One hour, two, perhaps three elapsed—a time that seemed a century. I had remained all the while at the foot of that tree, without attempting to move about. I was doomed to remain there, helpless and impotent, it seemed, for any time which might prove agreeable to the gods of fortune. My thoughts had wandered afield, so that doubtless I had forgotten to listen to anything but my own meditation. It is certain that I was conscious for several moments, in an automatic manner, of a dull, monotonous sound, before it reached my notice. At last I seemed abruptly to recognise that a thud and thud was penetrating the silence. Then I started so quickly toward the direction whence this disturbance arose that I all but fell, unsupported as I was by the injured foot. But I pulled myself together and feeling my way, hastened forward as rapidly as possible, crazed with a new delight. I had recognised the sound.
It was Fatty, beating on the drum to affright the Blacks.
In my haste to reach the clearing before that electrifying tom-tom melody should cease, I took no account of the distance between the edge of the wood and the place where I had halted. It was not so far as I had feared, however, though it was further than I had any business to have been away from home.
Upon coming to the slope, I got upon my hands and knees to crawl, for my ankle required rest. The fires were burning brightly in our village, but the mist was still weaving thickly about the summit.
When I turned up again among my fellows, like the penny which cannot be lost, they were nearly knocked dumb with astonishment. Hungry, disgusted and weary, I limped off to bed as soon as I had indicated the need of sentries throughout the night. Such a war as this made me snort with contempt.
Sometime during the night the fog disappeared, as mysteriously as it had come. I had rested badly, having been kept awake by the pain in my foot, so that I arose before morning and sat by the fire. There, after bathing the ankle in water from the spring of brine, I bound it up with strips of squirrel skin, fastened on with cord made of divided creepers. This treatment gave me much relief. The only luck I had in the accident was that the sprain was not so serious as my facial contortions (when alone) might have indicated to a keen observer.
The morning broke clear as glass; one could feel that the day meant to be hot before it finished. In our settlement we were all somewhat cross, from lack of food, myself in particular, because this game of starving us out seemed so nonsensical, and also because my relief expedition had fizzled out to such a miserable end. I began to be anxious to try results with our cunning besiegers. If they delayed the fight for the day again, I meant to carry the issue into their own headquarters, for we had to eat!
Thinking I might enrage them to the point of starting the battle, I carried the gold-nugget club from my shelter and planted it, nugget end uppermost, on our ramparts, directly in line with their camp and the mine of bombs below. Then I induced old Fatty to beat the drum, while I got up on top of the wall and paraded, somewhat after the top-loftical style of the American Indians, beating my breast with my fist, shouting derisively and pointing with maniacal glee to the gleaming club which we had taken, as a token of victory worthily won.
This bit of vanity produced an immediate effect, for a score of the fellows down in the trees appeared from the cover, sufficiently furious to suit the most exacting mind. They screamed shrilly to express their wrath, they beat the unoffending earth with their clubs, and they danced about as if the soil were hot. Nevertheless they advanced hardly as much as a stone-toss up the slope, being evidently under some powerful restraint. I executed the most aggravating evolutions, limping about on the wall, but to no apparent purpose. What was the game which the creatures played with such assurance that they could wait with this remarkable patience? I was angry to think they would not attack; I was annoyed to be obliged to admit that their warfare threatened to be subtle and effective. I hated to be starved into retreat, which would certainly be disastrous, or into a charge, down hill, against an ambush, which charge would doubtless prove to be an insupportable calamity.
“Come up, you cowards!” I bawled in a sneering tone of voice. “Lay on, you black McDuffers—we can wipe you off the map!”
My only answer was an echo of the cries I had heard the morning before, away in the jungle. This puzzled me again; it made me impatient. My Links had surged about me, wrought to a fine frenzy of excitement, eager to eat up the whole nation of Blacks—as splendid a pack of starving wolves as one could find. They also heard the cries, where the enemy appeared to be scouring through the forest, and I noted that many grew silent and worried. They reminded me of animals which have an instinct that warns them against the dangers which a human being cannot see nor feel.
The chief stood a little away, aloof from the others, leaning as ever on his club. What a brilliant, coruscating spot was made by the great, deadly crystal which he wielded so terribly in the fight! His mate, the indignant albino, stood beside him, eyeing myself with scorn and hatred. Her round, pink eyes were as nervous as quicksilver; her whole demeanour expressed the jealousy she nourished against me for pushing aside the chief, and the undisguised desire she felt to avenge herself for my former repudiation of her serene regard.
