It was not the tiger Grenville heard above the pounding of his heart.
The squealing of some little insignificant beast, apparently more in sport than apprehension, betrayed very soon the fact that no sinister visitor was even prowling near. So heavy a sound as the little brute had made would doubtless be avoided when the master of the jungle should arrive.
All the excitement unduly engendered in Grenville's system rapidly subsided. He listened as intently as before, and peered below in an effort to pierce the densest shadows, but could not detect the form or whereabouts of his early visitor. He doubted if this small creature drank, since the pool of the spring was still quite clearly visible, like a surface half of ebony and half of tarnished silver.
At length the absolute silence prevailed as it had before. Save for the lightest of zephyrs, that barely sufficed to fan the topmost foliage, not even the slightest stir could be detected. The darkness below became absolute, where shadows, tree-trunks, and thicket all blended into one. A portion only of the pool was now discernible, and in this, clearly mirrored, were two bright stars, that burned dull gold in the ebon.
Grenville sat back in his lumpy perch and blew, as before, on his coal. Its slender wreath of invisible smoke ascended pungently. The hour was still very early for nocturnal business to begin. The tiger might not come till midnight. Sidney reflected that the brute would doubtless eat before a drink would be desired.
He regretted, vainly, that no bait had finally been provided. Even the fish they had only partially eaten for dinner might have been attractive to the tiger. Any price now would be cheap enough to rid themselves of this terror.
His reflections ran the gamut of their island world, and sped far over seas. He thought of that day with Fenton, and of what this friend would think. Had they heard the news, in that far-away home, of the steamer gone down with every soul?
He thought of the morning he had greeted Elaine—and the something that had happened to his nature. He remembered in detail every hour of every day they had spent together on the steamer. Then the hideous details of all that last experience, in the storm and night, paraded by for his review.
One after another the swiftly moving procession of events brought him back to this present hour. He was, then, confronted once again by the questions—how long would it last?—how might it end? The island's mystery impinged once more on his varied cogitations, making him wish he might have had a torch, by which to study the documents reposing in his pocket.
Mentally picturing forth the signs on the leathery piece of parchment, he busied himself for above an hour for a clew as to what they could mean. They suggested nothing to his mind that made the slightest sense. He tried to recall the characters on the "explanatory" sheet. But this was a hopeless task.
Aware of the value of deduction, he began on a reasoning line. Anything to occupy his thoughts and time till the hour when the tiger might have fed, and would come for his evening drink, was highly welcome.
He began by a natural presumption that both the documents, found together in the tube, and so carefully concealed, related to this particular island. Did they not, then of what possible value would be their final decipherment and solution?
Granting this premise, then what should follow next? Certainly some mention of the island—with its name—in the written message, at least. There would naturally be, in these circumstances, some word in the cipher spelling "Island"—but what would the place be called?
Such places, he knew, were frequently named quite unofficially, by wandering sailors, adventurers, and drifters on the sea. Attempting to level his state of mind to that of such human beings, he wondered what he, if left to himself, would christen this bit of rock and jungle.
So often, he reflected, a place was named for its appearance. This one, for instance, might aptly be called "Three Rocks," "Three Walls," or "Three Towers." He remembered, finally, the abominable sounds produced by the tides twice daily—sounds he had thought might have frightened the natives away. The cognomen, "Haunted Island," might not seem wholly inappropriate to a superstitious mind.
The more he reflected, the more certain he felt that some one of the names suggested to his mind might also have occurred to those of others. Considerably aroused in his centers of curiosity, and convinced that even by the dull cherry glow of his firebrand he might be enabled to confirm or confute his theory, he moved sufficiently to draw from his pocket the closely folded documents, and held them up to his torch.
The one with the inexplicable signs he promptly returned as of no immediate avail. At that instant his attention was arrested, by a sound below him on the earth.
Something, he thought, was lapping at the water!
He leaned far forward, tense and rigid on the limb, shielding his spark in one of his hands, while he peered about the pool.
There was nothing he could possibly discern—no form of a head projected out to obliterate his stars. Yet the sounds at the edge of the silent basin rose distinctly to his ears.
All but ready to bend to the end of his fuse, and touch his fire upon it, he paused, looked closer, saw ripples move to disturb his mirrored planets—and then beheld some form darkly limned on the waters.
