Read Online Merian C. Cooper's King Kong by Joe DeVito - Free Book Online

It showed an island surrounded by reefs, through which a tortuous passage had been indicated. On one side of the island a long peninsula curved out, and at the base of the peninsula a steep precipice was sketched. Denham traced this with his fingers. “The Norwegian told me this cliff is hundreds of feet high. Once it levels off, jungle begins.”
    The map had been sketched with some degree of care, including clear indications of latitude and longitude, and a complex of soundings indicating water depth.
    â€œTricky to navigate,” Englehorn muttered. “You say this comes from more than thirty years ago? We may have worse problems if any shoals have built up in that time.”
    â€œYou can do it, Skipper,” Denham said.
    Englehorn did not reply, but his blunt finger reached down and tapped at the map. At one end of the island lay an extensive peninsula, and across the neck of it the mapmaker had drawn a thick, heavy line. “What’s this?”
    â€œIt’s supposed to be a wall. A barrier to keep something out,” Denham said carefully.
    â€œA wall,” Englehorn echoed thoughtfully.
    â€œAnd what a wall!” exclaimed Denham. “Built hundreds, thousands of years ago! So long ago that the natives of the island, the descendants of the builders, have slipped back into savagery. They’ve completely forgotten the ancient civilization they came from, the one that built the wall that protects them. But the wall’s as strong today as it was ages ago. The natives can’t build anything like it today, but they keep that wall in good repair. They need it.”
    Driscoll felt his breath tighten in his chest. “Need it for what?”
    Denham wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Because there’s something on the other side, something they fear.”
    Englehorn absently took his pipe from his pocket and fingered it. “An enemy tribe, I suppose.”
    Denham looked sideways at the skipper, his brown eyes flashing. Then he pushed up from the table, paced away, and abruptly turned back again. “Did you, either of you, ever hear of … Kong ?”
    Driscoll shook his head, but Englehorn tapped his teeth with his pipe stem. “Kong? Why, yes. It’s some kind of Malay superstition, isn’t it? Some kind of god, or devil, or something?”
    Denham leaned forward. “Something, all right. Neither man nor beast. Something monstrous. All powerful. Not a spirit, something alive. Whatever Kong is, it holds that island in the grip of a deadly fear. It’s the same fear that drove the natives’ ancestors to build that huge wall.”
    Englehorn didn’t respond. Driscoll gazed from the map to Denham, then back again, shaking his head. “Pretty tall story.”
    â€œIt’s not a story,” Denham insisted. “I tell you, there’s something on that island. Something that no white man has ever seen. You might call it a legend, but every legend has a foundation of truth, and that’s what I’m after.”
    â€œKong,” Englehorn repeated softly. “Whatever Kong is, you’re going to photograph it.”
    â€œWhatever is there. You bet I’ll photograph it!”
    Driscoll leaned back from the table and crossed his arms. “Suppose,” he asked drily, “that it doesn’t want its picture taken?”
    Denham threw his head back and laughed. “Suppose it doesn’t? Why do you think I brought that big crate of gas bombs?”
    He walked forward and stood gazing ahead, to the southwest. Englehorn and Driscoll joined him, and Driscoll could not help staring, too. Part of him doubted the tale of the map and the mysterious island, but skeptical as he was, anxious about Ann as he was, he felt rising within him a reckless excitement. Englehorn turned back to the table, made a mark on it with a pencil at the supposed position of the island.
    Driscoll turned to watch. The old man was a crack