THE WILD MEN
Nadaradid not regain consciousness until Stark had reached shore and was dragging her out upon the beach above the surf. For several minutes after she had opened her eyes she had difficulty in recalling the events that had immediately preceded Stark's attack upon her. She felt the life belt still about her, and as Stark stooped above her to remove it she knew that it was he though she could not distinguish his features.
What had happened? Slowly a realization of the man's bold act forced itself upon her—he had leaped overboard from thePriscillaand swam ashore with her rather than face the consequences of his brutal conduct toward her.
To a girl reared within the protective influences of civilization Nadara's position would have seemed hopeless; but Nadara knew naught of other protection than that afforded by her own quick wits and the agility of her swift young muscles. To her it would have seemed infinitely more appalling to have been confined within the narrow limits of the yacht with this man, for there all was strange and new. She still had half feared and mistrustedall aboard thePriscillaexcept Thandar's father and Captain Burlinghame; but would they have protected her from Stark? She did not know. Among her own people only a father, brother, or mate protected a woman from one who sought her against her will, and of these she had none upon the little vessel.
But now it was different. Intuitively she knew that upon a savage shore, however strange and unfamiliar it might be, she would have every advantage over the first officer of thePriscilla. His life had been spent close to the haunts of civilization; he knew nothing of the woodcraft that was second nature to her; he might perish in a land of plenty through ignorance of where to search for food, and of what was edible and what was not. This much her early experience with Waldo Emerson had taught her. When their paths first had crossed Waldo had been as ignorant as a new-born babe in the craft of life primeval—Nadara had had to teach him everything.
Behind them Nadara heard the gentle soughing of trees—the myriad noises of the teeming jungle night—and she smiled. It was inky black about them. Stark had removed the life belt and placed it beneath the girl's head. He thought her still unconscious—perhaps dead. Now he was wringing the water from his clothes; his back toward her.
Nadara rose to her feet—noiseless as Nagoola. Like a shadow she melted into the blackness of the jungle that fringed the shore. Careful and alert, she picked her way within the tangled mass for a few yards. At the hole of a large tree she halted, listening. Then she made a low, weird sound with her lips, listening again for a moment after. This she repeated thrice, and then, seemingly satisfied that no danger lurked above she swung herself into the low-hanging branches, quickly ascending until she found a comfortable seat where she might rest in ease.
Down upon the beach Stark, having wrung the surplus water from his garments, turned to examine and revive the girl, if she still lived. Even in the darkness her form had been plainly visible against the yellow sand, but now she was not there. Stark was dumfounded. His eyes leaped quickly from one point to another, yet nowhere could they discover the girl. There was the beach, the sea and the jungle. Which had she chosen for her flight? It did not take Stark long to guess, and immediately he turned his steps toward the shapeless, gloomy mass that marked the forest's fringe.
As he approached he went more slowly. The thought of entering that forbidding wood sent cold shivers creeping through him. Could a mere girl have dared its nameless horrors? She musthave, and with the decision came new resolution. What a girl had dared certainly he might dare. Again he strode briskly toward the jungle.
Just at its verge he heard a low, weird sound not a dozen paces within the black, hideous tangle. It was Nadara voicing the two notes which some ancient forbear of her tribe had discovered would wring an answering growl from Nagoola, and an uneasy hiss from that other arch enemy of man—the great, slimy serpent whose sinuous coils twined threateningly above them in the branches of the trees. Only these Nadara feared—these and man. So, before entering a tree at night it was her custom to assure herself that neither Nagoola nor Coovra lurked in the branches of the tree she had chosen for sanctuary. Stark beat a hasty retreat, nor did he again venture from the beach during the balance of the long, dismal night.
When dawn broke it found Nadara much refreshed by the sleep she had enjoyed within the comparative safety of the great tree, and Stark haggard and exhausted by a sleepless night of terror and regret. He cursed himself, the girl and his bestial passion, and then as his thoughts conjured her lovely face and perfect figure before his mind's eye, he leaped to his feet and swung briskly toward the jungle. He would find her. All that he had sacrificed should not be in vain. He would find herand keep her. Together they would make a home upon this tropical shore. He would get everything out of life that there was to get.
He had taken but a few steps before he discovered, plain in the damp sand before him, the prints of Nadara's naked feet in a well defined trail leading toward the wood. With a smile of satisfaction and victory the man followed it into the maze of vegetation, dank and gloomy even beneath the warm light of the morning sun.
By chance he stumbled directly upon Nadara. She had descended from her tree to search for water. They saw each other simultaneously. The girl turned and fled farther into the forest. Close behind her came the man. For several hundred yards the chase led through the thick jungle which terminated abruptly at the edge of a narrow, rock-covered clearing beyond which loomed sheer, precipitous cliffs, raising their lofty heads three hundred feet above the forest.
A half smile touched Stark's lips as he saw the barrier that nature had placed in the path of his quarry; but almost instantly it froze into an expression of horror as a slight noise to his right attracted his attention from the girl fleeing before him. For an instant he stood bewildered, then a quick glance toward the girl revealed her scaling the steep cliff with the agility of a monkey, andwith a cry to attract her attention he leaped after her once more, but this time himself the quarry—the hunter become the hunted, for after him raced a score of painted savages, brandishing long, slim spears, or waving keen edged parangs.
Nadara had not needed Stark's warning cry to apprise her of the proximity of the wild men. She had seen them the instant that she cleared the jungle, and with the sight of them she knew that she need no longer harbor fear of the white man. In them, though, she saw a graver danger for herself, since they, doubtless, would have little difficulty in overhauling her in their own haunts, while she had not had much cause for worry as to her ability to elude the white man indefinitely.
Part way up the cliffs she paused to look back. Stark had reached the foot of the lowering escarpment a short distance ahead of his pursuers. He had chosen this route because of the ease with which the girl had clambered up the rocky barrier, but he had reckoned without taking into consideration the lifetime of practice which lay back of Nadara's agility. From earliest infancy she had lived upon the face and within the caves of steep cliffs. Her first toddling, baby footsteps had been along the edge of narrow shelving ledges.
When the man reached the cliff, however, he found confronting him an apparently unscalablewall. He cast a frightened, appealing glance at the girl far above him. Twice he essayed to scramble out of reach of the advancing savages, whose tattooed faces, pendulous slit ears, and sharp filed, blackened teeth lent to them a more horrid aspect than even that imparted by their murderous weapons or warlike whoops and actions. Each time he slipped back, clutching frantically at rocky projections and such hardy vegetation as had found foothold in the crevices of the granite. His hands were torn and bleeding, his face scratched and his clothing rent. And now the savages were upon him. They had seen that he was unarmed. No need as yet for spear or parang—they would take him alive.