For a moment he was certain his insolent tiger was there. Some huge blunt muzzle seemed inkily contrasted with the dull gray surface of the spring. Then the muzzle suddenly detached itself from the imagined form behind. The entire figure of some little beast was seen as it waded the pool.
Once more, disgustedly, Grenville reclined and relaxed the strain on his nerves. It was some time, then, before he thought to return to his quest of the cipher. He remembered, finally, he had meant to count the characters in some of the words to see if the number of signs thus used might not correspond with the number employed in "Island," "Three," "Haunted," "Wall," or "Tower."
A dull red glow, of most unsatisfactory dimensions and illuminative capacity, was the most he could procure from his brand. It barely sufficed to present the "writing" to his vision. For a moment, indeed, he despaired of discriminating clearly between the ending of one word and the beginning of the next. Fortunately, however, the writer had used large periods between his every word.
Considerably to Grenville's satisfaction, the third word thus denoted he was almost convinced was "Three." Not only had it the proper number of letters, or signs, but the two final characters were exactly alike, and both were the crosses he had previously selected as probably representing E.
The next word along, he was equally certain, was either "Wall" or "Hill." Its two final characters were the same particular sign repeated, while its meaning, in conjunction with the preceding word "Three," fulfilled his logical deduction.
A word of two characters followed this, and then, to Grenville's intense delight, occurred a word of seven letters, which not only met the numerical requirements of "Haunted," but, also, in proper sequence, employed the various letter-signs already somewhat proved by the word he felt certain was "Three."
This was more than sufficient evidence on which to base a test of the message's sense, if it were not, indeed, enough of a key with which to decipher the entire inscription.
Eagerly fumbling in his pocket for his pencil, with the intention of attempting a bit of substitution of letters for the signs contained upon the sheet, Grenville shifted his position—and the paper fell from his fingers, fluttering obliquely from his sight.
He leaned quickly forward, as if to follow the flight of the missive through the darkness so densely spread beneath him. But it disappeared almost instantly—with its mystery still unsolved.
On the point of descending, at whatever cost, to recover the important bit of foolscap, Sidney was halted in movement and impulse by some new arrival at the spring.
As a matter of fact, two animals were there, as he presently discovered. That neither was his tiger he was presently persuaded, but that one or both were fairly large seemed equally assured.
It was certainly not a time to leave the tree. And while the reflection that, perhaps, the silent visitors were leopards was presented to Grenville's mind, and a momentary thought of slaying the pair by igniting his fuse became a strong temptation, he contented himself by staring more or less blindly down upon the place where they seemed to be, and bided his time as before.
At nine o'clock it seemed, to the cramped and impatient hunter in the tree, that ages had passed since he bade good-night to Elaine and came to this lonely vigil. There were sounds in abundance about him now, arising from time to time. Some were the cries of the lesser beasts, in the clutches or jaws of their captors; some were sounds of munching. All of them indicated rather grimly the tiger's absence from the scene. There would be no petty murderers thereabout when the arch brute came for his drink.
Leaning back once more, and long since weary of his fruitless adventure, Grenville stared at the glowing cone of fire slowly eating away his brand. It was lasting far longer than he had believed would be possible—yet certainly less than one hour more could the consuming substance serve to give him a spark.
He could almost fancy he saw a face, in the film of ash upon its surface. He was sure the face was developing a likeness to Elaine. Even the soft clear radiance of her cheek—— How eagerly she had asked concerning his coming "home"—but how far it seemed away.... He could hear her saying "You'll come home ... come home ... come back...."
He awoke with a start, for something had burned him on the wrist.
The firebrand, all but consumed in his relaxing fingers, had dropped and deposited a blister. In his sudden move to rid himself of the torture to his flesh, he threw off the red-hot candle of wood, and it fell straight downward, sizzling once where it struck in a trickle of the water.
Reviling himself for a stupid blunderer, and arousing vividly to a sense of where he was, and why, he began to question the expediency of returning at once to the terrace. He was still debating the wisdom of the move, when the question was decided by the tiger.
