In fifteen minutes after I settled myself in the tree, in a position of comparative ease, I fell into a deep and dreamless slumber. I had not intended to give up in any such manner, but the warmth, the relief to my mind and my weariness, combined to send me off before I realised what I was doing.
It might have been a noise and it could have been pangs of hunger that awakened me finally. The hour was certainly that of noon, if not later. I felt hazy in my notions; it required no little blinking to get the webs from my eyes and brain. Then I heard voices. What was being said sounded to me like Link language.
I nearly cried out, thinking some of the tribe were near at hand, but fortunately I was still too lazy and exhausted to make such an effort. Then a movement attracted my gaze and I saw several Links, sure enough.
But they were black!
I was wide enough awake in a second. I crouched low and got a mass of leaves between these vengeful creatures and myself, for I knew it would be death, or worse, if once they clapped eyes upon my form. Peering furtively down, I saw that all of them were standing perfectly still, just as if they might have halted abruptly and remained in various poses of action. There were eight in all, every one of whom was looking intently at something across the little clearing.
Without moving my body I turned my head and discovered a small black bear, which was sleepily smelling about and moving through the grass and giant ferns. Wondering if presently the Links would dart upon the inoffensive animal and beat it to death with their clubs, I looked them over carefully. Except that they stood erect, they did certainly look like close relations of the savage ourangs. Their ears were large, foreheads low and receding, and jaws tremendously heavy and protuberant. Their noses were flat and broad, while their eyes, like those of my friendly Reds, were small, round, near together and nervously watchful. I was not at all gratified to see them here; I wondered if, being so near, they had discovered our settlement on the hill. Our settlement! Would I ever get back to my barbarous company and that “city” again, I wondered.
The bear shuffled off, with the utmost indifference to anything which might be near. Then I beheld those black Links, one of whom possessed the club with the nugget of gold on the end, do precisely what I had seen my Reds do, the day we were driven into the cave. They crept up to the tracks which bruin had left in the moist earth and kneeling, as if in adoration, each placed his forehead down where the bear had trod. Plainly the creature was held in great reverence and awe by all the family of Links, whatever their colour. This seemed to me a remarkable and wholly inexplicable thing.
Two of the fellows, I noted, had fruits and cocoa-nuts in their hands, having probably gathered them recently for the dinner of the party. They now parleyed a moment in monosyllables, with the others, the result being that all of the food was deposited on the ground, doubtless with the thought that the bear might return and be pleased to find something to eat. It was doubtless a primitive “sacred” offering. As silently as so many snakes, the fellows then withdrew, on the side just opposite to that in which their adored one had disappeared. I heard their voices die away in the jungle.
In order to be sure that I incurred no risk, I waited for fully fifteen minutes. The forest was particularly still. Slipping quietly down from my perch, at last, I possessed myself of those fruits in the twinkling of an eye, and devouring a part then and there, I ascended to my throne with all I could carry, and finished a meal, the relish of which surpasses all human imagination.
When I had done at last and that craving, inward system was fully gratified, I heaved a big sigh of content and gazed off listlessly into the ocean of endless verdure. A soft wind fanned lazily by; there was nothing to threaten my life; the tropics were at their loveliest. As naturally as it comes to a tired animal, sleep again came creeping across my senses. Without even moving into an easier position, I slept away the whole balmy afternoon.
I waked at last and found it was night. How drowsy it was, how blissful to sleep and sleep. My brain was too dull to receive an impression of alarm at my being alone in the jungle; I felt that I did not care what occurred. If anything wished to come and eat me up, it was all right, but I did wish they might not make me awake while the job was being done. Howls, death-screams, roars of the prowlers—all made a lullaby that soothed me more. I turned the other way about, heavily, and sank again into slumber.
Nothing was fresher nor keener than I when again the sun touched the tips of the trees. Asleep one second as soundly as a hibernating squirrel, I was as sharply awake the next as a ferret in a coop. I shook myself and stretched.
“Great Scott!” I exclaimed, “that was a nap!”
Swinging down from my berth I ate of the food which was still on the ground, where the bear had neglected it quite, and then taking my bearings as best I could, from memory of my imaginary map of the lake, I struck off through the jungle for “home.”