And the girl. They had watched her in amazement as she clambered swiftly up the steep ascent. With all their primitive accomplishments this was beyond even them. They were a forest people and a river people. They dwelt in thatched houses raised high upon long piles. They knew little or nothing of the arts of the cliff dwellers. To them the feat of this strange, white girl was little short of miraculous.
Nadara saw them seize roughly upon the terror-stricken Stark. She saw them bind his hands behind his back, and then she saw them turn their attention once more toward herself.
Three of the warriors attempted to scale the cliff after her. Slowly they ascended. She smiled at their manifest fear and their awkwardness—she need have no fear of these, they never could reach her. She permitted them to approach within a dozen feet of her and then, loosening a bit of the crumbling granite, she hurled it full at the head of the foremost. With a yell of pain and terror he toppled backward upon those below him, the three tumbling, screaming and pawing to the rocks at the base of the cliff.
None of them was killed, though all were badly bruised, and he who had received her missile bled profusely from a wound upon his forehead. Their fellows laughed at them—it was scant comfort they received for being bested by a girl. Then they withdrew a short distance, and squatting in a circle commenced a lengthy palaver. Their repeated gestures in her direction convinced Nadara that she was the subject of their debate.
Presently one of their number arose and approached the foot of the cliff. There he harangued the girl for several minutes. When he was done he awaited, evidently for a reply from her; but as Nadara had not been able to understand a word of the fellow's language she could but shake her head.
The spokesman returned to his fellows andonce again a lengthy council was held. During it Nadara climbed farther aloft, that she might be out of range of the slender spears. Upon a narrow ledge she halted, gathering about her such loose bits of rock as she could dislodge from the face of the cliff—she would be prepared for a sudden onslaught, nor for a moment did she doubt the outcome of the battle. She felt that but for the lack of food and water she could hold this cliff face forever against innumerable savages—could they climb no better than these.
But the wild men did not again attempt to storm her citadel. Instead they leaped suddenly from their council, and without a glance toward her disappeared in the forest, taking their prisoner with them. Out of sight of the girl, they stationed two of their number just within the screening verdure to capture the girl should she descend. The others hastened parallel with the cliff until a sudden turn inland took them to a point from which they could again emerge into the clearing out of the sight of Nadara.
Here they took immediately to a well-worn path that led back and forth upward across the face of the cliff. Stark was dragged and prodded forward with them in their ascent. Sharp spears and the points of keen parangs, urged him to haste. By the time the party reached the summit the white manwas bleeding from a score of superficial wounds.
Now the party turned back along the top of the bluff in the direction from which they had come.
Nadara, unable to fathom their reason for having abandoned the attempt to capture her, was, however, not lulled into any feeling of false security. She knew the cliff was the safest place for her, and yet the pangs of thirst and hunger warned her that she must soon leave it to seek sustenance. She was about to descend to the jungle below in search of food and water, when the faintest of movements of the earth sweeping creepers depending from a giant buttress tree below her and just within the verge of the forest arrested her acute attention. She knew that the movement had been caused by some animal beneath the tree, and finally, as she watched intently for a moment or two, she descried through an opening in the wall of verdure the long feathers of an Argus pheasant with which the war caps of the savages had been adorned.
Though she knew now that she was watched, she also knew that she could reach the top of the cliff and possibly find both food and drink, if it chanced to be near, before the savages could overtake her. Then she must depend upon her wits and her speed to regain the safety of the cliff ahead of them. That they would attempt to scale the barrier at the same point at which she had climbed it shedoubted, for she had seen that they were comparatively unaccustomed to this sort of going, and so she guessed that if they followed her upward at all it would be by means of some beaten trail of which they had knowledge.
And so Nadara scaled the heights, passing over and around obstacles that would have blanched the cheek of the hardiest mountain climber, with the ease and speed of the chamois. At the summit she found an open, park-like forest, and into this she plunged, running forward in quest of food and drink. A few familiar fruits and nuts assuaged the keenest pangs of hunger, but nowhere could she find water or signs of water.
She had traveled for almost a mile, directly inland from the coast, when she stumbled, purely by chance, upon a little spring hidden in a leafy bower. The cool, clear water refreshed her, imparting to her new life and energy. After drinking her fill she sought some means of carrying a little supply of the priceless liquid back to her cliff side refuge, but though she searched diligently she could discover no growing thing which might be transformed into a vessel.
There was nothing for it then other than to return without the water, trusting to her wits to find the means of eluding the savages from time to time as it became necessary for her to quench her thirst.Later, she was sure, she should discover some form of gourd, or the bladder of an animal in which she could hoard a few precious drops.
Her woodcraft, combined with her almost uncanny sense of direction, led her directly back to the spot at which she had topped the cliff. There was no sign of the savages. She breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped to the edge of the forest, and then, all about her, from behind trees and bushes, rose the main body of the wild men. With shouts of savage glee they leaped upon her. There was no chance for flight—in every direction brutal faces and murderous weapons barred her way.
With greater consideration than she had looked forward to they signaled her to accompany them. Stark was with them. To him slight humanity was shown. If he lagged, a spear point, already red with his blood, urged him to greater speed; but to the girl no cruelty nor indignity was shown.
In single file, the prisoners in the center of the column, the party made its way inland. All day they marched, until Stark, unused to this form of exertion, staggered and fell a dozen times in each mile.
Nadara could almost have found it in her heart to be sorry for him, had it not been for the fact that she realized all too keenly that but for his own bestial brutality neither of them need have beenthere to be subjected to the present torture, and to be tortured by anticipation of the horrors to come.
To the girl it seemed that her fate must be a thousand fold more terrible than the mere death the man was to suffer, for that these degraded savages would let him live seemed beyond the pale of reason. She prayed to the God of which her Thandar had taught her for a quick and merciful death, yet while she prayed she well knew that no such boon could be expected.
She compared her captors with Korth and Flatfoot, with Big Fist and Thurg, nor did she look for greater compassion in them than in the men she had known best.
Late in the afternoon it became evident that Stark could proceed no farther unless the savages carried him. That they had any intention of so doing was soon disproved. The first officer of thePriscillahad fallen for the twentieth time. A dozen vicious spear thrusts had failed to bring him, staggering and tottering, to his feet as in the past.
The chief of the party approached the fallen white, kicking him in the sides and face, and at last pricking him with the sharp point of his parang. Stark but lay an inert mass of suffering flesh, and groaned. The chief grew angry. He grasped the white man around the body and raised him to hisfeet, but the moment that he released him Stark fell to earth once more.