I gave her only a glance, and to the chief a nod of recognition. Below me little Tike was looking up in my face; near him old Fatty was standing, his quick, bright eyes upon me, his arms akimbo and the battered old skull on his head pushed aside, revealing hairless spots where, by rubbing, it had worn the growth off his leather-covered pate.
“Animals or primitive men—what are you all?” I muttered, and I shook my head and gave it up.
Again came the concerted cries from the jungle. They were nearer; there seemed to be a great commotion, not far from the edge of the trees, and this appeared to increase with every second. I saw several of my fellows begin to edge away, as if to make a run to a place of safety from a foe most dread. All the Links were making uneasy sounds, comparable only to the whimpering of a frightened dog.
“Here—come back here. Brace up, you fellows!” I cried to stop the incipient panic. “Pigs coming—pigs to shoot—pigs to kill!”
I raised my bow and notched an arrow on the string. I jumped down and stirred up the fire which must furnish me a brand for the fuses. Then again I got on the wall and shouted our defiance to all the jungle-world about us. Old Fatty began to beat the drum like a fury.
My warriors were inflamed; they crowded forward to see what was happening below. By this the cries of the enemy had become shrieks as of madness. We saw fifty of the Blacks burst quickly from cover, run to right and left and dash back in the woods, as if to flank an approaching cavalcade. To my amazement I saw among the fellows the traitor Grin—miserable coward! The Links observed him, too, and they chattered their rage and their Link maledictions on his head.
Once more I got down, this time to arm myself with a glowing brand from the flames. With this I shook out our only banner—a banner of smoke.
Suddenly the screen of trees, vines and creepers, seemed to bulge toward us, then to break. Two massive dark chunks of the jungle appeared to be bursting through. Then I saw what they were and realised what the cries had meant, what the plan of the Blacks had been from the first—and what a diabolical and clever scheme it was.
Two trumpeting elephants, goaded and maddened, smashed ponderously out of the jungle and headed up the hill—surrounded and driven toward us by hundreds of the yelling, dancing devils, with Grin in their midst, all of them incredibly nimble, daring and wrought up to force their irresistible allies over and through us.
The Links behind me, terrified beyond all control, were too stricken with panic to know what to do. They fell headlong over and upon each other; they ran in every direction. Females and children cried out in fear; chief, fighters, all were seized in the maelstrom of fright, and all went dashing away. Already we were as good as routed. Flight to the jungle would mean separation, death of all who were lost and murder of all who were overtaken by the terrible Blacks.
Confused for a moment, I attempted to call them back, to restore the order. This was worse than useless.
The elephants came unwillingly up the hill; the din of voices and trumpeting was appalling to hear. I jumped from my place, unconscious of my wounded foot and dashed down the hill as if to meet this oncoming tumult of death alone—racing toward my fuses. I had dropped my bow. My only weapon was the smoking brand of fire.
Shrieks from the Reds, who could not but see me, and screams of delight from the enemy, greeted the sight of a single crazy man, running down to the jaws of this living Juggernaut from the wilds.
I reached my goal, I fell to my knees and fumbled the matches. The monstrous battalion was nearly half way up to the trench of bombs. My fuses failed to ignite. In desperation I broke off the ends and bore them down upon my living coal. My thumb was burned, but I felt nothing. A fierce hiss from the powder electrified my every fibre. I leaped to my feet and darted part way back to the wall.
“Man,” came the cry of a sweet small voice.
Turning, I saw that my little Tike had followed me down the slope to the fuses. There he sat beside them—and the serpents of igniting powder were racing down to the mines, and the thundering horde of foes was racing upward, toward the little chap and me. Insanely I ran with all my might to rescue my only loyal Link—the baby who sat in the sunlight.
How far away he was! What a time it seemed to take me to reach him! The elephants—how near and awful they looked! I could see their white-showing eyes. The monsters began to gallop upward, mad to wreak vengeance on something, for that goading behind their backs. The yells became a din. Already the brutes must be past my trench. It would fail—it would kill little Tike and myself—anything but the terrible creatures pounding the earth as they came upon us!