Of the hours which it took me to force my way between tangles and around a marsh and over hills and down dales, to accomplish what I thought to be something like two miles on an air line, I have anything but pleasant recollections. That I met with many creatures, flocks of parrots and a troop of apes and monkeys; that I recoiled from a path in which a huge boa-constrictor was gliding, and that I cursed my luck repeatedly for ever having landed in such a place, is all a matter of small account, compared to the fact that I stood at last on a hill and saw our very camp. I came to it then in less than one more hour of hottest work and travel.
An excited yell announced my approach before I had walked ten feet on the slope of our hill. If the Links had been enthusiastic on the morning after my night with the tiger, they were crazy and flabbergasted all at once on this occasion. The whole population came tumbling and running down the slope. They were worse than a pack of great, rough dogs that nearly knock one endways with delight. They made me fairly wild, the idiotic things, for my patience was gone to the winds, after my struggle to win through the jungle, and besides, it was they who had plunged me into all the trouble. I batted them off with rare satisfaction and punched a couple of heads in the bargain, but the fools were more tickled than ever, though I would wager that some of them smarted.
They fell all over one another as they crowded me up the hill, but my temper rather rose than lowered, for I began to pile my accumulated grievances up against them. I wanted the whole outfit to understand that I thought them cowards, for running from a noise, that day in the woods, and that I now owed nothing to any one in the tribe for my whole skin and presence once more in “My village.”
When I arrived inside the walls I was made decidedly more angry to find that Grin had stolen the tiger-skull off my shelter to fasten it up on the one in which he slept at night, and also by the fact that every blessed arrow we owned had been shot away by the fellows, as a lot of inconsequent boys might have done, merely to see them fly and to meddle with the bows. These bows, by the way, were strewn about on the ground where everyone kicked them carelessly and walked on them with utter unconcern.
It took me about one minute to exhibit a bit of temper that scared the creatures so thoroughly that all but Fatty jumped smartly away and stood at a distance, eyeing me painfully, ready to fall dead, if such act could calm me down. Fatty had hastily and exultantly jerked the tiger relic off from Grin’s abode and fetched it over to mine, after which the old idiot clung to me patiently through rain of blows and kicks, content to receive any amount of punishment, but wholly unwilling to leave the region of my feet. I believe he would have smiled affectionately up in my face and refused to run away if I had raised my knife to kill him on the spot.
“You Grin, there,” I snorted in my wrath, “if ever I catch you in another of your beastly, treacherous tricks, I’ll rip you in two and beat the pieces on a rock!”
The females, seeing in a moment that the fawner was the chief object of my anger, and cordially hating the fellow in the bargain, pinched him and struck him and bit him on the shoulders till he was constrained to run away to preserve his miserable hide. Had they killed him at once I confess I should have been delighted to witness the deed.
I moved about, with Fatty, in the fine large circle which the troubled but respectful Links maintained, while I drank some water and ate up a mango which was left in one of the baskets. This was evidently taken as a favourable sign, for immediately old and young, male and female made a great demonstration of procuring me anything and everything that Link or Link-governor could possibly desire to eat, in hopes of propitiating the demon of temper which they readily comprehended was raging within me.
My indignation having produced a wholesome effect, I decided not to be placated readily by anything, and determined thereafter to maintain a certain strictness which should compel a greater respect. It is not entirely a human characteristic for a creature to grow too familiar when treated with easy-going indulgence, for I have often seen dogs and other animals impose on good nature with manners almost insolent.
For several days I treated the Links somewhat harshly, requiring much work on the boat and on more of the arrows. I encouraged also a species of fear which I found my conduct had created. It was high time, I knew, to dominate the creatures, unless I was willing that they should dominate me.
They were quick to see that I rarely even threatened physical violence, however, and this soon tended to give them a confidence about approaching my “sacred” person. I had been in hopes that my gruffness and show of impatience had so discouraged the albino female that she would keep her distance, for she did exhibit a becoming timidity for a time, but this gradually wore away. I was exceedingly annoyed to observe, not only that her disquieting symptoms were returning, but also that she manifested greater ardour than ever before. My efforts to appear disagreeable were producing an effect exactly the opposite of what I desired.