At last the warrior could evidently control his rage no further. With a savage whoop he swung his parang aloft, bringing it down full upon the neck of the prostrate white. The head, grinning horribly, rolled to Nadara's feet. She looked at it, lying there staring up at her out of its blank and sightless eyes, without the slightest trace of emotion.
Nadara, the cave girl, was accustomed to death in all its most horrible and sudden forms. She saw before her but the head of an enemy. It was nothing to her—Stark had only himself to thank.
The chief gathered the severed head into a bit of bark cloth, and fastening it to the end of his spear, signaled his followers to resume the journey.
On and on they went, farther into the interior, and with them went Nadara, borne to what nameless fate she could but guess.
BUILDING THE BOAT
Twodays after the earthquake that had saved Nadara from Thurg and wiped out the people of the girl's tribe, a man moved feebly beneath the tumbled debris from the roof top of his clogged cavern. It was Thandar. The tons of rock that had toppled from above and buried the entrance to his cave had passed him by unscathed, while the few pounds shaken from the ceiling had stunned him into a long enduring insensibility.
Slowly he regained consciousness, but it was a long time before he could marshal his faculties to even a slight appreciation of the catastrophe that had overwhelmed him. Then his first thought was of Nadara. He crawled to what had once been the entrance of his cave. He had not as yet linked the darkness to its real cause—he thought it night. It had been night when he closed his eyes. How could he guess that that had been three nights before, or all the cruel blows that fate had struck him since he slept!
At the opening from the cave he met his first surprise and setback—the way was blocked! What was the meaning of it? He tugged andpushed weakly upon the mass that barred him from escape. Who had imprisoned him? He recalled the vivid dream in which he had seen Nadara stolen away by Thurg. The recollection sent him frantically at the pile of shattered rock and loose debris which choked the doorway.
To his chagrin he found himself too weak to direct any long sustained effort against the obstacle. It occurred to him that he must have been injured. Whoever imprisoned him must first have beaten him. He felt of his head. Yes, there was a great gash, but his touch told him that it was not a new one. How long, then, had he been imprisoned? As he sat pondering this thing he became aware of the gnawing of hunger and the craving of thirst within his slowly awakening body. The sensations were almost painful. So much so that they forced him to a realization of the fact that he must have been without food or water for a considerable time.
Again he assailed the mass that held him prisoner, and as he burrowed slowly into it the truth dawned upon him. He recalled the rumblings of the Great Nagoola that had frightened Nadara the night of the council. A terrific quake had done this thing. Thandar shuddered as he thought of Nadara. Was she, too, imprisoned in her cave, or had the worst happened her? Frantically, now, he tore at the close-packed rubble. But he soon discovered that not in ill-directed haste lay his means of escape. Slowly and carefully, piece by piece he must remove the broken rock until he had tunnelled through to the outer world.
Reason told him that he was not deeply buried, for the fact that he lived and could breathe was sufficient proof that fresh air was finding its way through the debris, which it could not have done did the stuff lie before the cave in any considerable thickness.
Weak as he was he could work but slowly, so that it was several hours later before he caught the first glimpse of daylight beyond the obstacle. After that he progressed more rapidly, and presently he crawled through a small opening to view the wreckage of the shattered cliff.
A flock of vultures rose from their hideous feast as the sight of Thandar disturbed them. The man shuddered as he looked down upon the grisly things from which they had risen. Forgetting his hunger and his thirst he scrambled up over the tortured cliff face to where Nadara's cave had been. Its mouth was buried as his had been. Again he set to work, but this time it was easier. When at last he had opened a way within he hesitated for fear of the blighting sorrow that awaited him.
At last, nerving himself to the ordeal, he crawled within the cave that had been Nadara's. Gropingabout in the darkness, expecting each moment to feel the body of his loved one cold in death, he at last covered the entire floor—there was no body within.
Hastily he made his way to the face of the cliff again, and then commenced a horrible and pitiful search among the ghastly remnants of men and women that lay scattered about among the tumbled rocks. But even here his search was vain, for the ghoulish scavengers had torn from their prey every shred of their former likenesses.
Weak, exhausted, sorrow ridden and broken, Thandar dragged himself painfully to the little river. Here he quenched his thirst and bathed his body. After, he sought food, and then he crawled to a hole he knew of in the river bank, and curling up upon the dead grasses within, slept the sun around.
Refreshed and strengthened by his sleep and the food that he had taken Thandar emerged from his dark warren with renewed hope. Nadara could not be dead! It was impossible. She must have escaped and be wandering about the island. He would search for her until he found her. But as day followed day and still no sign of Nadara, or any other living human being he became painfully convinced that he alone of the inhabitants of the island had survived the cataclysm.
The thought of living on through a long life without her cast him into the blackest pit of despair. He reproached heaven for not having taken him as well, for without Nadara life was not worth the living. With the passage of time his grief grew more rather than less acute. As it increased so too increased the horror of his loneliness. The island became a hated thing—life a mockery. The chances that a vessel would touch the shore again during his lifetime seemed remote indeed, unless his father sent out a relief party, but in his despair he did not even hope for such a contingency.
He would not take his own life, though the temptation was great, but he courted death in every form that the savage island owned. He slept out upon the ground at night. He sought Nagoola in his lair, and armed only with his light lance he leaped to close quarters with every one of the great cats he could find.
The wild boars, often as formidable as Nagoola himself, were hunted now as they never had been hunted before. Thandar lived high those days, and many were the panther pelts that lined his new-found cave in the cliff beside the sea—the same cliff in which Nadara had found shelter, and from whence she had gone away with the search party from thePriscilla.
One day as Thandar was returning from thebeach where he often went to scan the horizon for a sail, he saw something moving at the foot of his cliff. Thandar dropped behind a bush, watching. A moment later the thing moved again, and Thandar saw that it was a man. Instantly he sprang to his feet and ran forward. The days that he had been without human companionship had seemed to drag themselves into as many weary months. Now he had reached the pinnacle of loneliness from which he would gladly have embraced the devil had he come in human guise.
Thandar ran noiselessly. He was almost upon the man, a great, hairy brute, before the fellow was aware of his presence. At first the fellow turned to run, but when he saw that Thandar was alone he remained to fight.
"I am Roof," he cried, "and I can kill you!"
The familiar primitive greeting no longer raised Thandar's temperature or filled him with the fire of battle. He wanted companionship now, not a quarrel.
"I am Thandar," he replied.