I snatched the little fellow up and ran desperately away. Would nothing ever happen? I fell—the ankle had gone at the critical moment. I rolled and saw the dread spectacle crowding up and up the sun-lit hill.
Then the earth was rent wide open—great castles of earth and elephants rose toppling in the air, along with a glare of red-and-yellow flames and a mighty volcano of smoke. The world belched forth a detonation like the crack of doom.
Another and yet another fearful fan of fire leaped exultantly upward, hurling Blacks and fragments of Blacks, and soil and rock that blew through the bellies of the elephants and shot away in every direction toward the tranquil sky.
I was deaf with the mighty roar and concussion. From the air the debris came raining down. The smoke seemed a fountain of enveloping fog. Shrieks—now of terror and dreadful pain—stabbed through the confusion. Then a rock whirred down so close to my head that it puffed me with its cushion of air. I heard a sound and looked for little Tike, whom I had permitted to slip to the ground as I fell.
He was there beside me, his steady, wistful eyes looking up in my face, his poor little legs fairly crushed into the earth, beneath that fragment of adamant, torn from its bed and hurled upon him.
I was over him instantly heaving away the hunk of stone. But I did not attempt to lift the little mangled body. I saw he was numbed by the shock; I knew he was dying. He lay there and smiled, as I bent above his tiny form. He made no motion with hand or head, but when I placed my finger in his wee palm, he closed his baby-like grip upon it and gave me the fondest look I have ever beheld.
The Blacks could have swooped upon me, the earth could have quivered with agony and death, but I should have known nothing of it all, nor have cared. All the pangs of wrenched affection darted through my breast. I was smitten dumb to see that human look of love, gratitude and hope. The homely little face became transfigured with a look of inward beauty; the promise of a dawning, evolving human being was there, glowing like the life in a spark. The wistful eyes burned with that singular light which makes us hope for things supernal.
On my finger the tiny grip fluttered. I felt myself breaking down like a woman.
The little chap’s lip quivered a second; his fleeting breath came forth lightly.
“Man,” he whispered in the stillness, and smiling, closed his tired little eyes—forever.
There was a cloud over my heart; there was a pall of smoke and fumes drawing slowly off from the scene of devastation. It seemed as if the chasm in the hill-side were a ghastly wound of colossal proportions, for not only was the earth torn raggedly, but blood was about, and the slope was strewn with mangled remains.
I felt no exultation; I was ill at the sight, and weak and quite subdued. It was a pitiful, dreadful picture, with the two elephants like mounds of butchery, looming large in the middle distance, while down below were numerous wounded creatures creeping away toward the jungle. And the dying made sounds of moaning.
Not far from where I had fallen, lay part of a long, red arm—Grin’s. The bombs had flung it nearly to the camp he had sought to betray. He must have been among the foremost of the Links who drove the elephants up the hill. I conjured back my vision of the charging force, at the second when the explosion created its havoc. I remembered the huge wild animals most distinctly, their trunks uplifted, their feet in awkward, active motion, while to right and left and almost on their heels, the Blacks surged up in their dance of death. I knew then that the destruction among them must have been tremendous, for the whole length of the trench had been covered thickly by their numbers, and the lateral force of the bursting mines, especially down the hill, had evidently swept the slope for rods.
I shook my head as I realised the narrowness of my own escape.
I believe I was saved only by a sort of half shoulder of the hill and the fact that I fell and was flat on my side when the explosion occurred.
In my brain a panorama of all the tragedy ran, time after time. It seemed unbelievable that the Blacks had been able to drive the elephants. I shall never cease to wonder at this remarkable performance, for everything I know of the jungle’s greatest brute leads me always to suppose they would turn upon their pigmy tormentors and drive them away in confusion, no matter how great their numbers. But more incredible than even this was the sudden blotting out of all that mad stampede. I felt like the last man left on earth.
It was quite impossible for me to go down that dread slope as yet. I sat on the ground, dejected, weak from hunger and the strain of all the excitement. I rested my chin in my hand and gazed off abstractedly toward the endless sea of green. I lost all interest in the world about me, for all my memories and all my dreams had conveyed me afar from that island of singular fates. At length I was aroused from my reverie by Fatty, who came furtively down from the village and crawled in front of my feet, to gaze in my face, with his comical, quizzical expression of deep anxiety spread thickly on his homely phiz.