That trouble would be brewed again I felt was inevitable. The chief had somewhat manifested a spirit of doubt and alarm, in common with the others, when he found me aroused, but this he was daily attempting to overcome. I could see that the fire of jealousy, especially in regard to the manœuvres of his fickle and silly mate was getting more assertive. It could only be a matter of time till his animal-rage would burst all bounds, and then—one or the other of us would get hurt, for I had early decided that my life was quite as important as his, and I therefore watched him narrowly, always.
The work on the boat and weapons was progressing, but I was all impatience to make things ready for my contemplated flight. In the midst of this state of affairs, the albino increased her advances, by bolder demonstrations. Exasperated beyond endurance, I seemed powerless to perform anything which should end the matter decisively. Upon coming from my shelter, one morning, after having been to the spring, I saw her down the hill, adoring my tracks.
She was on “all fours,” worshipping, by placing her forehead on the ground where I had stepped, just as Reds and Blacks had done to the tracks of the bear. She was obviously in a state of ecstasy which was most insane. She had never before proceeded so far as this, to my knowledge. It made me boil with wrath. I should have liked to box her ears smartly. How alert and “secret” she was in her unseemly behaviour was demonstrated by the activity with which she made off when her chief appeared around the slope.
Two days later I was exceptionally provoked to find this female within a rod of my dug-out, indulging in more of this madness. Moreover she was being observed by the angry chief, although I was not aware of this at the moment. So disgusted and desperate did I feel that I stepped quickly to a rock, whereon my tortoise basin was standing, filled with water in which I had washed, and grabbing it up I jumped toward her and dashed the contents all over her head and body, while she was still upon the ground, adoring.
She was simply wild. A wet cat could not begin to be half so surprised, indignant and outraged as her ladyship became, instantly. She leaped to her feet, gasping, dripping, shuddering at the contact of all that water, her mouth wide open, her eyes afire with the light of sudden hatred and fury. Not even a “woman scorned” could have been so ready to shred my flesh from my bones. I thought for a second she would fly at my throat, in her passion, and gouge out my eyes, but the fiendish laughter of the chief and of ten or a dozen other females—who, of course, had seen the whole performance—turned her attention. This derision, however, made her face the more diabolical in its expressions of wrath.
Fortunately what the lady said to myself was wholly unintelligible, for I had mastered hardly as much as twenty of their “words” at the time. But I was left no room for doubt that the language was as “burning” as it was impetuous. I laughed with the others; indeed the whole thing struck me as being so comical that I was fairly doubled over with unrestrained merriment. This acted like oil on a blazing fire, and being no longer able to control herself at all, the drenched female dashed madly off to the edge of the woods, to vent her rage as best she could. The chief was immensely pleased.
In the immunity from the female’s attentions and the consequent jealousy of her mate which I now enjoyed, I drove the work with hearty zest. The boat was all but finished, yet it needed digging out at least two inches more, and this I felt to be important, knowing how heavy was the log of which it was made. I had even fashioned a pair of oars, the blades of which were firmly lashed to the handles, but by then our tools of flint were almost entirely useless. Many had been lost and all had been more or less broken. The work actually ceased for lack of these necessary implements.
I set my fellows to digging up the ground, in the hope of unearthing more of the pebbles which furnished the flint. In the forest, where the soil was damp, we found a white, efflorescent substance in great abundance, near the surface. This, from its peculiar taste and general appearance, I knew to be common saltpetre, doubtless of value to the commercial world, but of no account to me when I wanted flint. We tried the hillsides and various localities, but not one of the precious chalcedony pebbles could we find.
The suggestion occurred to me at once that we could go to the old camp and dig all we needed, but this presented difficulties which aroused my impatience. I desired to get away before additional complications could arise. As a matter of fact, I was watching Grin very closely for evidence of further duplicity, which I thoroughly expected to detect, soon or late. If once I could find the outlet of the lake, I thought, I would say good-bye to these half-animal beings without the slightest pang of regret, for they grated on me daily, more and more.
I determined to launch the boat as it was and begin my explorations. This work we undertook one sultry morning. The clay which I had plastered over the surface of the wood, where I had wished to protect it from the fire, was baked hard. We broke it away in pieces, and when it was off and the boat turned bottom downwards, I felt exceedingly proud of the work and gratified to find the craft in much better shape than I had thought to be possible.