The slow-witted, hulking brute recognized him, and stepped back a pace. He was not so keen to fight now that he had learned the identity of the man who faced him. He had seen Thandar in battle. He had witnessed Thurg's defeat at the hands of this smooth-skinned stranger.
"Let us not fight," continued Thandar. "We are alone upon the island. I have seen no other than you since the Great Nagoola came forth and destroyed the people. Let us be friends, hunting together in peace. Otherwise one of us must kill the other and thereafter live always alone until death releases him from his terrible solitude."
Roof peered over Thandar's shoulder toward the wood behind him.
"Are you alone?" he asked.
"Yes—have I not told you that all were killed but you and I?"
"All were not killed," replied Roof. "But I will be friends with Thandar. We will hunt together and cave together. Roof and Thandar are brothers."
He stooped, and gathering a handful of grass advanced toward the American. Thandar did likewise, and when each had taken the peace offering of the other and rubbed it upon his forehead the ceremony of friendship was complete—simple but none the less effectual, for each knew that the other would rather die than disregard the primitive pact.
"You said that all were not killed, Roof," said Thandar, the ceremony over. "What do you mean?"
"All were not killed by the Great Nagoola," replied the bad man. "Thurg was not killed, norwas she who was Thandar's mate—she whom Thurg would have stolen."
"What?" Thandar almost screamed the question. "Nadara not dead?"
"Look," said Roof, and he led the way to the foot of the cliff. "See!"
"Yes," replied Thandar, "I had noticed that body, but what of it?"
"It was Thurg," explained Roof. "He sought to reach your mate, who had taken refuge in that cave far above us. Then came some strange men who made a great noise with sticks and Thurg fell dead—the loud noise had killed him from a great distance. Then came the strange men and she whom you call Nadara went away with them."
"In which direction?" cried Thandar. "Where did they take her?"
"They took her to the strange cliff in which they dwelt—the one in which they came. Never saw man such a thing as this cliff. It floated upon the face of the water. About its face were many tiny caves, but the people did not come out of these they came from the top of the cliff, and clambering down the sides floated ashore in hollow things of wood. On top of the cliff were two trees without leaves, and only very short, straight branches. When the cliff went away black smoke came out of it from a short black stump of a tree between thetwo trees. It was a very wonderful thing to see; but the most wonderful of all were the noise-sticks that killed Thurg and Nagoola a long way off."
Not half of Roof's narrative did Thandar hear. Through his brain roared and thundered a single mighty thought: Nadara lives! Nadara lives! Life took on a new meaning to him now. He trembled at the thought of the chances he had been taking. Now, indeed, must he live. He leaped up and down, laughing and shouting. He threw his arms about the astonished Roof, whirling the troglodyte about in a mad waltz. Nadara lives! Nadara lives!
Once again the sun shone, the birds sang, nature was her old, happy, carefree self. Nadara was alive and among civilized men. But then came a doubt.
"Did Nadara go willingly with these strangers," he asked Roof, "or did they take her by force?"
"They did not take her by force," replied Roof. "They talked with her for a time, and then she took the hand of one of the men in hers, stroking it, and he placed his arm about her. Afterward they walked slowly to the edge of the great water where they got into the strange things that had brought them to the land, and returned to their floating cliff. Presently the smoke came out, as I have told you, and the cliff went away toward the edge of the world. But they are all dead now."
"What?" yelled Thandar.
"Yes, I saw the cliff sink, very slowly when it was a long way off, until only the smoke was coming out of the water."
Thandar breathed a sigh of relief.
"Point," he said, "to the place where the cliff sank beneath the water."
Roof pointed almost due north.
"There," he said.
For days Thandar puzzled over the possible identity of the ship and the men with whom Nadara had gone so willingly. Doubtless some kindly mariner, hearing her story, had taken her home, away from the terrors and the loneliness of this unhappy island. And now the man chafed to be after her, that he might search the world for his lost love.
To wait for a ship appeared quite impossible to the impatient Thandar, for he knew that a ship might never come. There was but one alternative, and had Waldo Emerson been a less impractical man in the world to which he had been born he would have cast aside that single alternative as entirely beyond the pale of possibility. But Waldo was only practical and wise in the savage ways of the primitive life to which circumstance had forced him to revert. And so he decided upon as foolhardy and hair-brained a venture as the mind ofman might conceive. It was no less a thing than to build a boat and set out upon the broad Pacific in search of a civilized port or a vessel that might bear him to such.
To Waldo it seemed quite practical. He realized of course that the venture would be fraught with peril, but would it not be better to die in an attempt to find his Nadara than to live on forever in the hopelessness of this forgotten land?
And so he set to work to build a boat. He had no tools but his crude knife and the razor the sailor of theSally Corwithhad given him, so it was quite impossible for him to construct a dug-out. The possibilities that lie in fire did not occur to him. Finally he hit upon what seemed the only feasible form of construction.
With his knife he cut long, pliant saplings, and lesser branches. These he fashioned into the framework of a boat. Roof helped him, keenly interested in this new work. The ribs were fastened to the keel and gunwale by thongs of panther skin, and when the framework was completed panther skins were stretched over it. The edges of the skin were sewn together with threads of gut, as tightly as Thandar and Roof could pull them.
A mast was rigged well forward, and another panther skin from which the fur had been scraped was fitted as a sail, square rigged. For rudderThandar fashioned a long, slender sapling, looped at one end, and the loop covered with skin laced tightly on. This, he figured, would serve both as rudder and paddle, as necessity demanded.
At last all was done. Together Thandar and Roof carried the light, crude skiff to the ocean. They waded out beyond the surf, and upon the crest of a receding swell they launched the thing, Thandar leaping in as it floated upon the water.
The sail was not taken along for this trial. Thandar merely wished to know that this craft would float, and right side up. For a moment it did so, until the sea rushing in at the loose seams filled it with water.
Thandar and Roof had great difficulty in dragging it out again upon the beach. Roof now would have given up, but not so Thandar. It is true that he was slightly disheartened, for he had set great store upon the success of his little vessel.
After they had carried the frail thing beyond high tide Thandar sat down upon the ground and for an hour he did naught but stare at the leaky craft. Then he arose and calling to Roof led him into the forest. For a mile they walked, and then Thandar halted before a tree from the side of which a thick and sticky stream was slowly oozing. Thandar had brought along a gourd, and now with a small branch he commenced transferring the massfrom the side of the tree to the gourd. Roof helped him. In an hour the gourd was filled. Then they returned to the skiff.