That belated midnight reveler—the old roué of the jungle—was ushered in with questionable pomp—the panic of lesser brutes in flight. And when he drank, beside the useless bomb, there was no mistaking his presence. He presently paused, half satisfied, and lifted his head, against the shudder of the water, to sniff at the jungle breeze.
The wind had betrayed the presence of the man, and the great brute voiced his satisfaction.
That was a long, weird night in the jungle.
What hour it was the tiger finally departed was more than Grenville could have told. And whether the daylight, finally approaching, or a royal disgust, or some easily captured morsel, had served to urge the brute upon his way, was equally unknown.
Grenville descended from his perch at last, when the palms and ferns had darkly emerged from the velvety blackness of the thicket. He took up his club, left the bomb in its place, and, searching about, recovered the sheet of parchment dropped in the darkness. Aware that the silently moving enemy might still be lurking by the pathway, he made his way no less boldly from the shadows, and came duly to the hill.
His chagrin was complete when he told Elaine that his night had been spent in vain. She had scarcely slept, as he could see, for her face was still pale with worry, while her eyes showed her lack of rest.
"I shall try again to-night," he said, but from that he was dissuaded.
The strain was too great upon Elaine, if not upon himself. He presently promised to wait a day, and see what might develop. He could not subject his companion to another such session of agonizing worry as Elaine had undergone until he felt more certain of results.
But to wait a day in idleness, while he felt that every hour that passed might bring new dangers upon them, could scarcely accord with his intentions.
He declared the tiger an arrant coward, who dared not confront him in the day.
"We have faced far greater perils than this," he told her, as they ate their simple breakfast, "and we may be called upon to face the like again. We're enormously fortunate to have nothing more than this striped beast to limit our freedom on the island."
Elaine could have thought of countless other animals, including snakes, that would amply curtail her roaming inclinations, but she was not in the least in the habit of rehearsing her many dreads.
Grenville went promptly to work, after breakfast, fetching clay in the basket from the pit. It was not brought up to the terrace, but dumped in a heap beside the hollow tree, in the burned space under the walls. This tree, he at last explained to Elaine, he intended to use as a smelter.
"It's a natural chimney I've annexed," was the way he presented the problem. "If I built a fire in it now, however, it would burn, and be destroyed. I intend to line it with clay—plaster it on, inside, some eight or ten feet high. Then when this fire-resisting substance dries, I can smelt my metal and run it in the molds. The draught will make a prodigious heat—far more than brass requires."
"I see," said Elaine. "Meantime I am utterly idle."
"I'll cut you those needles. You can knit," he said, "unless you prefer to go fishing."
He had come to the camp for one of the jugs in which to carry water for the clay. This task was temporarily abandoned while he sat in the shade, beside Elaine, and carved out the promised tools. These were made of wood, instead of bone, since the latter material was far too hard for his fragment of a blade, and one of the woods provided by the jungle was so straightly grained and elastic, that even a slender splinter would bend like steel before it broke.
For a short time after they were finished, he sat there to watch the craft displayed by Elaine's nimble fingers, as a slender bit of the fiber stuff began to accumulate in stitches.
"You were made for a home-builder's mate," he said, and arose and left her to her thoughts, and to certain inflammable emotions.
He carried his jug down the trail and to the spring, resuming the business in hand. The sight of the pool not only served to arouse his disgust anew, but he was likewise reminded of the documents, reposing still unread in his pocket. The bomb, he knew, should be carried back to camp, lest the fuse become dampened in the thicket. With this and his jug full of water, he hastened back to the foot of the trail—and forgot them both forthwith.
The half sheet of paper, readable at last, had enslaved him then and there.
He sat on a rock, with the paper on his knee, and was lost to all things else.
For a moment he thought, perhaps, he had dreamed of obtaining the key to the hidden message. But one hurried glance at the words he had read convinced him the trick had been done.
On the back of the sheet he began at once to jot down the signs of which he felt most certain. The results, as he made them, were these:
THREE, HILL, HAUNTED, and their symbols
THREE, HILL, HAUNTED, and their symbols
The next word, according to his deductions, should be "Island." This, he felt, was indisputably confirmed by the fact it contained precisely the required number of "letters," with the sign for L, A, and D, already discovered, occupying their proper positions. He, therefore, added:
"ISLAND" and its symbols
"ISLAND" and its symbols
to his growing collection of letters, and promptly produced the following results by the process of substitution:
many words, and their symbols
many words, and their symbols
There could be so little doubt, after that, concerning such words as "Under," "High," "Important," and "Water," which supplied the characters, U, G, M, P, W, and O, which was also suggested in "Or," before "Haunted," that a bit of additional substitution very promptly cleared the entire affair.