“Hullo,” said I, “did you come back at last to twist the enemy’s tail?”
Then I saw an amazing line of heads above the wall, where dozens of our fellows were peering down upon the scene and upon myself. On their faces I noted every conceivable look of awe and horror. That I sat there, seemingly calm after all of that day’s fatal work, impressed them a thousand fold more than as if I had strutted and boasted of the deed. Perhaps my face betrayed a certain look of grimness, which events had compelled in my thoughts; howbeit the creatures were stricken with an overpowering dread of my presence.
The hill-shaking explosion had been infinitely more terrific than my first little celebration with a single bomb, and this had given them all a fright, the memory of which could never be eradicated from their minds. But if this had rendered them respectful toward me as the actuating spirit of it all, the sight of the slope simply drowned them in fathomless awe. The mightiest creatures of the jungle, torn apart like things of paper, the hill split open and altered, a yelling army scattered and blown to atoms—this sum of deeds appalled them so thoroughly that the strongest might have died of shock had I jabbed him in the ribs with my thumb.
Fatty, on seeing that I lived, began to grovel on his face and to push his head against the soil where my feet had rested, as if he were quite unfit to abide on the surface of my earth and would therefore worm and bore his way down and out of sight without further ado.
One after another, then, the trembling fellows came crawling down the hill, many on their stomachs, to adore my tracks, to wriggle about my feet and otherwise to endeavour to calm me down and humble themselves in my exalted shadow. Even the chief came toward me on hands and knees, dragging his club and afraid to lift his head. His downfall was complete; there were none more thoroughly overwhelmed than he. On the ground before me the fellow laid his great crystal weapon—at once his sceptre and his sword—and he, too, adored the turf where my feet had trod. The women, with the albino among them, and even the children, got on the ground, prostrate, abject and afraid.
“Ahem, really, fellow citizens,” said I with a grin, “your attentions quite overcome me. Pray excuse my unseemly emotion and blushes.”
I had conducted a large experiment with some success, yet I felt that my efforts had been far from superhuman, and not even carried out with wholly unselfish motives. I felt in fact that the whole present proposition bordered on the lines of comic opera, for I knew that by the token of the chiefs submission I stood there at last, the King of the Missing Links!
We held a mighty funeral-carnival. The heat made it necessary to rush this matter as much as possible. My Links took no little of the meat of the slaughtered elephants, but as soon as all were fed again I set them to work deepening the cavern which the mines had excavated in the hill.
With creepers for ropes and with rollers to render the task more easy, we dragged the huge carcasses into the graves by sheer force of numbers. Collecting the Blacks was a most unpleasant labour, but it had to be done thoroughly, and it was, although my subjects had never before performed such an office for enemies of any description. Oddly enough we were quite unable to discover the body of Grin.
In the pits I had several great fires ignited, to cremate as much as possible of the flesh, after which the earth was thrown in and heaped up until I was sure that the shallowest portion of the grave was covered with at least ten feet of soil.
I could have rested with a very good grace after all this business of war, but I remembered my former plans and the bear-skin waiting to be tanned, in the boat. I feared the pelt might be ruined already, and therefore I took the earliest opportunity of visiting my lake possessions. When I came in sight of the boat, I had reason to be glad that I had moored her away from the bank, for I found abundant evidence that the Blacks had been there, undoubtedly intent on doing mischief. Fortunately for me their dread of the water had proved greater than their desire to destroy the boat, and their ingenuity had shown itself deficient when they faced the problem of getting the craft ashore without wetting their precious feet. But they had thrown every available rock at the innocent craft, together with all the loose pieces of burnt clay.
Thanks to the covering of clay and leaves, which permitted a slight circulation of air, while it kept out investigative insects, the skin was in excellent condition. Indeed I am inclined to believe the delay had been actually beneficial in the curing process. The thing was pliable and as sweet as a hide could possibly be—which, by the way, is not extravagant praise. I had rowed away, out of sight of my loyal subjects, before uncovering my treasure. Floating on the calm surface of the lake I worked at the pelt most arduously. Nearly the whole of that day I was rubbing it, scrubbing the parts together and otherwise keeping it soft, while the sun and the air dried out the moisture which made it heavy and “green.”