Leaving the gourd there Thandar and Roof walked to a clump of heavy jungle grasses not far from the cliff where their cave lay. Here Thandar gathered a great armful of the yellow, ripened grass, telling Roof to do likewise. This they took back to the skiff, where, by rolling it assiduously between their hands and pounding it with stones they reduced it to a mass of soft, tough fiber.
Now Thandar showed Roof how to twist this fiber into a loose, fluffy rope, and when he had him well started he daubed the rope with the rubbery fluid he had filched from the tree, and with a sharp stick tucked it in every seam and crevice of the skiff.
It took the better part of two days to accomplish this, and when it was done and the gourd empty, the two men returned to the tree and refilled it. This time they built a fire upon their return to the skiff, Roof spinning a hard wood splinter rapidly between toes and fingers in a little mass of tinder that lay in a hollowed piece of wood. Presently a thin spiral of smoke arose from the tinder, growing denser for a moment until of a sudden it broke into flame.
The men piled twigs and branches upon the blaze until the fire was well started. Then Thandar taking a ball of the viscous matter from the gourd heated it in the flames, immediately daubing the melting mass upon the outside of the skiff. In this way, slowly and with infinite patience, the two at last succeeded in coating the entire outer surface of the canoe with a waterproof substance that might defy the action of water almost indefinitely.
For three days Thandar let the coating dry, and then the craft was given another trial. The man's heart was in his throat as the canoe floated upon the crest of a great wave and he leaped into it.
But a moment later he shouted in relief and delight—the thing floated like a cork, nor was there the slightest leak discernible. For half an hour Thandar paddled about the harbor, and then he returned for the sail. This too, though rather heavy and awkward, worked admirably, and the balance of the day he spent in sailing, even venturing out into the ocean.
Much of the time he paddled, for Waldo Emerson knew more of the galleys of ancient Greece than he did of sails or sailing, so that for the most part he sailed with the wind, paddling when he wished to travel in another direction. But, withal, his attempt filled him with delight, and he could scarce wait to be off toward civilization and Nadara.
The next two days were spent in collecting food and water, which Thandar packed in numerousgourds, sealing the mouths with the rubbery substance such as he had used to waterproof his craft. The flesh of wild hog, and deer, and bird he cut in narrow strips and dried over a slow fire. In this work Roof assisted him, and at last all was in readiness for the venture.
The day of his departure dawned bright and clear. A gentle south wind gave promise of great speed toward the north. Thandar was wild with hope and excitement. Roof was to accompany him, but at the last moment the nerve of the troglodyte failed him, and he ran away and hid in the forest.
It was just as well, thought Thandar, for now his provisions would last twice as long. And so he set out upon his perilous adventure, braving the mighty Pacific in a frail and unseaworthy cockle-shell with all the assurance and confidence that is ever born of ignorance.
THE HEAD-HUNTERS
Natureso far, had been kind to Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones. No high winds or heavy seas had assailed him, and he had been upon the water for three days now. The wind had held steadily out of the south, varying but a few points during this time but even so Waldo Emerson was commencing to doubt and to worry. His supply of water was running dangerously low, his food supply would last but a few days longer; and as yet he had sighted no sail, nor seen any land. Furthermore, he had not the remotest conception of how he might retrace his way to the island he had just quitted. He could only sail before the wind. Should the wind veer around into the north he might, by chance, be blown back to the island. Otherwise he never could reach it. And he was beginning to wonder if he had not been a trifle to precipitate in his abandonment of land.
In common with most other landsmen, Waldo Emerson had little conception of the vastness of the broad reaches of unbroken water wildernesses that roll in desolate immensity over three quarters of the globe. His recollection of maps pictured thecalm and level blue dotted, especially in the south seas, with many islands. Their names, often, were quite reassuring. He recollected, among others, such as the Society Islands, the Friendly Islands, Christmas Island. He hoped that he would land upon one of these. There were so many islands upon the maps, and they seemed so close together that he was not a little mystified that he had failed to sight several hundred long before this.
And ships! It appeared incredible that he should have seen not a single sail. He distinctly recalled the atlas he had examined prior to embarking upon his health cruise. The Pacific had been lined in all directions with the routes of long established steamer lanes, and in between, Waldo had felt, the ocean must be dotted with the innumerable tramps that come and go between the countless ports that fringe the major sea.
And yet for three days nothing had broken the dull monotony of the vast circle of which he was always the center and the sole occupant. In three days, thought Waldo, he must have covered an immense distance.
And three more days dragged their weary lengths. The wind had died to the faintest of breezes. The canoe was just making headway and that was all. The water was gone. The food nearly so. Waldo was suffering from lack of the former. The pitiless sun beating down upon him increased his agony. He stretched his panther skin across the stern and hid beneath it from the torrid rays. And there he lay until darkness brought relief.
During the night the wind sprang up again, but this time from the west. It rose and with it rose the sea. The man, clinging to his crude steering blade, struggled to keep the light craft straight before the wind which was now howling fearfully while great waves, hungry and wide jawed, raced after him like a pack of ravenous wolves.
Thandar knew that the unequal struggle against the mighty forces of the elements could not endure for long. It seemed that each fierce gust of brutal wind must tear his frail boat to shreds, and yet it was the very lightness of the thing that saved it, for it rode upon the crests of waves, blown forward at terrific velocity like a feather before the hurricane.
In Thandar's heart was no terror—only regret that he might never again see his mother, his father, or his Nadara. Yet the night wore on and still he fled before the storm. The sky was overcast—the darkness was impenetrable. He imagined all about him still the same wide, tenantless circle of water, only now storm torn and perpendicular and black, instead of peacefully horizontal, and soothingly blue-green. And then, even as he was thinking this there rose before him a thunderous booming loud above the frenzied bedlam of the storm, his boat was lifted high in air to dive headforemost into what might be a bottomless abyss for all Thandar knew. But it was not bottomless. The canoe struck something and stopped suddenly, pitching Thandar out into a boiling maelstrom. A great wave picked him up, carrying him with race-horse velocity within its crest. He felt himself hurled pitilessly upon smooth, hard sand. The water tried to drag him back, but he fought with toes and fingers, clutching at the surface of the stuff upon which he had been dropped. Then the wave abandoned him and raced swiftly back into the sea.
Thandar was exhausted, but he knew that he must crawl up out of the way of the surf, or be dragged back by the next roller. What he had searched for in vain through six long days he had run down in the midst of a Stygian night. He had found land! Or, to be more explicit, land had got in front of him and he had run into it. He had commenced to wonder if some terrible convulsion of nature had not swallowed up all the land in the world, leaving only a waste of desolate water. He forgot his hunger and his thirst in the happiness of the knowledge that once more he was upon land. He wondered a little what land it might be. He hoped that dawn would reveal the chimneys andsteeples of a nearby city. And then, exhausted, he fell into a deep sleep.
