll be collecting dust in the local mortuary, if this benighted place has one.”
    “Just who are you, anyway?” I asked my cellmate. “I take it you’re not a native of this two-bit country?”
    “Heaven forfend! I should hope not—and you have my undying gratitude for noticing. I was beginning to fear that I had become too, um, absorbed in the local culture.”
    “Afraid you’d gone native, eh?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Well, let me introduce myself. My name’s Denham, Carl Denham—maybe you’ve heard of me? I make films, adventure stuff, you know: true-to-life, red-blooded pictures.” The cultureless Philistine only looked at me blankly, so I continued with our introductions. “That little firebrand over there is Miss Patricia Wildman—it was her bright idea that got us into this jam, I might add.” Which got me an inarticulate snarl from the opposite cell.
    “Well, my new friends, I am Count Vassily Alexeivich Milnikov and it is the greatest of pleasures to have met

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