Grenville jotted it down, to make sense, in the following fashion:
"Under tree, Three-Hill, or Haunted Island, Cave. Get in (during) high water (in) Spring time when noise loud. Important. Make no mistake. Map on Buli shows same."
The one word which he felt to be doubtful was "Buli," which, he confessed, might as readily be "Zuli," "Juli," or "Quli," but this was of no significance, one way or another. Its meaning was still obscure.
There were several things in the message or statement, however, that confirmed his earlier uneasiness. The principal of these was the statement that it was important for the possible seekers of some cavern under the greater wall of rock to visit the island only during the time when the hideously haunting sounds were at their height. This argued, he thought, that the sounds would finally subside, or altogether cease, when complications—doubtless in the form of visitors—might be expected to develop.
That the visitors would be natives and, probably, Dyaks, Grenville could have no doubt. As to what there was in the cave beneath the rock, he had small curiosity only, since it was hardly likely such tools as he desired would be so concealed from a prying world, and tools alone had value for him now.
He could not doubt, however, that something there was in the cave here described, for which men had risked their lives. He thought of the headless skeletons, and then of the mummy in chains.
Suddenly, at thought of that guardian of the barque, his heart gave an added leap. He snatched from his pocket the parchment referred to as a map. He could instantly see, by the light of day, that the leathery substance was leather, indeed, of the most grewsomely repellent description! It was simplytanned human skin!
And abruptly he understood that phrase—"Map on Buli shows same." The pyramids represented the island's three great hills, and other signs the cave. The pole with a knob, on the tallest hill, was the tree so near his camp.
Aye, the thing was a map in very truth—and once it had been ON Buli! For Buli was he who sat in the barque, chained fast to prevent his escape!
This map he had borne, tattooed on his breast, from which it had finally been stripped!
A species of horror attacked the man on whom the truth had flashed. What abominable cruelties and crimes lay back of the business thus finally to some extent revealed, he could only faintly imagine.
He felt quite certain of one or two things, that were not to be told to Elaine. First, he could not for a moment doubt that the barque had been brought to the island with the sole intent and purpose of looting the cave of treasure. He was equally convinced its crew had been foully slaughtered—and their heads removed. This smacked of Dyak atrocities. Finally, there was ample evidence that men of some sort had visited the island long since the wreck was stranded, and probably within the year.
He had not required the warning made "important" on the sheet to urge him to haste in preparing a boat with which to attempt an escape. To learn that the haunting sounds of the tide would at length subside was a new and disquieting addition to what he had previously deduced. He had accurately hit upon the natives' superstitious awe of the sounds to account for the island's desertion.
How long these invaluable shrieks and moans might be counted upon to continue became a vital question. Could they only last till a boat could be completed, launched, provisioned, and directed away to a safer retreat, he would ask for nothing more.
He returned again to an inspection of the "map"—now singularly plain. The island was graphically represented by the three conventional "hills," with the sign for water inscribed at either end. The tree, so conspicuous upon the tallest wall of rock, was no less vividly portrayed.
Below this identifying picture of the place the hill with the tree was repeated, with the cave and design for water, while just to the right the detail of the cavern, with more water signs, indicating both high and low tide, was depicted somewhat enlarged. The cartouch was not so readily comprehended. Grenville was inclined to believe it spelled some crude king's name, while the scarab, or beetle, was, of course, an old Egyptian symbol concerned with life and death.
It would hardly have been human of Grenville not to wonder about the cave or to contemplate a visit there—just to have the merest look about the place. He even went so far as to wonder if its entrance might not be effected from the upper brink, by means of a longer rope ladder than the one he had already made.
He did not, however, seriously contemplate delaying affairs more important to gratify this whim. Indeed, he was fired with new impatience to work night and day against the hour of escape. The thought put him back on his feet, then and there, with the documents stored away. There was no time to lose—not a moment—not even to fool with the tiger!