When I was finally ready to call it finished, the hide was much like a soft, thick robe, such as is commonly employed for a rug, a condition which I knew would be permanent, although in a spot or two the thing might be inclined to stiffen. I packed it again in leaves merely to hide it from sight and proceeded back to our beach, where I anchored the boat as before.
Inasmuch as I felt that my actual duties were now performed, I determined to rest for a space and enjoy the peace which we had compelled so abruptly. I therefore lay about the camp the following morning, doing absolutely nothing to “earn my salt.” Now and again I caught myself feeling or looking about. There was no little Tike. When I dozed I fancied I heard his voice, but on starting awake found nothing beside me but faithful old Fatty, who always poked his forehead on the ground as soon as he saw me looking upon him. Someway the camp seemed not itself. I got no enjoyment from my streak of laziness, andI got but little rest. It did me good to carve a bit of a board, or section of bamboo, with the inscription:
“LITTLE MAN.”
This I planted in the mound of rocks where the tiny chap was buried.
The settlement, I thought, would never be the same to me again, especially now that I was king. My Links were far too conscious of my regal attributes; there was less of the feeling of fellowship than we had enjoyed before. I had failed to appreciate our previous social equality, but now that all were rendered so timid and humbled in my presence, I was bored and somewhat annoyed. The crystal club I kept in my shelter, beside the one of the gleaming nugget. Though he seemed, now and again, to eye me somewhat sullenly and to gaze on the weapon with a hungering expression of countenance, the ex-chief made himself an excellent new bludgeon, with a rock at the end, which was twice the weight of any other similarly employed in the place.
The fellow accepted a bow and a lot of arrows readily enough. We hunted as before, employing these excellent weapons. Some of the creatures had learned by this time to shoot with great force and precision. One sent an arrow entirely through the belly of a hog, on one of our many excursions to the jungle.
In a leisurely manner I provided myself with cord and sundry requisites for masquerading as a bear. Before my rest was two days old I was weary of it and restless to be again actively engaged. Once more the malady of dislike for all the Links and their camp had broken out within me, wherefore I desired to hasten matters in regard to my unknown friend, on whose rescue I was fully determined.
I began to wonder why I had delayed this important matter for a moment. I was eager to see this man, grasp his hand and hear him speak the language so long denied my ears. Why, if he were half a man, we two could accomplish anything—everything! Why had I not hastened to reach him and to get him away while the Blacks were still demoralised by the recent extermination of more than half their number? I would dally no longer; I would act at once.
In order to proceed with intelligence I had need to formulate my plan. What should I do? Do?—I would simply row my boat to Outlet river, dress myself in the bear-skin suit and waddle into the settlement to make my observations. This sounded simple enough, but reason told me I should blunder no little as a bear and appear none too real in the role. I must practice, I thought as my first sane conclusion, but my second was still more rational—I would work the trick in semi-darkness only, when my features would be rendered somewhat indefinite by the shadows. Should I go there in the early morning, or should I try the game in the twilight of evening? In the morning, I meditated, the light increases rapidly, and my man might be asleep; daylight could readily overtake me while I was crawling about to get my bearings. Clearly the evening would be the better time.
Well, then, the sooner the business began the sooner I should know what was what. I decided to be present in the camp of the Blacks that very day, when the sun should have disappeared behind the hills.
Greatly relieved to have something to do—something which might be about to furnish a turning point in all this unnatural existence of mine in the wilds, I set off for the boat at an early hour of the afternoon. Once started on the expedition, I was in a fever of haste to be about it and to try my new conclusions with fortune.
The skull of the bear had been boiled free of everything suggesting meat. When a mile away, down the lake I replaced this heavy thing in the skin and sewed the hide roughly about it to give the head a natural appearance. Then along the edges where I had been obliged to cut the pelt to get it off, I made a series of holes, into which I laced the cords, provided for the purpose, intending to draw them tight when the costume was properly adjusted about me.
Having nothing more to prepare, I rowed leisurely for two hours, when I went ashore, near the mouth of the outlet, and tried my disguise. This business discouraged me greatly. I was able to get the neck portion fastened about my head, in such a manner that I could see easily, and the body of the skin about my chest and waist, but my arms and legs were too long for the paws and legs of the bear, while the body part was longer than my trunk. Altogether I was about the most extraordinary looking freak to be found in the jungle, when I had done my utmost to make the costume fit.