It was placed on the rollers, after no little amount of pulling and hauling, and we were all engrossed with the preparations to shove her across the intervening beach to the water, when without the slightest warning there was a sudden rush and yelling about us, and we were almost instantly surrounded by a force of the savage black Links from the jungle.
Wholly unprepared as we were for this attack, and with the only clubs we had lying about in the grass, it seemed as if we should be overwhelmed in a moment and killed where we stood. My fellows, however, were not only marvellously quick to regain their weapons, but they also set up a series of cries which alarmed the camp on the moment.
A score of fighters had been left in the settlement that morning, to prepare the skins of animals recently taken, and to point some arrows with what flints we had remaining. These now came running down the hill, not with the bows and arrows, as I had hoped they might, but with their usual weapons.
Before our reinforcements could arrive, the Blacks rushed in and killed two of my workers as if they had been a pair of helpless worms. We were in the midst of a mass of the black devils, about three to our one, making terrible sounds of triumphant yelling and snarling. Fortunately the chief was with us, and now his great crystal club retaliated on one of the foremost enemies and cleared a space for a moment, while I hurriedly pushed my fellows back to back in hollow-square order, and tried to let them know we must move all we could toward our hill, as we fought.
The Blacks were fiercely impetuous—mad to wipe us out. They dashed upon us with total lack of order, and therefore we beat down many before they killed one more of our number. Had my fellows not been used to obeying what I ordered, I could not have kept them formed together for a moment. It was only this condition of semi-order which saved us from total annihilation, for our mad antagonists rushed the fray with most inconsequent violence and force.
There was singular din of blows—clubs on flesh and clubs on clubs,—cries of rage and agony and shouted words—both of Linkish and English. It was a spectacle of wildest action, the quick, muscular Blacks, inconceivably savage, dancing, leaping about and hurling themselves upon us, their clubs fairly flaying the air, their faces fiendish with animal ferocity, teeth revealed and eyes darting fire of hatred, while we were equally wrought up, vicious and thirsty for blood, smashing them down, waging war of defense and war of vindictive aggression.
They were winning, crowding us too near together, beating our outside fighters to death and dragging them feet first into a melee of descending clubs, when our mates descended on the rear of the ones between ourselves and camp, and broke the cordon completely. They screamed with hideous delight as they bowled over a dozen of the foe, but over-confidence would have cost us every life—and the Lord only knows what after results—had my comrades not understood and obeyed my commands to fly, for we were still outnumbered by heavy odds. Pushing my Red fellows, guiding and endeavouring to retire them in order, I suddenly saw a club coming straight for my neck. I dodged, but got a scrape along the scalp and a thud on the shoulder, when I drove home my knife for the first time during the fight, and ripped it out from a three-cornered wound. Then we darted through the battered-down opening in the ring and ran as hard as we could drive for the camp.
Up the hill we surged with the Blacks swarming up behind us. We had gained fifty yards, owing doubtless to our perfect familiarity with the ground; nevertheless a pair of our wounded fell behind and were overtaken and beaten to a pulp at once. Through the gate in our wall we scrambled, and then I got my bow in hand at last and flew about frantically, shouting and urging my fellows to arm themselves with the others.
While only about twenty of us rushed back to the wall as archers, the foremost Blacks, outstripping their comrades, bounded through the opening, or over the wall, insane with the hoarded rage of former defeats, and ignorant of what they should find. The chief had halted just inside, with two of his mightiest fighters. They smashed down Link after Link that attempted to rush the gate. Then we with the bows arrived on the scene. The black demons in solid phalanx stormed the wall and came climbing up over its top.
“Now! Now!” I cried, “Shoot the pigs!”
It made me thrill to see those powerful fellows making crescents of the bows. My heart leaped exultantly to hear the twangs and to see the small but deadly shower of arrows suddenly pierce the air and sink in the scabbards of flesh. The very first flight toppled five of the creatures endways.
“Shoot! Pigs!” I shouted again, for these two words my Links comprehended.
More came running to join us with the bows. We spread out in something of a line. The air became thick with the hurtling arrows. Some struck the wall and some flew high, but we mowed down many a Black, dead or wounded, till the fierce attacking devils were appalled to see us and to see this mysterious work of slaughter.