It was the sun shining down into his upturned face that awoke him. He was lying upon his back beside a clump of bushes a little way above the beach. He was about to rise and survey the new world into which fate and a hurricane had hurled him when he heard a familiar sound upon the opposite side of his bush. It was the movement of an animal creeping through long grass.
Thandar, the cave man, came noiselessly to his hands and knees, peering cautiously through the intervening network of branches. What he saw sent his hand groping for his wooden sword with its fire-hardened point. There, not five paces from him, was a man going cautiously upon all fours. It was the most horrible appearing man that Thandar had ever seen—even Thurg appeared lovely by comparison. The creature's ears were split and heavy ornaments had dragged them down until the lobes rested upon its shoulders. The face was terribly marked with cicatrices and tattooing. The teeth were black and pointed. A head-dress of long feathers waved and nodded above the hideous face. There was much tattooing upon the arms and legs and abdomen; the breasts were circled with it. In a belt about the waist lay a sword in its scabbard. In the man's hand was a long spear.
The warrior was creeping stealthily upon something at Thandar's left. The latter looked in the direction the other's savage gaze was bent. Through the bushes he could barely discern a figure moving toward them along the edge of the beach. The warrior had passed him now and Thandar stood erect the better to obtain a view of the fellow's quarry.
Now he saw it plainly—a man strangely garbed in many colors. A yellow jacket, soiled and torn, covered the upper part of his body. Strange designs, very elaborate, were embroidered upon the garment which reached barely to the fellow's waist. Beneath was a red sash in which were stuck a long pistol and a wicked-looking knife. Baggy blue trousers reached to the bare ankles and feet. A strip of crimson cloth wound around the head completed the strange garmenture. The features of the man were Mongolian.
Thandar could see the warrior pause as it became evident that the other was approaching directly toward his place of concealment, but at the last moment the unconscious quarry turned sharply to his right down upon the beach. He had discovered the wreck of Thandar's canoe and was going to investigate it.
The move placed Thandar almost between the two. Suddenly the native rose to his feet—hisvictim's back was toward him. Grasping his spear in his left hand he drew his wicked-looking sword and emerged cautiously from the bushes. At the same moment the man upon the beach wheeled quickly as though suddenly warned of his danger. The native, discovered, leaped forward with raised sword. The man snatched his pistol from his belt, levelled it at the on-rushing warrior and pulled the trigger. There was a futile click—that was all. The weapon had missed fire.
Instantly a third element was projected into the fray. Thandar, seeing a more direct link with civilization in the strangely apparelled Mongol than in the naked savage, leaped to the assistance of the former. With drawn sword he rushed out upon the savage. The wild man turned at Thandar's cry, which he had given to divert the fellow's attention from his now almost helpless victim.
Thandar knew nothing of the finer points of sword play. He was ignorant of the wickedness of a Malay parang—the keen, curved sword of the head-hunter, so he rushed in upon the savage as he would have upon one of Thurg's near-men.
The very impetuosity of his attack awed the native. For a moment he stood his ground, and then, with a cry of terror turned to flee; but he had failed to turn soon enough. Thandar was upon him. The sharp point entered his back beneath theleft shoulder blade, and behind it were the weight and sinews of the cave man. With a shriek the savage lunged forward, clutching at the cruel point that now protruded from his breast. When he touched the earth he was dead.
Thandar drew his sword from the body of the head-hunter, and turned toward the man he had rescued. The latter was approaching, talking excitedly. It was evident that he was thanking Thandar, but no word of his strange tongue could the American understand. Thandar shook his head to indicate that he was unfamiliar with the other's language, and then the latter dropped into pidgin English, which, while almost as unintelligible to the cultured Bostonian, still contained the battered remnants of some few words with which he was familiar.
Thandar depreciated his act by means of gestures, immediately following these with signs to indicate that he was hungry and thirsty. The stranger evidently understood him, for he motioned him to follow, leading the way back along the beach in the direction from which he had come.
Before starting, however, he had pointed toward the wreck of Thandar's canoe and then toward Thandar, nodding his head questioningly as to ask if the boat belonged to the cave man.
Around the end of a promontory they came upona little cove beside the beach of which Thandar saw a camp of nearly a score of men similar in appearance to his guide. These were preparing breakfast beside the partially completed hull of a rather large boat they seemed to have been building.
At sight of Thandar they looked their astonishment, but after hearing the story of their fellow they greeted the cave man warmly, furnishing him with food and water in abundance.
For three days Thandar worked with these men upon their craft, picking up their story slowly with a slow acquirement of a bowing acquaintance with the bastard tongue they used when speaking with him. He soon became aware of the fact that fate had thrown him among a band of pirates. There were Chinese, Japanese and Malays among them—the off-scourings of the south seas; men who had become discredited even among the villainous pirates of their own lands, and had been forced to join their lots in this remoter and less lucrative field, under an unhung ruffian, Tsao Ming, the Chinaman whose life Thandar had saved.
He also learned that the storm that had cast them upon this shore nearly a month before had demolished their prahu, and what with the building of another and numerous skirmishes with the savages they had had a busy time of it.
Only yesterday while a party of them had beenhunting a mile or two inland they had been attacked by savages who had killed two and captured one of their number.
They told Thandar that these savages were the most ferocious of head-hunters, but like the majority of their kind preferred ambushing an unwary victim to meeting him in fair fight in the open. Thandar did not doubt but that the latter mode of warfare would have been entirely to the liking of his piratical friends, for never in his life had he dreamed, even, of so ferocious and warlike a band as was comprised in this villainous and bloodthirsty aggregation. But the constant nervous tension under which they had worked, never knowing at what instant an arrow or a lance would leap from the shades of the jungle to pierce them in the back, had reduced them to a state of fear that only a speedy departure from the island could conquer.
Their boat was almost completed, two more days would see them safely launched upon the ocean, and Tsao Ming had promised Thandar that he would carry him to a civilized port from which he could take a steamer on his return to America.
Late in the afternoon of the third day since his arrival among the pirates the men were suddenly startled by the appearance of an exhausted and blood smeared apparition amongst them. From the nearby jungle the man had staggered to fall whenhalf-way across the clearing, spent.
It was Boloon—he who had been captured by the head-hunters the day before Thandar had been cast upon the shore. Revived with food and water the fellow told a most extraordinary tale. From the meager scraps that were afterward translated into pidgin English for Thandar the Bostonian learned that Boloon had been dragged far inland to a village of considerable size.
