Valley of the Mountain Goddess - Table of Contents  

   The iron door that would open, on turning the handle, acted as a death trap to any unsuspecting person seeking entrance through it. The high column of water, thousands of gallons in volume, would have rushed fourth, hurling the boys against the rocky walls and killing them instantly. 
 Sabu thanked and congratulated Rajan for his foresight.
 “First you should drain the pond. Once the pond is empty you can open the door safely,” explained Rajan. 
They patiently examined every inch of the granite walls around them, but nothing that looked like a wheel came to their notice. 
 At last Sabu discovered a small slab on the stone floor and a wheel skilfully concealed under it. 
When they turned the valve on, water began to hiss out from the bottom of the flight of steps. In a quarter of an hour, the flow of water became weak and slow. Now they confidently turned the handle. The iron door opened with a click.
 Through the open door, light flooded the tunnel, and the granite walls around the flight of steps were now clearly visible. They entered the pond through the door, trying to believe that there were no other traps. Looking up, they saw the thicket some forty feet above them.
 The sides of the pond were as smooth as marble and it was impossible to climb up.  “How did the kidnapper and his team manage to get to the top?” wondered Sabu. “Can there be another tunnel going up?”
They knocked on the granite sides of the pond, but no unusual sound could be heard.  The brook was noisily falling into the pond, drenching them with spray.
 They were standing in ankle-deep of water, and they felt they were standing on a set of pipes. Closer examination revealed that they were pipes lashed together into a raft.
 A raft eight into four feet in the pond! 
“Why does it not float?  A raft made of plastic pipes ought to float on water,” said Rajan almost to himself.
 “It must be tied to the bottom!” suggested Sabu.
 This guess was correct. They found that the raft was tied to pegs driven into the granite floor.
   When the copper wires on both the sides were untied, the raft floated.
 “This is the way up!” declared Rajan stamping the tiny raft of PVC pipes closed at both the ends.
 Sabu cold not understand how the raft would take them to the valley.
 “First, we’ll turn off the valve. The outflow of water will immediately stop. Now enter the pond and close the door behind.  The water will rise fast, taking the raft with us to the top,” Rajan explained.
 They turned off the valve and, closing the iron door behind them, waited for results.
Water began to rise, pushing up the raft with the boys on it.
 In fifteen minutes, they were once again in the valley from which they had escaped only in the morning.
 “How can we get out again?” Sabu said.
 “There must be a valve at the top too, to drain the pond,” suggested Rajan.
 They began to look for the valve that would drain the pond and take them to its bottom.  Under a stone slab near the pond, they discovered the wheel with which they could operate the valve. 
As a precaution, they dragged the raft out of the pond and hid it under the thicket some distance away. Even if the kidnapper came earlier than they expected, he should not get in. The raft was the most essential part of the water-lift.
 It was a few minutes past twelve, and they were eager to learn what the old woman and the pretty girl were doing in the cave. Past the familiar cluster of trees and thickets and paths under them, the two friends made their way to the cave.
 In the yard, in an open fireplace on three stones, rice was boiling in an aluminium pot. When they saw grains of silver dancing in the pot, their mouths watered. The very smell of boiling rice was irresistible! 
 The old woman was examining the rice in a spoon to see whether it was properly cooked. The door of the cave was open. Inside, the little girl was sleeping leaning against the wall. The tears on her delicate cheeks had not yet dried.
 Even before taking her out, they should plan how they would get away from the island. They did not know whether she could swim with them to the forest. In the forest, if she managed to reach it, would she be able to follow them in their trek that might take days?
 “Let’s make a raft first,” said Rajan.
 “Let’s take out the raft in the pond and row away,” suggested Sabu.
 They sat waiting for the girl to wake up, expecting that she would come out and sit in the open.
 After a while, the old woman entered the cave and awoke her by shaking her rudely.  The woman uttered a few strange sounds, pointing to the loaves of bread in a plate on the stone floor.
 “The woman’s dumb,” whispered Rajan.
 “Perhaps she’s deaf too.  This will make our job easier,” said Sabu with enthusiasm.
 The woman came out again. She was preparing to drain the rice.
 Sabu threw a stone as big as an apple into the yard. It fell just a few feet behind the old woman. It seemed that she was startled but she didn’t look back. Rajan repeated the experiment, and they were convinced that she was both deaf and dumb.
 To confirm their conclusion, Sabu put his fingers into his mouth and whistled. They were certain that the girl had heard the whistle, but there was no response from the old woman.
 The girl walked to the open, and they thought the woman was a bit restless. If she was deaf, what was frightening her?
 She went in again and came out with a large piece of dried fish. Squatting on the sand in the open and facing the boys in the thicket, she started chopping the fish. Sabu felt almost certain that she was stealing occasional glances into the thicket. Rajan’s belief that she was deaf began to shake.
 “Let’s pull out,” he whispered.
 They withdrew deeper into the thicket but remained close enough to watch what was going on inside the cave and the surroundings.
 “The old girl will go to the stream to bring water,” said Sabu. “The prisoner will be alone and we can talk to her.”
The girl came out and found the old woman engrossed in her job.
 As silently as a cat, the girl moved to the end of the yard from where the path started.  Once in the path that tunnelled through the thicket, she ran with all her strength.