They halted; the back-bone of their mad impulse was broken; they could not endure to advance in the face of fatalities about them, much less to carry the place, over the bodies of their fellows. Yet they were still more than we in numbers, and had they known of and adopted the bloody tactics which sacrifice many, in those heroic, irresistible charges by which men win a fearful battle, they would still have swept us off the hill to the forest beyond, for our meagre supply of arrows was nearly exhausted already.
Below the wall they rallied. The fellow who was armed with the gold-nugget club—which was dripping with gore—seemed to be in command. He flourished his terrible weapon and fired the Blacks with courage anew. They came for us, hot and eager to even up the score.
I saw the great ebon creature head their charge, and notching my last remaining arrow on my bowstring, I waited for him, in great excitement. They paid no attention to the gate, but crying out madly, swarmed up over the wall again as if nothing on earth could check their career. Those of my fighters who still had arrows shot with vengeance in every vibrating muscle. The Black who led, presented a splendid target, presently, though he was moving quickly. I let the shaft drive straight for his breast, but he was leaping downward at the second it arrived, and it struck him squarely in the top of the left shoulder, near the neck and just inside the collar-bone. It seemed for a second as if it had gone in half its length, but beyond stumbling forward a trifle when he landed, the fellow appeared to have received no harm.
I heard a cry of despair go up from the Blacks when they saw their leader struck, but I gave no heed to anything, so intent had I become on watching this active creature. I was so absorbed, indeed, that before I realised what was occurring, the fellow had bounded near enough to swing his club to slay me where I stood. Half falling backward to escape, I lost my footing. The club came swiftly through the air, my arm was knocked aside and the nugget thumped ponderously on my ribs and bowled me end over end.
It had all happened in a second. I was down and knew I was badly hurt before I could have winked. I thought the furious Black would rush upon me and batter in my head, for I could not have risen to save myself from anything. But the savage creature fell dead in his tracks for my arrow had found his heart and he had died even as he struck that powerful blow. Had he not been fatally hit, his blow would have slain me outright.
In the meantime, my fellows, having brought down three of the foe with arrows, had grabbed up their clubs again to beat in the heads of the Blacks who dared jump down in the field of death. Seeing their chief as he sank, without so much as the flicker of a movement, the remaining besiegers gave a yell of dismay and fled in a panic.
Our forces—savage and aggressive the moment the tables were turned—became the hunters instead of the hunted. They descended upon the flying Blacks, slaying all the wounded who hobbled in the rear of the wild retreat and all whom they overtook before the jungle received its defeated children back.
I must have swooned, for I knew no more of anything until I awoke, in a dazed condition, and found old Fatty bending down above me, while near at hand nearly all the beings of the tribe stood gazing on my prostrate form with expressions of grave concern.
Upon trying to arise I was so shot through with pain in my side and chest, that I felt things go dizzy directly. Then after a little I attempted to move to a more comfortable position. This was accomplished only at the cost of great agony. I found that my left arm was badly injured while all the upper portion of my body seemed quivering with pain. Never had I been so wounded in my life.
I asked for water, for the Links were but little better than so many faithful dogs, who could whine over my helpless carcass, but who had not the slightest idea of what to do to relieve my suffering. Never had muscular action caused me such pangs as I underwent upon trying to swallow. The thump I had received, slightly back of the region of the heart, had come so near to being my pass to the world beyond that I believe another volt of power in the blow would have done the work. As it was, I refrained from crying out only by exerting my utmost will, when the chief and Fatty carried me bodily and laid me down on the skins in my shelter.
My consciousness went again as soon as my body touched the couch; yet I rallied soon and attempted to nod my recognition as the chief came back again, bearing the great gold-nugget club, which he leaned against the wall.
It became manifest early that if I survived the shock to my system and the fracture of at least one rib, which I felt sure had resulted from the blow, it must be through sheer good luck, backed by a hardy constitution, for of lotions, or bandages or skillful attendance there could be absolutely none.
That night I experienced the most excruciating torture it has ever been my lot to endure. Every beat of my heart was like the stab of a dagger, in feeling. Concussion, even that inflicted by a fist, has proved too much for the great throbbing organ of man full many a time. I thought of this afterward, but during that first twenty-four hours, I was utterly incapable of doing anything except living through the ordeal of pain.