Here he had been placed in a room of one of the long houses to await the pleasure of the chief. It was hinted that he was to be tortured before his head was removed to grace the rafters of the chief's palace.
The remarkable portion of his tale related to a strange temple to which he had been dragged and thrown at the feet of a white goddess. Tsao Ming and the other pirates were much mystified by this part of the story, for Boloon insisted that the goddess was white with a mass of black hair, and that her body was covered by the pelt of a magnificent black panther.
Though Tsao Ming pointed out that there were no panthers upon this island Boloon could not be shaken. He had seen with his own eyes, and he knew. Furthermore, he argued, there were no white goddesses upon the island, and yet the woman he had seen was white.
When this strange tale was retold to Thandar he could not but recall that Nadara had worn a black panther skin, but of course it could not be Nadara—that was impossible. But yet he asked for a further description of the goddess—the color of her eyes and hair—the proportions of her body—her height.
To all these questions Boloon gave replies that but caused Thandar's excitement to wax stronger. And then came the final statement that set him in a frenzy of hope and apprehension.
"Upon her left hand was a great diamond," said Boloon.
Thandar turned toward Tsao Ming.
"I go inland to the temple," he said, "to see who this white goddess may be. If you wait two days for me and I return you shall have as much gold as you ask in payment. If you do not wait repair my canoe and hide it in the bushes where the man hid who would have killed you but for Thandar."
"I shall wait three days," replied Tsao Ming. "Nor will I take a singlefunin pay. You saved the life of Tsao Ming—that is not soon to be forgotten. I would send men with you, but they would not go. They are afraid of the head-hunters. Too, will I repair your canoe against your coming after the third day; but," and he shrugged, "you will not come upon the third day, nor uponthe fourth, nor ever, Thandar. It is better that you forget the foolish story of the frightened Boloon and come away from this accursed land with Tsao Ming."
But Thandar would not relinquish his intention, and so he parted with the pirates after receiving from Boloon explicit directions for his journey toward the mysterious temple and the white goddess who might be Nadara; and yet who could not be.
Straight into the tangled jungle he plunged, carrying the spear and the parang of the head-hunter he had killed, and in the string about his loins one of the long pistols of a dead pirate. This latter Tsao Ming had forced upon him with a supply of ammunition.
THE RESCUE
It wasdusk of the second day when Thandar, following the directions given him by Boloon, came to the edge of the little clearing within which rose the dingy outlines of many long houses raised upon piles. Before the village ran a river. Many times had Thandar crossed and recrossed this stream, for he had become lost twice upon the way and had to return part way each time to pick up his trail.
In the center of the village the man could see the outlines of a loftier structure rearing its head above those of the others. As darkness fell Thandar crept closer toward his goal—the large building which Boloon had described as the temple.
Beneath the high raised houses the cave man crept, disturbing pigs and chickens as he went, but their noise was no uncommon thing, and rather than being a menace to his safety it safeguarded him, for it hid the noise of his own advance.
At last he came beneath a house nearest the temple. The moon was full and high. Her brilliant light flooded the open spaces between the buildings, casting into black darkness the shadows beneath. In one of these Thandar lurked. He saw that the temple was guarded. Before its only entrance squatted two warriors. How was he to pass them?
He moved to the end of the shadow of the house beneath which he spied as far from the guards as possible; but still discovery seemed certain were he to attempt to rush across the intervening space. He was at a loss as to what next to do. It seemed foolish to risk all now upon a bold advance—the time for such a risk would be when he had found the goddess and learned if she were Nadara, or another; but how might he cross that strip of moonlight and enter the temple past the two guards, without risk?
He moved silently to the far end of the building, in the shadows of which he watched. For some time he stood looking across at his goal, so near, and yet seemingly infinitely farther from attainment than the day he had left the coast in search of it. He noted the long poles stuck into the ground at irregular intervals about the structure. He wondered at the significance of the rude carving upon them, of the barbaric capitals sometimes topped by the head-dress of a savage warrior, again by a dried and grinning skull, or perhaps the rudely chiseled likeness of a hideous human face.
Upon many of the poles were hung shields,weapons, clothing and earthenware vessels. One especially was so weighted down by its heterogeneous burden that it leaned drunkenly against the eaves of the temple. Thandar's eye followed it upward to where it touched the crudely shingled roof. The suggestion was sufficient—where his eye had climbed he would climb. There was only the moonlight to make the attempt perilous. If the clouds would but come! But there was no indication of clouds in the star shot sky.
He looked toward the guards. They lolled at the opposite end of the temple, only one of them being visible. The other was hidden by the angle of the building. The back of the fellow whom Thandar could see was turned toward the cave man. If they remained thus for a moment he could reach the roof unnoticed. But then there was the danger of discovery from one of the other buildings. An occasional whiff of tobacco smoke told him that some of the men were still awake upon the verandahs where most of the youths and bachelors slept.
Thandar crawled to where he could see the only verandah which directly faced the portion of the temple he had chosen for his attempted entrance. For an hour he watched the rising and falling glow of the cigarettes of two of the native men, and listened to the low hum of their conversation. The hour seemed to drag into an eternity, but at lastthe glowing butt of first one cigarette and then another was flicked over into the grass and silence reigned upon the verandah.
For half an hour longer Thandar waited. The guards before the temple still squatted as before. The one Thandar could see seemed to have fallen asleep, for his head drooped forward upon his breast.
The time had come. There was no need of further delay or reconnaisance—if he was to be discovered that would be the end of it, and it would not profit him one iota to know a second or so in advance of the alarm that he had been detected. So he did not waste time in stealthy advance, or in much looking this way and that. Instead he moved swiftly, though silently, directly across the open, moonlit space to the foot of the leaning pole. He did not cast a glance behind nor to the right nor left. His whole attention was riveted upon the thing in hand.
Thandar had scaled the rickety, toppling saplings of the cliff dwellers for so long that this pole offered no greater difficulties to him than would an ordinary staircase to you or me. First he tested it with eyes and hands to know that it rested securely at the top and that beneath his weight it would not move noisily out of its present position.
Assured that it seemed secure, Thandar ran up itwith the noiseless celerity of a cat. Gingerly he stepped upon the roof, not knowing the manner of its construction, which might be weak thatching that would give beneath him and precipitate him into the interior beneath.
To his surprise and consternation he found that the roof was of wood, and quite as solid as one could imagine. It had been his plan to enter the temple from above, but now it seemed that he was to be thwarted, for he could not hope to cut silently through a wooden roof with his parang in the few hours that intervened before dawn.