I should quite have appreciated the use of several mirrors at this stage of my make-up, in order to see if sundry portions were on straight, but was denied this pleasure, having failed to provide myself with various articles of the toilet. It was only by crawling and lolling about on the ground, on knees and elbows that I was enabled to convince myself that I looked the slightest bit like the creature whose part I had essayed to perform.
I have never felt more warm in my life than I did in that skin. The day was hot, the hide was heavy, and I had laboured hard to get it on. The perspiration threatened to make the pelt insupportable. But now that I had myself fastened inside it, I dreaded the task of taking it off and putting it on again later. As an outcome of much agitated mental debate, I decided to be a bear until my work as a spy was concluded. I therefore sat me down, in the shade, near my boat, and waited for sunset.
The sun becomes very deliberate, I found, when it catches a man in a tight, hot place. It seemed as if the fiery ball intended to hang in the western sky for several centuries, for my particular delectation. At last it got weary of the game and departed.
A bear can perform several feats with comfort and ease to himself and with grace, perhaps, but rowing a boat is not among the number. I grew hotter, in several ways, directly. I think I wished fervently that my unknown friend, the prisoner, had never committed the indiscretion of being captured by the Blacks. It being necessary to proceed with caution, my torture was much prolonged. At length, however, I noted a snug retreat in which my boat could remain, undetected, and which I hoped would be readily accessible from the camp I was searching in the jungle.
Already the shadows had begun to be deep, so that I walked erect, in what I thought to be the right direction, moving with the greatest care, and alert every second for the smallest sound. I had made my way for a considerable distance in this manner, without being able to detect any disturbance in the forest, when presently a low rumble, as of something rolling over stones, beneath a muffling canopy, broke on the air. This sound increased. It seemed to come from a source not far away, and yet it was most uncertain and elusive. I was quite at a loss to determine whence it proceeded. Growing stronger it made a great ado of grumbling, reaching a sort of climax in less than a minute, after which it slowly subsided and was gone.
Standing where I was, I listened attentively, for the noise had puzzled me much. Then through the silence came another sound, which anyone could have understood, anywhere on earth. It was a moan. A second later I heard the rustle of leaves and saw a prowling form—one of the ebon Links.
Falling upon my hands and knees, noiselessly, I waited for the fellow to pass from sight and hearing, after which I crawled laboriously forward, nearing the sound where something was voicing its pain. My heart was beating so tumultuously that I felt obliged to halt frequently, in order to calm myself as much as the perilous situation would permit. Moving thus and keeping constantly in the cover of the vines and grasses, I glanced about me keenly.
When I came upon the clearing in which the Blacks abided, it happened so abruptly that I started, to find myself so near. Lying out full length, I endeavoured to quiet the thumping of my heart and to moisten my mouth, which had become dry and gluey. Then I looked about, through the friendly screen of creepers.
The shadows lay thick enough for all purposes, yet there was light enough to reveal several incongruous things. First I noted a dozen or more of the black Links, some of them moving about, some squatting on the ground, monkey-fashion, eating mangoes and melons, one lying flat on his back in the agony of death. He it was that moaned; he had received his mortal wounds in the great explosion. I saw that his arm was gone, and then I knew him—Grin.
At the back of the clearing was a wall of rock. In front of this stood a natural pillar of stone, and fastened up at the top was something which for a time presented the greatest mystery. It looked like portions of a skeleton, disconnected, but it gleamed, even in the twilight. I studied it closely for the thing compelled my undivided attention. Then I saw the skull and knew it had all been, upon a time, the frame work of a living creature, but astonishing fact of all things weird—it was plated all over with something precisely resembling gold!
I forgot the Links; I forgot my mission to their village. That skeleton centered my every thought. I studied it, patched it together mentally, and attempted to picture it properly straightened out. This process convinced me at once that the arms were shorter than those of any Link, while the skull was finely formed on the human pattern. I observed that the whole thing, if properly articulated would be taller than I. The Links, I told myself, cared nothing for the bones of their kind, and less for those of their foes. It must be—it had to be the skeleton of a man!