All through the day that followed I lay there, feverish, yet too badly hurt to move on my bed. I ate nothing and drank water only, in single swallows. Fatty remained at my side as a mother might have done. Fifty times that day he ran to the spring for the fresh, cool water, as that which stood about in a shell for half an hour became too warm to be fit to drink. After a time he licked one of my burning hands, timidly, as if uncertain of how this ministration would be received. It felt cool and not at all disagreeable; I therefore made no motion to draw the member away. Presently the worried creature repeated the favour; and after he had done this humble office for both hands and wrists, I felt so soothed and refreshed that I fell asleep at last, and got a natural rest.
Day after day went by and I was still on my back, though I could see that improvement continued steadily. It was fully a week before I was able to move without suffering agonies, and for some time after that the pain in my ribs was exceedingly sharp. During all this time I was amply supplied by Fatty with fruits and with abominably cooked meats, for the females were neglecting all my former instructions, concerning the fire and the roasting and boiling of game.
As soon as I was able to sit up, propped against a rock, I worked a little every day at making arrows, and urged my most skillful assistants to do the same. These shafts could not be pointed, owing to our lack of flints, but we finished several hundred, as to all but the requisite heads. I was visited daily by all the tribe, except two individuals, Grin and the unforgiving Lady Albino. The little Links who had fled in uncertainty before, even up to the last, now began to make me more of a regular companion. They were near me, more or less, from dawn till dusk, capering about, sitting in groups in the sunlight, to watch me with ever-nervous eyes, and rolling over one another in rough, good-natured play.
The very smallest of these “children” were hairy little scamps most astoundingly like baby chimpanzees, except for their lighter colour. By the hour I watched them at their play and listened to their funny little words of talk. It was not an ordinary baby prattle, to be sure, but it made me think that all babies are very much alike. Their chief amusement consisted in making a noise, by striking any two objects together. The rarest things they did were crying and laughing.
There was one little chap who never rolled on his back with the others, never made a noise and rarely spoke. He was the only one that looked in my face with eyes that were human-like and steady. I fancied his quaint little face was wistful; it was certainly serious and therein widely different from those of all his companions. This little creature approached me most timidly and yet with a certain persistency that finally made me look about, in the morning, to see if he had come.
For several days he sat near my feet, over which, finally, he laid his little arm. Gradually then he worked nearer and nearer to my head, as I sat against the rock until at last he cuddled unobtrusively up against me and permitted my arm to close loosely about his little form. Thereafter this was his one particular place. Hour after hour he would nestle close in this, his nook, turning his questioning eyes to mine, now and again, and blinking as if he tried to think out the great inscrutable problem of what we are and why we came to partake of the mystery of life. How foolishly fond of this little creature I became, I shall not attempt to say.
This was a time of laziness for all the tribe. The Links were sun-lovers of the most ardent description. Secure on our hill, undriven by any task-master, provided with food in plenty, they basked for hours, lying flat on the back, and played exaggerated pranks, sometimes in a languid spirit of ease and sometimes with the greatest activity of movement. They appeared to know nothing of family ties, nor of sorrow for those whom they had been obliged to bury. They had no remorse, nor “pricks of conscience” for any acts ever performed, nor did they seem to have conceived of anything superior to themselves, except in a purely physical manner. Thus they realised nothing of an occult, spiritual power of control and nothing of mystery, either in life or death. They therefore had not the slightest fundamental suggestion of a religion, and worshipped nothing and feared nothing, save that which they could see and which they had discovered, in their animal capacity, to be dangerous to life or limb. They could be made to feel a certain sort of awe, but this was one slight degree only above that emotion which in an animal would excite the expression “the creature is cowed.”
I had ample opportunity to become acquainted with the various traits of my friends, for I was something of an invalid for more than two weeks. I came to the conclusion that the Links were keener than I in every natural sense; that is, they could see things more quickly; they could hear that which escaped my duller ears; they could smell odours which failed to convey themselves to me; and they could “feel” dangers by a sort of unknown sense, or instinct, of which I would always remain in complete ignorance. They were highly organised in the natural attributes; they were powerful and active above any animal of their size I have ever seen; but when thought of as humans, they ranked with children who just fail to clutch the ideas of older people and whose efforts in manufacturing are crude and worthless.
When at last I began to walk about again, performing small labours, I still had an occasional dart of pain through my side, which made a feeling of illness spread all through my system. However, the weather was beautiful, the food simple and wholesome and the work soon began to limber me up.