He left his bomb and its fuse upon the rocks, and carried the water to his clay. To line his hollow-tree furnace as promptly as possible must be his first concern. No boat could be made without suitable tools, and—— He wondered how he should make it, even then.
The log he had found on the day they arrived was such a huge affair to attack with the implements his limited craft made possible, despite all the bronze he could melt. And yet, without it, he was helpless. The raft was far too clumsy for propulsion. It afforded practically nothing transformable into a boat, as he had no nails, no saw, no anything with which it might be first dismembered, and finally reconstructed.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed to himself, aloud, as a new thought crept subtly to his brain. "I can hollow the log with fire!"
He went at once to the straight and ample tree-trunk, lying propped upon a rock. Its ends had already been partially consumed, and thereby rounded, in the flames that had ravaged the place. How he could cover such parts as he must not burn with a plaster of his clay, Grenville instantly conceived. And there was the log already lifted away from the earth, for the fire to be kindled beneath!
The wisdom of starting this process at once, even before his tools were made, was immediately apparent. Back to his clay heap he hastened eagerly, and, pawing it over to form a hollow pyramid, he poured in the water to soak through the mass, and so make it soft enough to use.
A new, unsparing spasm of labor seized the man in that hour, and he worked unremittingly. He felt he had loafed away his time which important requirements demanded.
The task of digging the clay from the pit and fetching it up to his hollow tree in the basket, made of creepers, was interminable. The sticks and wooden "spades" he had managed to fashion, not only broke from over-use and straining, but they were dull and heavy and awkward. The basket was scarcely more convenient than the implements in fulfilling its simple function. He could manage to carry its weight upon his head, but at this he had meager skill.
For three days he worked to get the clay, or to work it up and apply it with his hands. A considerable portion of the fallen log was thus quite promptly covered. He had then to wait for the clay to dry before his fire could be ignited.
The supply of clay he had managed to amass was clearly insufficient. He paused, on one of those warm and breathless afternoons, to set a number of traps in the animal pathways, and construct an awning for Elaine. This was merely a structure before her cave, to support a roof of leaves and grasses. It afforded a shade, however, that was exceedingly grateful.
There were numerous interruptions, also, for procuring meat and fruits. Grenville had brought down a pheasant with the last of his two remaining arrows. And not even a quill, supplied by the wings, had blown away from his "store." He had cut new shafts by his evening fire, and tipped them with points of sharpened wood. Elaine had feathered them skillfully, after once being properly directed.
Not a sign, all this time, had Grenville seen of the tiger, still haunting the jungle. He had been too industriously engrossed, either to wonder or to care where the brute had recently been lurking.
On the fourth warm morning of his toil about the furnace, the reminder came home with a jolt. Some few yards away from the clay pit's edge lay the master murderer's kill. It was part of a freshly eaten boar.
Grenville was neither revolted nor angered by the sight. He was suddenly excited with a new hope of getting a certain robe to lay at the feet of Elaine. It never occurred to his eager mind that the brute who bore it might be lying near, in a mood to resent his intrusion here, where the kingly banquet had been left for a sitting again that night.
His first concern was to keep away, as far as possible, lest the smell of his boots offend the lordly brute when he finally returned. Meantime such preparations as the scene made possible must not be unduly delayed.
The trees above the reddened spot afforded more choice for his necessary perch than he had found on the previous occasion. He rapidly sketched his plans for the night with mental notes and observations. Where the bomb could lie, to prove most efficacious, and still at the same time offer no great menace to himself, was readily determined. The ladder required for ascending to his stand would better be hung on the side most removed from the trail, for which he must a little clear the thicket.
His club, without which the visit here at sunset was not to be undertaken, could lean on the tree-trunk while he sat above, since there, should any need arise, he could find it in the dark.
He abandoned all thought of treading back and forth from the clay pit to his smelter, and carried his basket away. The ladder he brought at once from the spring, and, expending an hour in more careful preparation for his comfort than had even been possible before, he finally departed from the site of the tiger's gory refreshment, well satisfied with all he had been able to accomplish.