But the gold—or whatever it was,—the plating, how came it on the skull and on those ribs, those bones of the arms and thighs and all the rest? Why was it here? Immediately my brain jumped to the preposterous conclusion that my “friend,” the man I had come to save, had been killed since my former visit, his skeleton plated with something and strung up here on the rock to please some strange whims of these incomprehensible creatures. I knew, a second later, that this was absurd. My mental process as quickly formed a saner theory. This man had lived among the Blacks before; they had learned of him—which accounted for many things,—like their superiority over my Reds,—they had killed him, later, and by some singular accident this appearance of plating had come to pass on the bones.
In the midst of my conjectures, that weird, low rumble commenced again, nearer at hand, but still in some locality invisible from where I was. Crouching, while its mighty tones increased, several Blacks glanced upward at the skeleton and then put their heads upon the ground in adoration before the pillar of stone.
I nearly cried out as I suddenly grasped at a wonderful thought. That rumbling—it was certainly a sound I had heard before that day—it certainly must be that marvellous cauldron of gold, where the geyser shot upward and boiled in its cavern. The plated skeleton had received its plating there; the nugget of gold at the end of the club which a Black had wielded in war, had come from there; the cavern which I and old Fatty had seen, on the day we fled in the subterranean passage, was there; and these creatures owned it and evidently knew of an opening leading to its wondrous interior from the outside world!
What was I about to discover? What was here, in and about this remarkable camp? Would I see it all?—would I get a chance to investigate the wonderful cave? Could I rob that cauldron of its treasure? I was wild with excitement. I wished that I had an overwhelming army behind me—a force sufficient to drive these creatures anywhere, away in the jungle. I looked about, as if to see my army. Great Scott! I had utterly forgotten how alone I was! The wretches might discover me, know me and beat me to jelly in a second. My breath came hard; I remembered my business in a manner painfully vivid.
I must go ahead, for obviously there was nothing here for me, nothing of that partner I had come to steal. He must be off, where a pair of Blacks were walking as I looked. Still keeping in the cover, I edged about the clearing and pushed ahead. A tangled isthmus of greenery divided the small open space from another which was considerably larger. In a brief time I came in sight of this and beheld another remarkable sight.
At the foot of a towering cliff of rocks, surrounded by fruit trees on the left, the river down in front, and the isthmus of trees and vines in which I was lying on the right, was a fine flat space, commodious, strategically situated and now alive with black Missing Links. Our explosion had killed the fighters by the score, but the females and children were exceedingly numerous, while of males there were still almost as many as we had in all our tribe.
That once the creatures had been directed by a man was plain, for here were a score of dugouts, such as we possessed, but the roofs were gone from many, while those of the others showed every sign of neglect and the rapid deterioration into which it seemed as if the creatures must fall, and let everything fall, when abandoned to themselves. Of any weapons which they might have possessed in the “age” of that man, there was not the slightest sign. Looking carefully about, I saw but one shelter on which the roof appeared to be intact. This one was near the base of the cliff, on the left-hand side of the clearing, from me; that is to say, the same side on which I was now concealed.
The light was growing dim. I peered about, in a vain endeavour to see “my man.” How I wished I might raise my voice and cry out a greeting—a something which would tell this other human being of my nearness! It is unbelievable how strong was the impulse to commit this indiscretion. I curbed the desire, however, and waited to see if anything would happen.
Here and there, on the campus, the evening fires of the Links were being kindled, from a “mother” fire smouldering in a natural hollow beneath the wall of rock. I could see what I thought were the ruins of a more convenient fireplace, near the central fire. It looked as if that former man had provided a means for a better culinary output, but that the creatures had soon gone back to their own original methods, when he was dead. Then I thought that things were peculiar, for why were there no material evidences of the presence of the man I had come to seek, about the camp? What was the matter with this unseen individual? He must be weak indeed to do absolutely nothing!
I remembered his spouting of poetry, and I fear my estimation of a man who would give himself over to such effeminate employment as that was of precious little account. Poetry indeed! He was evidently a lady’s man for his voice had sounded soft and here was proof that he either could not, or was not willing to, manufacture the very first thing, either for cooking, living or fighting. Perhaps such a fellow was hardly worth the risk; perhaps I should be wise to retreat, in good order, and let him work out his own salvation.
My attention was caught, as I scanned the place in this critical frame of mind, by a flutter of something, near the only decent shelter.
“Upon my word,” I muttered in huge contempt, “I believe the fellow has got out his washing on a line!”