Before I was quite myself again, I commenced to be exceedingly annoyed by the actions of Grin. Although I had been the recognised superior, if not the governor, of the tribe at the moment when I laid low the chief of the Blacks and completed our victory, yet my wound and subsequent weakness had rendered nearly everything nugatory. Inasmuch as my nearness to death had robbed me of the power by which I kept the Links in awe, many had assumed an irreverent air which became positive insolence on the part of the fawner.
Having allied himself with the resentful female albino, this creature was never neglectful of an opportunity to perform some sneaking bit of meanness. For a time I was too weak to resent these impositions, and therefore the creature grew bolder in the liberties which he dared to take. Thus my tiger skull had again disappeared, and I knew he had stolen it, although I had no means of proving the theft. One morning, however, I caught the scoundrel in the act of smashing my turtle-shell basin with a rock. His reason for doing this was two-fold. First, it had contained the water with which I had dampened the ardour of Madame Albino, and second, it was regarded by all as something uncanny out of which I drew a certain power as I washed my face and hands—an operation of which none of the tribe was ever guilty. Grin may have thought to deprive me of my source of strength.
This wanton destruction of my property made me exceedingly angry. Before he could leave the scene of his labour I rushed up and gave him a kick which was decidedly swift. It assisted him to rise with great alacrity. He turned with a snarl and threw himself upon me. A fight was on in less than a second. I had feared this collision for several weeks. It had come at a bad time for me, inasmuch as the creature was twice as strong as I, even when in my normal state, and now I was far from being restored to my former condition.
We wrestled for a moment, the beast attempting to bite, scratch and choke me and to bear me down to the ground. I threw him off for a moment and Fatty would have jumped him instantly—and killed him, no doubt, with his club—had I not waved him off abruptly. I was gratified to know that a friend was near, but I desired to show the Links, who assembled at once, that I was master when it came to a battle. This decision nearly cost me my life, for the brute gave me a wrench that brought back agonies which were well nigh insupportable, while I was knocking his hideous head aside from an attempted bite at my cheek.
For a second I regretted that Fatty had not batted off his head, for I felt as if I should drop from weakness. But when he dug his nails in my arm the smart aroused such a rage that my strength came flooding upward, like a gush of something hot in my blood. I had warded off many of his lunges and was waiting for an opening as if I had been engaged in boxing. The chance presented itself now. He was leaping toward me viciously when I “slugged” him with all my might, fairly in the pit of the stomach. My fist actually seemed to sink into the fellow’s body. He was lifted off his feet, but before he could fall I fetched him a right-hander under the chin that jolted his head backward abruptly.
He fell like an effigy, arms outstretched, so that the back of his skull was the first thing to strike the ground. There he lay, limp as a snake and motionless as a stone, while a referee could have “counted him out” for the next twenty minutes. A great howl of satisfaction greeted this performance, which placed me again on my pedestal of incomprehensible power. The truth of the matter was, however, that I was ready to fall over, myself, so severe had been the strain and the injury done to my weakened frame. By the greatest of efforts I walked away and washed myself at the spring.
Grin, when at last he again assumed a perpendicular, was dizzy on his legs, ill and altogether a sorrowful object. I knew his head was aching and that his stomach would be morbidly sensitive for several days. He was hooted and picked upon also, having been utterly defeated, so that he was glad to retire from active service, muttering no end of what I supposed were threats and maledictions.
I was of precious little account to myself, or to any of the tribe, that day, but on the morrow I was mending rapidly again, and beginning to pick up various threads of the plans I had fashioned before our fateful day of battle with the Blacks.
It was long since anyone from the camp had visited the boat, but my thoughts had been there much of the time. I had feared, daily, another invasion by the enemy, whom I knew to be revengeful and who now understood the nature of our fortifications and means of defense. This feeling of alarm increased. Should they come, with a force still greater than the last, and find us armed with blunt arrows only, our resistance would be short indeed. I dared not contemplate undertaking my exploration of the lake, much less my escape, while we were possibly threatened with another attack and while I was weaponless myself, excepting for my trusty knife.
Being almost wholly fit again I determined to make an immediate excursion to our old cave-camp for the purpose of securing a supply of chalcedony pebbles.
