Chapter 5

"This is your last chance," Olaf said into the microphone. "Give me the key and I'll call off the eagle."

"Better give it to them, Quigley," said Duncan's voice over the radio.

"No, why make it easy for them?" asked Isadora. "They'll probably kill us anyway."

Sunny, Klaus, and Violet were highly distressed at being included in "them" with Olaf.

"Wasabi! Horseradish!" Sunny shouted, trying to make herself heard through Olaf's microphone over the wind.

Hector's voice came from the radio. "I know how to dilute Medusoid poison, but I didn't stock any horseradish on board. I only brought ingredients for Mexican food because that's all I know how to cook."

Just then, there was a roar from a motorboat. The cavalry had arrived. This phrase doesn't literally mean a group of soldiers on horseback, which would be quite useless at sea. Here it means "A last-minute rescue party, consisting of Captain Widdershins and Phil in a motorboat and Kit Snicket water-skiing behind it.")

"I told you the V.F.D. would come through!" said Quigley in triumph. "Kit told me she would get Widdershins to help us."

"What about that dispatch which said Widdershins was missing?" Isadora asked.

"The other side of the schism tricked him and Phil off of his submarine with a fake message about the sugar bowl, but they managed to escape," Quigley said.

Kit had been water-skiing toward Widdershins, since his boat was pulling her. She let go of the rope, freeing both her hands to wield a large trident she carried on her back. Her momentum kept her water-skiing away from Widdershins as he made a turn. She flung the trident with all her strength at the eagle carrying the deadly helmet. It struck, forcing the eagle to drop the helmet into the sea.

Olaf yelled and cursed in rage, and he blew multiple blasts on his whistle to send eagles diving at the rescuers. The Baudelaires saw an eagle grab Phil, and the last thing they heard him say as he was carried away was, "Wow, what an exciting experience!"

But now the storm was on them in full strength. Olaf, who had been standing up in the boat, was knocked down. Rain and sea-spray obscured their vision. All the eagles and the vessels were driven apart in the storm. For what seemed like hours, it was all they could do to hang on and keep from being swept overboard. The sails were torn away and the spatula oars were lost. When they finally crashed into the rocks, the force of the impact knocked them all unconscious.

----

The Baudelaires woke up; they were in the wreck of the boat in shallow water near a green island. Small islands of rock draped in seaweed were all around them, and they too were draped in seaweed. The sky was clear with only a few clouds.

"Sunny! Klaus! Are you all right?" Violet asked, standing up unsteadily.

"Uuuh!" Sunny said, which meant, "My head hurts but I'm fine otherwise."

"I'm all right, too," said Klaus.

All three of them looked down at Count Olaf. He lying on his back in the water, his eyes closed, unmoving. There was a wound like the stab of a knife near his heart. (In fact, that was exactly what it was.)

"Is... he dead?" Sunny asked.