He returned to the camp, made a careful examination of the bomb and its fuse, and selected the wood to be finally used in preserving his essential spark of fire. Then, willing at last to turn his attention again to his daily occupation, he once more descended to his clay-covered log and found the plaster sufficiently dry upon it for the first of the burning to be started. He called to Elaine, who threw him down some glowing embers, from the fire always burning near his shelter.
All day he found abundant employment, working with flame and clay. The eating away of the log in a manner to leave a hollow shell, could not, he found, be accomplished as swiftly as he had hoped. Moreover, the fires required his constant attention, lest they burn too deeply to right or left, and thus destroy, or considerably impair, the walls he desired to protect.
In the afternoon he permitted this fire to die. Until more clay could be plastered about and the blackly charred portions of the wood removed with a tool, the process must be halted. He had still a small section inside his natural smelter to cover before he could undertake the melting of his metal, but his heap of clay was gone.
Once more, as he had on the previous occasion, he informed Elaine in the late afternoon of his intentions for the night. Her look of alarm was the only sign that escaped her resolute being. She had silently noted his earlier activity with the bomb and his fire-preserving wood; she was not surprised by his plans.
"I shall not be down at the spring," he said, "but over there nearer the clay pit. I have found a place where I rather expect our friend to arrive at a decently early hour."
Her eyes were startled and wide.
"Do you mean he sleeps where you have been walking every day?"
"No—certainly not. But I'm sure he was there last night—and I hope he'll come again."
She was quick to divine the unpleasant truth that Grenville was striving to avoid.
"You mean—he's been eating there—and left some awful——"
"Good pork," he agreed, as he took up his bomb; "a fine wild boar—enough to have done us for a week."
She resumed her work of knitting, on a small, round basket-like affair.
"I hope there are more of those hogs for him to get," she told him, quietly. "I hope they are easy prey."
"Right ho! But I trust he'll not be off with the old pig before he is on with the new. I want him to come to the party there to-night."
Elaine looked up for a moment, and thrilled to the look in his eyes.
"Yes," she said, "I suppose you do."
The island twilight was brief. When the sun departed from that speck of verdure in the purple sea, the covetous darkness seemed to form like a presence that had crouched to bide its time.
Grenville was early on the scene of the tiger's previous feast. He had no idea how soon after sundown the jungle monarch might appear. It was not such a place as inspired hilarious joy in the heart, in any circumstances. Moreover, one last examination of the bomb and fuse, and one clear impression of the features beneath and about his tree, seemed to Sidney a wise precaution.
The day had, therefore, barely ended when he climbed aloft to his perch. The end of the fuse was tied to a limb a little removed from his feet. He closed his eyes and found it with his hand, by way of making certain it should not be missed in the dark. The larger and denser of the forms below, created by shadows and growing plants, he noted in their relation to the kill. The latter was not to be clearly seen, since a screen of leaves he had purposely left to conceal his presence from the banqueter, served to shield it from his view.
Finally, closing his eyes again, he practiced retreating behind the trunk itself, as he knew he must do when nothing could be seen and his fuse was finally lighted. This was rather a delicate operation to manage in the dark. He made up his mind it must be calmly done, for ample time would be provided by the generous length of fuse.
This length, by the way, was considerably less than he had formerly employed. The bomb was, therefore, nearer to his stand. Yet the bulk of the tree-trunk was, he thought, an entirely adequate protection should he have the delight of hearing his powder explode.
Through the lattice of leaves he presently beheld the last of the day's dying splendor. The army of shadows, already on the march, was taking rapid possession of all the jungle deeps. The same impatience he had felt before, the same vague dread and loneliness previously experienced, and the same slow drag of time impressed themselves upon his senses.
He wondered how long his brand would last, although it was longer than the other. He wondered about Elaine, on the hill, and how tedious the hours would seem to her. But the constant, underlying worry was—when would the tiger arrive?
Elaine's suggestion was a bother. Might there not be hogs so plentiful, quarry so readily captured, that the overdisdainful monarch would prefer warm meat to cold?
There was no mysterious cipher to be studied here to-night. There was nothing, in fact, with which to pass the time. Not even a new speculation concerning the cave and the rotting barque arose to give him entertainment. The haunting, suggestive stillness engulfed him where he sat. The world below had merged in one featureless gloom. Except for a few fringed patches of sky between the leaves and branches, there was nothing but velvety blackness to be seen above or below.
