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‘You’d better let him go free if you value your lives. That’s Barnabas Greenbloom! He and his son are friends with sea serpents and dragons. And Great Krakens and centaurs!’
With a sigh, Barnabas closed his eyes, and Winston realised his mistake when Catcher gave his men as triumphant a glance as if he had just caught the last white tiger.
‘Sea serpents, dragons, Great Krakens and centaurs,’ he repeated. ‘I’ve heard rumours that all those creatures still exist. And that there’s a conspiracy of crazy conservationists keeping the world in the dark about it. The name Greenbloom was mentioned more than once in that connection, if I remember correctly. Not a name you’d forget in a hurry. And now that green giant makes sense too…’
‘Dragons?’ growled Kamaharan doubtfully. ‘Great Krakens? Sounds to me like the kind of old wives’ tales that peasants tell!’
‘All the better. Then I won’t have to cut you idiots in on the price I get for these fairy-tale beings.’ Catcher hit out at a butterfly that had settled on his fat neck. ‘What do you think, Professor?’ he asked, giving Barnabas an unpleasant smile. ‘Will you introduce your fabulous friends to us if I spare you working in the mines in return?’
‘Sorry, I’m afraid that’s out of the question,’ replied Barnabas casually. ‘My friend Winston is wrong, unfortunately, if he thinks I know such illustrious beings. I agree with your poacher colleagues. They exist only in fairy tales, sorry as I am to say so.’
Catcher was about to answer back, but suddenly he was interrupted by one of the other poachers who had been inspecting the rest of the cages.
‘They caught a jenglot!’ he stammered, and to Ben’s horror he held up Twigleg’s cage.
The poachers stepped back even faster than when Hothbrodd had lost his temper. Only Catcher scrutinised the homunculus and shook his sweaty head.
‘If that’s a jenglot, I’m an orang-utan!’ he said sarcastically. ‘What is it, Professor? Out with it! Some kind of hob or impet? This gets better and better!’ he whispered to Kamaharan. ‘A midget like this will bring in more than thirty monkeys, although,’ he added with a glance at the black macaques, ‘we’d better not say so to our trading partners.’
‘A hob?’ cried Twigleg. ‘Or an impet? Allow me to tell you that I’m a…’
He stopped abruptly when Catcher gave Barnabas a triumphant look.
‘Yes, a what?’ asked Catcher. ‘Something else that lives only in fairy tales, Professor? No more lies. Kamaharan here is a master of persuasion, but maybe we won’t need his arts.’ He favoured Barnabas with a totally heartless smile. ‘If I understand correctly, this –’ he pointed to Ben – ‘is Greenbloom junior. And what kind of loving father condemns his son to a life of slavery in the mines just on account of a few animals?’
Barnabas turned pale, and for t
he first time Ben saw something like fear on his adopted father’s usually fearless face. The sight of that was worse than his own fear.
‘I wouldn’t have thanked him for leaving me at home!’ he told the poachers. ‘He’s the best of all fathers! And you won’t learn anything from us! Not a single word!’
Catcher seemed greatly amused by his angry outburst. ‘I very much doubt that,’ he said. ‘But we’ll carry on with this conversation someplace else. This island makes me sick to my stomach after dark. Take the cages down to the boats!’ he ordered the others.
When they picked up the first basket, however, Awan Petir, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the poachers, pointed to the dish in the statue’s claws with a warning cry.
‘Okay, okay!’ called Catcher to the macaque. ‘Have I ever wriggled out of paying? And I’ll pay well too, as is only right for such good wares.’
Kamaharan, the tattooed man, and the grim giant dragged two full sacks over to the dish. They tipped coins, jewellery and freshly mined nuggets of gold out of the first, and pale yellow seashells out of the second.
‘Oh, of course!’ Barnabas whispered to Ben. ‘Those are the shells that Shrii mentioned. Yes, indeed, a very rare species, and found only so deep in the sea that the griffins can’t get at them.’
The black macaques were beginning to put the contents of the dish into bags that they could carry easily through the treetops, when their leader suddenly raised his head in annoyance. A red parrot flew over Awan Petir’s greying head, and then circled around the statue.
Ben’s heart leaped up. Me-Rah! She’d had a bad time after Twigleg and Lola were caught, but the parrot hadn’t left her new friends in the lurch. She had watched despairingly as the black macaques sold her rescuers to the poachers, and then… then she had heard a rushing in the air above her, and had watched two shadows of a kind that she had never before seen falling on the treetops of Pulau Bulu.
‘To think that I have lived to see this day!’ squawked Me-Rah, as she deposited a large blob of parrot-droppings on the beak of the griffin statue. ‘In a hundred times a hundred years, they’ll still be celebrating it on Pulau Bulu! The day when justice came to this island. And as for you,’ she screeched down to the poachers, ‘at last you’ll all get what you deserve!’
Kamaharan took the shotgun from his shoulder and aimed at the parrot, but he lowered it when a roar such as had never before been heard on Pulau Bulu came from the sky.
‘Yeeeees!’ squawked Me-Rah. ‘Yeeeees! They’re coming!’
The poachers staggered back. But Ben closed his fingers so tightly on the basketwork of his cage that the marks still showed days later. Barnabas’s face showed the same incredulous joy that he was feeling himself – and the same alarm.
‘What’s that?’ cried Winston, while the poachers threw their guns away and Catcher looked up in astonishment.
‘What do you think it is?’ cried Hothbrodd, laughing. ‘By Thor, Loki and Odin. It’s a dragon!’
And then the jungle was full of silver scales.