About that moment a bird in the tree above me made a sound like a boy whistling. This was my cue. If any man were anywhere about, he would hear a whistle—and the Links would have no suspicion. I piped up on the opening bar of “Yankee Doodle.” This I repeated time after time. It appeared as if the scheme would turn out worthless, as it produced no apparent effect. Growing more bold, I started to whistle my lay a trifle louder, but I chopped it off short in the middle, for I beheld a figure emerge from the decent dug-out and start slowly toward me, walking and performing some singular weaving motions with the arms.
The dusk had gathered over the scene, yet I saw that this was a white human being!
I held my breath, I shivered with sudden excitement.
The figure, slight, beautifully erect, clothed in a skirt-like garment of skins, came nearer and nearer. I was so thoroughly intent on seeing why the arms were moved in those singular gestures that I clean forgot to scan the face.
The stranger came closer, followed now by scores of the Blacks, who adored and worshipped in the tracks which were left by the feet. I could see the heavy coils of some ornament about the neck and over the slender shoulders of this human. Suddenly I knew what the hands were doing; suddenly the most astounding intelligence broke on my brain.
The figure was that of a woman, young, beautiful, clad like Diana, and the coils about her maidenly form were those of a monster serpent, the head of which she held in her hand while with the other she gently unwound the wrappings of the tail.
I whistled again, more softly, my excitement growing at every second.
On she came, uncertainly, down along the edge of that open cage in the jungle, her head held finely in a listening poise, her face white, set and smileless. She moved like a goddess in a dream. In her eyes burned a half-wild light of anxiety; on her lips there was a tense look of suppressed emotion. Her beautiful arms seemed marble-white, as they moved in those snake-soothing gestures; her whole deportment was that of one who questions, yearns eagerly for a sign on which to build a hope, but dares not believe that a cruel fate could possibly relent.
She was almost opposite where I was lying. I knew I should speak to her—do something instantly, before the moment should be gone, but my tongue now cleaved fast to its sheath in my mouth, my teeth clenched hard together and my muscles were all but paralysed at that fateful moment.
She was just before me—passing me by—in reach of the slightest sound.
“Who is it?” she said aloud, in a voice that trembled.
“It’s me—a man,” I whispered with ungrammatical suddenness, “Don’t stop—you’ll betray me—Come to-night!”
Half prepared as she was, she still started violently. She loosened her hold on the head of the snake. The horrible thing wrapped itself about her arm and tightened all its coils. Hastily clutching the serpent by the neck again, she twisted and choked it into submission. Her eyes were ablaze with fear and a wild, unbelieving hope! How luminous they were, even in the meagre light! What a wondering, beseeching face she revealed, as she turned for a second in her instinctive effort to see where I was!
As she had mastered the snake, so she mastered the womanly instinct to cry out and dash to the spot where I lay. I saw her weave slightly, as she recovered her poise, after which she resumed her singular march toward the river.
The Blacks came to where she had paused, adoring the trail so near me that I could hear them breathing. What hideous brutes they were, now that I had seen a beautiful human being! They passed, and I longed to leap upon their backs and strike them all to death.
All about that clearing the goddess-like prisoner led the creatures who had made her captive. She was almost lost to sight in the darkness which was now enveloping the wood. She was only the faint suggestion of a form when at last I saw her pass again inside her shelter.
I loosened a thousand tense muscles the second she disappeared, and lay limber and all unstrung on the earth. I had not been seen by any Links. It had perhaps been foolish and a waste of time to kill the bear and adopt his hide after all. But it had given me the courage to come—and great Heavens! what a find I had made!
A woman!—among these monsters! No wonder there were no new houses, no ovens, no weapons of war of her making. I had been profoundly stupid. I should have been able to guess it was not a man—that soft, clear voice, the absence of mannish contrivances, and then that suggestive little line of her washing—these should have been enough to tell me the story. A woman—a helpless, beautiful woman—and I had almost thought of giving up the effort to rescue this friend!—this fellow human!
“Gee whizz!” said I to myself, for the thing was tremendous.
Then I wondered what would happen next. Would she come—return to the place where she had heard my voice? Would she wait till all the Links were safely asleep and then place her trust in a stranger? At what time were these black beasts likely to retire? Would they wake and catch her in the act? Could we find my boat in the dark? But everything else was as nothing compared to the question, which I repeated over and over, would she come?