He waited and waited, a time that seemed eternal. His resting-place was hard and uneven. One of his legs was cramped. To shift about and make no noise was not an easy matter.
Without the slightest warning, suddenly down below him something leaped and crashed through the thicket with a most unexpected sound. Whatever it was, it went bounding off, recklessly parting the jungle. Some creature in fright it undoubtedly was—and Grenville was instantly rigid and alert for the next development.
He was certain the tiger, coming to his feast, had thrown some timid creature into a panic of blind and desperate fear. He listened, with all his powers of concentration, for the sounds that should presently succeed.
But save for another plunging, far beyond, there was absolute silence as before. For fully half an hour after that the stillness was well-nigh insupportable, so fraught was it all with the tragic sense of noiseless life where both hunted and hunters moved about with the cushioned feet of shadows.
Far off towards the spring, or the estuary, a disturbance finally arose. It was neither loud nor clear. It seemed to interpret some struggle for life, or pursuit of the weak by the strong. It approached for a time, then ceased for nearly half a minute, only to break into clearer accents of some brute's agony, poignant but mercifully brief.
At this the discouragement in Grenville's breast was unavoidably increased. He was certain the tiger had taken fresher prey, and would now ignore his former kill. So intent were his senses on that far-off bit of jungle drama that he failed to detect a nearer sound repeated beneath his feet.
When his sharp ears abruptly warned him that something was moving down below, an extraordinary climax to his adventure was swiftly coming to a focus.
Some creature had come to the tiger's kill—of that there could be no doubt. It was lapping, or chewing at the meat!
Unable to distinguish the slightest thing in all that Stygian darkness, Grenville paused, with his brand slightly shielded from the creature's possible notice, waiting a moment to confirm the fact that a banqueter was present before he touched the fuse.
A tremendous roar instantly startled the silence, a few feet beyond the boar's remains. Before the man could move a hand, either to light the ready fuse or steady himself in the branches, some heavy form was hurled against the tree in which he sat—and that something was climbing madly upward!
Only a tremor had shivered through the trunk, but the limbs were bent and the foliage stirred as if from a breath of heavy wind. That the creature might run against himself and turn to fight, in its double fear and desperation, Grenville was keenly aware.
Subconsciously, also, he was equally sure the tiger was below. The catlike thing in the tree with himself had undoubtedly dared to sit down at the huge brute's kill, to flee for its life a moment later.
Instinctively turning to protect himself and thoroughly disturbed by this unforeseen complication, Grenville heard his unwelcome companion utter one sudden whine, of surprise and added terror, as it came abreast him in the branches.
It dared not retreat, and, therefore in a wilder panic, clawed its way higher up the tree. The limbs continued to shake their leaves for another protracted moment. Then the beast found a place to halt above his head, and doubtless glared down upon the unknown peril which man supplies to all the brutes.
Grenville recovered his wits as best he might. He had no particular dread of the animal crouched somewhere in his neighborhood, but neither did he relish its presence. What effect the affair would have on the creature he had come there to engage he could not, of course, determine.
He bent to listen for sounds from the space below. Not the faintest suggestion of a moving or feeding animal could his focused senses detect. He thought perhaps the tiger might have smelled him or seen him in the tree. It occurred to him, also, the brute might be waiting for the catlike thief to descend and be slain at the kill.
But a far more likely supposition was that the tiger, having sniffed the taint of some beast without caste, now left on the meat that was sacred to himself, had disdained to touch it, and had gone away, to return to the place no more.
Ready to curse the despicable animal now sharing the tree's security with himself, Sidney was all but resigned to another long night, spent in vain and in utter discomfort, when once again a lapping sound came crisply to his attention.
His brute was at the feast!
With heart abruptly pounding and senses suddenly tense, Grenville leaned down, with his glowing brand, to complete his work for the night.
His hand felt blindly along the limb, to pick up the end of the fuse. But someway the place was lost. More eagerly then, and telling off each twig like a sign that blazed the trail, he explored the branch anew.
He found the fiber that had held the fuse—but the fuse itself was gone! The panic-stricken creature that had climbed the tree had clawed or broken it down!
