The Pit
- Captain Szpirglas insists on Matt taking the hammock almost directly above the reed mat where he is planning on sleeping. Sweet. That should make it easy to escape. Not.
- Even better, the hammock is creakier than a haunted house.
- Matt tries to sleep with his boots on (so that he can sneak out without having to fumble with them in the dark), but the pirate calls him out on it. So there goes that, too.
- As they're bunking down for the night, Szpirglas suggests maybe Matt would like to work for them as a cabin boy. Something has recently caused theirs to leave…
- Matt has to shake himself awake several times until he's sure his roommates are really asleep. It would've been easier to stay awake if he hadn't had so much of that mango cocktail.
- Some drunken pirate has decided to pass out against the other side of the only door leading out of their cabin, so Matt's escape will have to be through the window.
- He abandons his boots with a longing look, and jumps to the open window from his perch.
- He makes it onto the sill, but knocks the stick propping it open onto the ground. He quickly grabs the window from slamming shut and eases himself out without too much of a sound. Phew.
- He props the window back open with the stick and eases off to go find Kate.
- Matt makes it to the far side of the field where they are supposed to meet, and sits down to wait for her.
- After waiting for several minutes, Matt can't shake the feeling that something's wrong. He decides to run back to the pirate village (ugh) and see what's holding her up.
- He peeks into a few windows before he finds the hut that Kate is in.
- Her door is locked (at least she knows to do that in a pirate village), so he has to climb through her window. He's starting to get good at that.
- Kate is sleeping. You know… doing the one thing Matt warned her against doing. Great.
- When he wakes her up, she's ashamed of herself for falling asleep.
- They open her door to walk out, and Captain Szpirglas is standing in the doorway. Uh-oh…
- The gig is up—Szpirglas knows who they are, and he knows that they're trying to protect something.
- He commands Crumlin to organize a search party to look for the Aurora. He questions Matt—who keeps trying to find ways to protect his precious ship from discovery—and threatens to torture Kate if they don't tell him where the ship is.
- Szpirglas is starting to look like he did when he shot poor Mr. Featherstone. Things aren't looking good.
- He and Mr. Crumlin take them to the Pit. (That doesn't sound good, right?)
- They're lead down a path into the woods where the smell of mangoes lies heavy in the air. Szpirglas opens a hatch set into a stone face at an angle to the ground, and hydrium hisses loudly out of the cavernous depths below.
- This is Szpirglas's method to getting answers: tell him where the Aurora is and how she survived being gutted by his propellers, or else they get thrown into the pit to suffocate on hydrium.
- Szpirglas sets his attention on Kate, and says that if he's going to ransom her, she'd better give him an actual name and address, not the fake ones she put down earlier. Which she does.
- Matt continues to insist that the pirates won't be able to find any other ship on the island, but Szpirglas knows there are only a few places on their island where one could be. Matt's kinda screwed, and so is the Aurora.
- The pirate captain reveals that he can't let them ever leave the island—he has the whole village to protect, especially his own son, and their safety relies on no one knowing they're there. He admits there was a sick old man floating around in a hot air balloon that they had to get rid of last year. He didn't enjoy doing it, but it was necessary.
- Turns out Kate's parents only need to think she's alive for him to get a ransom… so Szpirglas kicks her into the pit.
- Matt gets thrown in next, and Matt and Kate find each other in the darkness as the pirates close the hatch above their heads.
- The pit is filled with hydrium vents—which means there won't be any oxygen to breathe in a matter of minutes.
- Matt trips on something and goes down hard. But he makes a discovery: down by the ground is a little pocket of air.
- He pushes Kate to the ground with him and tells her to breathe.
- Lying there trying to think of what to do next, Matt's sleeve catches a little eddy of hydrium and starts to inflate. That gives him an idea!
- He tells Kate to take her pants off. Ugh, typical male, thinking about that at a time like this…
- Oh wait, it's really because they'd make a perfect balloon. He makes her take them off and knots the ankles, then he holds them over a hydrium vent and off they go.
- Matt and Kate slowly ascend, clutching the pants-balloon. When they get to the top of the shaft Matt uses the last of strength to kick at the hatch as hard as he can—luckily it isn't locked, and out they float with the rest of the escaping hydrium.
- Matt and Kate gasp at the fresh night air.
- Still groggy they lurch toward the trees. When they reach a small creek they collapse to take a quick drink.
- Kate starts to succumb to hysteria. She starts crying about how it's all her fault that they were out in the woods, that Bruce got hurt, that the whole ship is in danger from pirates.
- Matt kisses her. At least it gets her to stop crying.
- She asks him to kiss her again. He does. She seems to like it.
- They both calm down, and start off again toward the ship.
- After about an hour they reach their hydrium cave and can see the rubber hosing still snaking out from it.
- They hear someone coming and hide in some thick ferns. It's a thin pirate running fast, coming from the direction of the Aurora. He must be some kind of scout—which means he's on his way to tell the rest of the pirates that he's found the ship.
- They run as fast as they can back to the beach. The Aurora is indeed in great shape, and looks ready to take off.
- Matt realizes there's no ground crew getting ready to take off. Then he notices the control car is empty, and the gangways are shut tight. He looks into the windows of the passenger lounge and sees Szpirglas, already in the ship. Dun-dun-dun…