Valley of the Mountain Goddess - Table of Contents  

 A thickset, bald headed man was rowing the vallom. His bristling moustache covered the mouth, and his sideburns were as fierce as his moustache. 
In ‘dhothi’ and jacket, a woman was sitting behind him with her hands crossed over her breasts. She was very lean with shrunken cheeks and wrinkled arms, and her hair was almost completely grey.
  A tiny ten-year-old girl was sitting beside the woman. It seemed that the blindfolded girl had her hands tied behind her.
“Where are they taking the little girl?” wondered Sabu.
 “Let’s hide ourselves in the thicket!” said Rajan as the vallom neared the island.
It proved to be a wise step because the man started scanning both the shores through his binoculars. 
It seemed that the vallom was heading towards their islet. In a few minutes, the vallom drew nearer, showing the ugly, withered face of the old woman and the fierce features of the man at the helm. The child was as pretty and delicate as a lotus bud.
  The man landed in the course of a tiny brook that joined the lake on the other side of the rock on which they had lain.
 The kidnapper helped the woman to get out of the vallom. Then he lifted a sack from the vallom and placed it on the woman’s head. It seemed that the sack was full of articles in numerous packets.
 He signalled the woman to proceed, and she walked along the course of the brook and vanished into the thicket.
 Next, he lifted the girl from the vallom and planted her on the shore, and she began to cry aloud.
 “Shut up!” he cried. “Even if you shriek, who is here to hear you?”
 But her cries became all the louder.
 “Money is more important to your miser of a father,” he continued. “You won’t see his ugly face again unless he pays for it!”
 The man followed the old woman pulling the child behind him. The girl’s sobs became fainter and fainter until finally they ceased to be heard.
 The brook must be coming from the pond that had puzzled them for so long.  Rajan had always suspected that the secret passage might be through the little pond under the thicket. But even now, he could not explain how one could get to the valley through the pond full of water.
 “There must be some device to drain the pond,” Rajan suggested.
If they watched the flow of water in the brook, they could verify the theory.  Therefore, they crouched in the thicket with their eyes glued on the water in the brook.
 As they had expected, the flow in the brook suddenly grew quicker. The stalks of grass in its course submerged in the rushing flow, and the brook began to fall noisily into the lake. 
 In a quarter of an hour the flow in the brook became normal again. The slanting blades of grass were the only signs of the sudden flow for a few minutes.
 “They must have reached the bottom of the pond. But how will they get to the top?” Sabu said.
 “There must be steps going up on the sides of the pond,” Rajan replied thoughtfully.
 Almost an hour passed. Suddenly, signs of increased flow of water appeared in the brook. 
 Some more time passed, and the flow of water in the brook finally slowed down.  Soon after, the baldhead of the kidnapper appeared among the bushes accelerating the heartbeats of the boys.
 Sabu wanted desperately to sneeze, but he controlled himself with a great effort.
 Without suspecting anything, the kidnapper approached his vallom, which had been tied to a bush. Before launching the vallom, he did not forget to scan both the shores through the binoculars. Thereafter, he rowed north and soon vanished from sight.
 “We’ll rescue the child,” said Sabu with determination.
“We should find the secret opening first. We can fool the old girl with some trick and get away with the child,” Rajan agreed.
 At the other end of the path, there was an opening on the rock face, which ran in as a passage seven feet high and four feet wide.
As they proceeded further into the interior, the light grew fainter and fainter and the foul smell of stagnant air penetrated their noses. At times, groups of frightened bats flew past them, making them shriek with fright.
 After some two hundred feet, it was pitch dark inside. They had to feel their way ahead and, at times they lighted their cigarette lighter.
The flame cast their shadows, dark and fantastic, on the granite walls. Even the sounds of their footfalls echoed weirdly in the still dark air.
 After a few hundred yards the tunnel ended. A flight of steps went up and, on top of the steps, there was a small door, made of iron and painted red, with a handle. Sabu approached the door and he was about to turn the handle. Rajan dislodged his friend’s hand from the handle with a mighty blow.