A bitterer disappointment to Grenville could scarcely have been planned. He was sickened all through by disgust, and a sense of the utter uselessness of all he had striven to accomplish. With fire in hand, the bomb all laid, and the tiger actually present—he was helpless, after all!
It was futile to rage at the cowering beast, above him somewhere in the darkness. He glanced up once and saw its eyes—two blazing coals of fear and malice, like near-by sinister stars!
"By Heavens! I'll not be cheated!" he murmured to himself. A mad new thought had possessed him.
The fuse had been drawn about the tree before it could be fastened near his perch. Had it fallen straight down, when torn from its hold, it would still lie close at hand.
His ladder was hidden from the tiger's position by the tree. Any sounds he must make might be thought to be those of the cat. There was no particular danger in descending to the ground—with the ladder near with which to regain a safe position.
Noiselessly, yet not without excitement, he began his retreat from the branches. With every step he paused for a bit, to listen to the sounds of the tiger.
The brute was seemingly quite engrossed in the business of filling his belly. But, despite his utmost efforts at silence, the leaves of one of the branches loudly rustled as Grenville's weight was intrusted to the ladder.
He halted and held his breath. The tiger continued his eating. Holding his firebrand firmly in his teeth, Grenville slowly and cautiously descended, with the furtive alertness of a thief.
When he reached the earth, he was certain his heart would betray his presence with its pounding. He leaned there, heavily, against the tree, to still the mad leap of his pulses. Then, at length, he began to feel about for the fuse that should be at his feet.
It was not to be found—and he moved a little outward. His hand came in contact with a long, slender thing—but it proved to be a creeper.
Further and further out he moved, blindly groping with his fingers. He encountered a shrub, and, fumbling between it and the tree, bethought him to feel about its crest. There he found one end of the fuse he sought—but it proved that the length had been broken! He held the useless end!
One despair after another had seized him within an endless minute. More recklessly, in a burning fever of impatience, he pawed about and moved even closer to the tiger—whose sounds were horribly near.
He could almost have uttered a cry of joy when the severed fuse was discovered. He waited for nothing, but immediately pressed his brand against the sun-dried substance.
There was no powder there. It had spilled when it broke, and it harmlessly smoked as it burned.
Why a groan did not escape him, Sidney could never have told. He broke off the tough, resisting substance six inches further along and again applied his spark.
It seemed as if in all its length there could be no powder remaining. He was savagely grasping the fuse once more, to break it at a fresher place, when a fiery-red line, some four feet away, seemed creeping like a snake out beyond him.
The spark that was racing along to the bomb had been started while still he was sweating there with baffled and excited impatience.
He took no time for further caution, but sprang away to the shelter of the tree and caught at a lungful of breath.
There was not a sound in all the place. This much he knew in that second, as he hugged up close to the trunk. The tiger had ceased to lap at the meat, and perhaps was poised for a spring.
It seemed to Grenville, waiting there, that nothing would ever happen. A thousand doubts went darting through his brain. The fuse had failed! It was broken again. Or, perhaps——
A low growl broke the stillness. There was a sound of something moving towards the tree!
Instantly a frightful red-and-yellow glare leaped upward from the earth. A deafening, crashing detonation rent the intimate universe and shook down incredible stars. The air was filled to overcrowding with rushing billows of concussion that rocked the trees as in a storm.
Grenville went down, dazed and helpless, unable to think, so jarred to chaos were his senses. But, beyond being stunned for a moment, he was totally unhurt.
He leaped to his feet, aware of some mighty disturbance in the curdled, heavy darkness that had followed.
The tiger it was, in some extravagant activity, moving towards Grenville and the thicket. He was almost upon the staggering man before he could move to escape. Then Grenville stumbled towards the ladder.
The jar to the limb, as he tugged at a rung, brought something down from above. This was the creature that had hidden in the tree. It had partially fallen, earlier stunned by the huge concussion. It dropped upon Grenville leadenly—and down he went in a heap.
The three sworn enemies—tiger, man, and jungle-cat—were embroiled on the earth together. Before the man could sufficiently recover to stagger from his knees to his feet and grasp his club, the tiger flung out a mighty paw, that struck him a blow upon the chin.
Without a sound he sank limberly down, inert and helplessly unconscious.