My preparations consisted merely of acquainting a score of the Links with my desire and of selecting six of the most suitable of our baskets for use in bringing the flints to our village. More of the fighters than I wanted were eager to be of the party, but I deemed it advisable to leave a number at home with the females and children.
We got an early start and headed in what I had calculated to be the right direction. In this calculation I had been guided solely by my memory of our camp and its position, relatively to the lake, as seen that day from the top of the old volcanic peak. Pushing ahead as rapidly as possible, and spending no time on the game which we naturally encountered in the jungle, we traversed several miles without coming upon anything with which my friends were familiar, so that I soon gave up hoping that they would be of much assistance in finding the former dwelling place. From what I knew of them now, I was convinced that none ever proceeded far from camp in any direction. Their longest marches were accomplished when they felt obliged to abandon a settlement, and I believe that even then they rarely travelled more than five or six miles at the furthest.
After another hour of pushing along we emerged from the forest into a small, low valley which was nearly all a swamp and at the head of which was a mountain of considerable height. This place discouraged me deeply for I had believed I should really discover some guiding landmark, on clearing the woods. That we had gone somewhat in the wrong direction there could be no doubt, for I was sure we had travelled far enough, by this, to have passed the old cave, had it been on our line of march.
The day was excessively hot and I was weary and sleepy, being still a bit soft after my troubles, but I was annoyed at the thought of being baffled. I determined to climb the mountain, for the sake of the enlarged prospect to be had from its summit, and therefore we toiled up, slowly, through a dense growth that covered the lower part of the slope.
Upon reaching the summit, I gave a cry of delight. I had recognised the elevation as being the very same volcanic peak which Fatty and I had ascended together, and which the party of us now had approached from the opposite side. This gave me my bearings at once. I could all but see the old camp below, when we had crossed the ancient, filled-in crater. I pointed out the lake, and I made out the true direction of our fortified settlement far away on its miniature hill. We started down in a hurry, for even the Links knew the way after this. I might have thought of nothing but the flints we were after had I not fairly stumbled against the out-jutting ledge of sulphur which I had discovered on the previous visit.
“Why here,” I said aloud, unthinkingly, “I believe I’ll take a load of this to camp. By jingo, boys, I’ll make a lot of gunpowder!”
Sulphur here, saltpetre at home, charcoal to be had for the burning, my thoughts ran like lightning over the possibilities thrust into my unwitting hand. Powder? To be sure I could make powder! I would make a ton of it—all we wanted and more! I would provide myself with a keg or two and take it along with me when I left in my boat to escape. But how I would use it, what I could do with the dangerous stuff, when once I had it—having no guns and no cannon—this was more than I could tell. Indeed this part of the proposition floored me at once, but with a ready refuge in postponing the working out of this trifling problem, I dismissed it from my brain completely and had my fellows assist me in breaking off enough of the purest of the mineral to fill two baskets heaping full.
Two Links were required to each basket, when it came to bearing this cargo away, but I meditated that some wholesome labour was precisely what they needed. We reached the old camp shortly. There were the rocks thrown up to cover the mouth of the cave, which had threatened to be our tomb, but the grass and ferns had overgrown the spot and much of the rock heaps, to such an extent that no one could have guessed that a camp or a fire had ever been located in or about the clearing.
The ravine, where the tribe had buried its dead, presented its former appearance. We set to work without delay and in less than thirty minutes the pebbles were accumulating with gratifying rapidity. I was careful to select the ones best suited to our sundry requirements. Those in some of the baskets I covered with soil, in order to keep their moisture from departing before we should have the time necessary to split them and chip out the arrow-heads, axes and knives.
It was something of a giant task to convey our baskets away, when I finally had them loaded to my satisfaction, but the Links were tremendously strong, and all were willing to make the greatest possible exertion, that day, to gratify my wishes. We ate a lunch of fruits and some cold meat which I had carried along, after which we made a “bee-line” for home. But I fear that any self-respecting bee would have been much ashamed of such a line as ours became before we issued forth from the trees, at last, in sight of the hill.
When we arrived, a great surprise was in store for all. Grin, the fawner, had disappeared—run away. The news was received with indifference by the chief, and with evident gladness by not a few of the others. When at last it was made intelligible to me, I knew not whether to rejoice or to be concerned and suspicious of something impending.