He stooped to examine the roof minutely with eyes and fingers. The moonlight was brilliant. In it he could see quite well. He pulled away the thin palm frond thatch. Beneath were shingles hand hewn from billian. In each was a small square hole through which was passed a strip of rattan that bound the shingle to the frame of the roof.
Thandar lifted away the thatching over a little space some two feet square. Then he inserted the point of his keen parang beneath a rattan tie string, and an instant later had lifted aside a shingle. Another and another followed the first until an opening in the roof had been made large enough to easily admit his body.
Thandar leaned over and peered into the darkness beneath. He could see nothing. His own bodywas between the moon and the hole in the roof, shutting out the rays of the satellite from the interior.
The man lowered his legs cautiously over the edge of the hole. Feeling about, his feet came in contact with a rafter. A moment later his whole body had disappeared within the temple. Clinging to the edge of the hole with one hand, Thandar squatted upon the rafter above the temple floor.
Now that his body no longer clogged the aperture in the roof the moonlight poured through it throwing a brilliant flood upon a portion of the floor at the opposite side of the interior. The balance was feebly lighted by the diffused moonlight.
The temple seemed to consist of a single large room. In the center was a raised platform, and also about the walls. From the rafters hung baskets containing human skulls—one swung directly in the moonlight beneath Thandar. He could see its grisly contents plainly.
His eyes followed the moonlight toward the area which it touched upon the far side of the room. It reminded Waldo Emerson of a spot light thrown from the gallery of a theater upon the stage.
Directly in the center of the light a woman lay asleep upon the platform. Thandar's heart stood still. About her figure was wrapped the glossy hide of Nagoola. Over one bare, brown arm billowed awealth of thick, black hair, fine as silk, upon the third finger of the left hand blazed a large solitaire. The woman's face was turned toward the wall—but Thandar knew that he could not be mistaken—it was Nadara.
From the rafter upon which he squatted to the floor below was not over twelve or fifteen feet. Thandar swung downward, clinging to the rafter with his hands, and dropped, cat-like, upon his naked feet to the floor below.
The almost noiseless descent was sufficient, however, to awaken the sleeper. With the quickness of a panther she swung around and was upon her feet facing the man almost at the instant he alighted. The moonlight was now full upon her face. Thandar rushed forward to take her in his arms.
"Nadara!" he whispered. "Thank God!"
The girl shrank back. She recognized the voice and the figure; but—her Thandar was dead! How could it be that he had returned from death? She was frightened.
The man saw the evident terror of her action, and paused.
"What is the matter, Nadara?" he asked. "Don't you know me? Don't you know Thandar?"
"Thandar is dead," she whispered.
The man laughed. In a few words he explainedthat he had been stunned, but not killed, by the earthquake. Then he came to her side and took her in his arms.
"Do I feel like a dead man?" he asked.
She put her arms about his neck and drew his face down to hers. She was sobbing. Thandar's back was toward the doorway of the temple. Nadara was facing it. As she raised her eyes to his again her face went deadly white, and she dragged and pushed him suddenly out of the brilliant patch of moonlight.
"The guard!" she whispered. "I just saw something move beyond the door."
Thandar stepped behind one of the tree trunks that supported the roof, looking toward the entrance. Yes, there was a man even now coming into the temple. His eyes were wide with surprise as he glanced upward toward the hole in the roof. Then he looked in the direction of the platform upon which Nadara had been sleeping. When he saw that it was empty he ran back to the doorway and called his companion.
As he did so Thandar grasped Nadara's hand and drew her around the opposite side of the temple where the shadows were blackest, toward the doorway. They had reached the end of the room when the two warriors came running in, jabbering excitedly. One of them had passed half-way acrossthe temple, and Thandar and Nadara had almost reached the door when the second savage caught sight of them. With a cry of warning to his companion he turned upon them with drawn parang.
As the fellow rushed forward Thandar drew the pistol the pirates had given him and fired point blank at the fellow's breast. With a howl the man staggered back and collapsed upon the floor. Then his fellow rushed to the attack.
Thandar had no time to reload. He handed the weapon to Nadara.
"In the pouch at my right side are cartridges," he said. "Get out several of them, and when I can I will reload."
As he spoke they had been edging toward the doorway. From the street beyond they could already hear excited voices raised in questioning. The shot had aroused the village.
Now the fellow with the parang was upon them. Thandar was clumsy with the unaccustomed weapon with which he tried to meet the attack of the skilled savage. There could have been but one outcome to the unequal struggle had not Nadara, always quick-witted and resourceful, snatched a long spear from the temple wall.
As she dragged it down there fell with it a clattering skull that broke upon the floor between the fighters. A howl of dismay and rage broke from thelips of the head-hunter. This was sacrilege. The holy of the holies had been profaned. With renewed ferocity he leaped to close quarters with Thandar, but at the same instant Nadara lunged the sharp pointed spear into his side, his guard dropped and Thandar's parang fell full upon his skull.
"Come!" cried Nadara. "Make your escape the way you came. There is no hope for you if you remain. I will tell them that the two guards fought between themselves for me—that one killed the other, and that I shot the victor to save myself. They will believe me—I will tell them that I have always had the pistol hidden beneath my robe. Good-bye, my Thandar. We cannot both escape. If you remain we may both die—you, certainly."
Thandar shook his head vehemently.
"We shall both go—or both die," he replied.
Nadara pressed his hand.
"I am glad," was all that she said.
The savages were pouring from their long houses. The street before the temple was filling with them. To attempt to escape in that direction would have been but suicidal.
"Is there no other exit?" asked Thandar.
"There is a small window in the back of the temple," replied Nadara, "in a little room that is sometimes used as a prison for those who are todie, but it lets out into another street which by this time is probably filled with natives."
"There is the floor," cried Thandar. "We will try the floor there."
He ran to the main entrance to the temple, and closed the doors. Then he dragged the two corpses before them, and a long wooden bench. There was no other movable thing in the temple that had any considerable weight.
This done he took Nadara's hand and together the two ran for the little room. Here again they barricaded the door, and Thandar turned toward the floor. With his parang he pried up a board—it was laid but roughly upon the light logs that were the beams. Another was removed with equal ease, and then he lowered Nadara to the ground beneath the temple.
Clinging to the piling, Thandar replaced the boards above his head before he, too, dropped to the ground at Nadara's side. The streets upon either side of the temple were filled with savages. They could hear them congregating before the entrance to the temple where all was now quiet and still within. They were bolstering their courage by much shouting to the point that would permit them to enter and investigate. They called the names of the guards, but there was no response.