CHAPTER XXXIII.
The disappearance of Sosee without anybody knowing it was a new puzzle to the Ammi. Was she spirited away by some supernatural power? or did she simply drop out of line into the bushes? These were among the questions asked.
“She is a spy,” persisted Pounder, “having first become a traitor.”
“If her story be true,” observed Abroo, “she thinks more of her people than of her lover, and is a great heroine to thus sacrifice her love to save her race.”
“Whatever be the facts,” said Koree, not appreciating this kind of unselfishness, “let us search for her. If she be a spy she should not return to the enemy, and if she be a heroine she should not be lost to us.”
“In either case,” said Pounder, “you want to get her for yourself, and do not care what becomes of the war.”
“Let us first make ourselves safe,” said Abroo, “and then talk of finding her. In this great Swamp with its endless entanglement of bushes, we could not find herany sooner than the Lali can find us; whereas if we save ourselves from the danger she describes, we must retreat farther at once.”
“I shall search for Sosee,” said Koree, “and will return to you only when I find her.”
So saying Koree left the rest of the Ammi and started back to find his beloved, taking several friends with him.
They were soon lost in the wilderness; but by the position of the sun they kept their steps bent in the direction of the Lali.
“There is only one course that she could take,” said he; “whether she go as a spy or to a lover, she will seek the Lali by the most direct route, and in either case I want her, and want her soon; so let us head her off.”
Swift then through the wilds they pressed back, pushing aside the bushes, wading in the marshes, jumping over fallen trees, and picking out a possible route through an almost impassable country. When they came to an open place, they reconnoitred. Now and then they met a serpent or alligator, and continually they feared more savage beasts, whose cries were heard around them.
“This is a terrible wilderness for Sosee to pass through,” observed Koree, “but if she is going to meet a rival, or betray the Ammi, I don’t know whether I want her to get through.”
“We will at least reach the Lali first,” said one of his companions.
“I am not sure of that,” replied Koree. “Sosee is swift of foot, and finds her way better than anyone I know.”
Soon they came upon some straggling apes, but as these differed somewhat from the Lali they paid little attention to them, thinking they were chance hunters in the thickets.
These apes, however, were soon met so frequently, and finally became so numerous, that Koree remarked:
“I wonder if they are not some of the new comers of which Sosee spoke.”
Presently he climbed a tree, from which he looked beyond the confines of the Swamp, where he saw an innumerable swarm of apes, filling all the country about the habitations of the Lali. So many animals he had never before seen together. His worst suspicions were, therefore, confirmed.
“Sosee has, indeed, reported the truth,” he said; “such a multitude would have overwhelmed the Ammi in one attack, and left nothing remaining of the human race.”
Hurrying down, therefore, from the tree, he called on his comrades to turn back to the Ammi.
“Let us return and take precautions for our safety,” he said; “soon those apes will scatter, or kill one another off; no country can long support such a number.”
“But what about Sosee?” asked his companions.
“We cannot find her in this Swamp,” replied Koree; “and, as her story of the reinforcements of the Apes is true, the rest is not incredible, so that her return to them may be necessary for our safety.”
Now, therefore, for the first time, did Koree appreciate the heroism of Sosee; and the sacrifice of her loverseemed magnanimous when it was clear that it was not for another lover.
They retraced their steps, therefore, and before night were again with the main body of the Ammi, to whom they related what they had seen.
“Where is Sosee,” asked one.
“We have not seen her,” replied Koree, “but we found her true, which is more important;” for Koree before his search had begun to doubt the faithfulness of his beloved, which he was now glad to establish, even at the expense of her possession.
As night settled down on the Ammi in the Swamp a great light appeared in the north, an object of beauty and terror to them. The sky was illumined with brilliant and changing rays, like a sunrise at midnight. The heavens seemed to be on fire, and the conflagration to be approaching the earth. It was one of those gigantic electric storms which swept over the ancient world and vied with the earthquakes, mountain upheavals, and deluges of the period, when the Earth still acted as a whole. Night and Day were apparently in conflict, mixing great fields of light with alternate streaks of darkness, and chasing each other over the whole heavens.
“What can this mean?” asked several at once.
“The Fire-monster is sweeping down upon us, as well as the Monkeys,” answered one; “he has already seized the heavens.”
“It don’t mean any good,” said Gimbo; “Shoozoo is angry, and has sent his winged Alligator to destroy us. I will get the dragon-fly which cured us of the colic.”
Wearied, however, they soon sank to rest, and lying under an open sky, which seemed all on fire, they slept, and their dreams that night were disturbed equally by fears of the Aurora and of monkeys.