TO BE MADE INTO FRESH MEAT
Wing-foot and Sure-dart were meanwhile slipping softly but quickly
toward the spring. As it was so near they were speedily there, and
without losing a moment began their work. Things immediately around
were quiet, and more so than usual; for the night creatures seemed
displeased with the new weather, and the most of them were silent,
and the breeze had fined down, so that it made little stir among the
trees. From the enemies’ camp came now and then some minor noise, such
as a small momentary outbreak of talk, or the groaning and fussing of
somebody in pain from wounds; but that was at present all.
It was a longer job to put even a moderate amount of the cinders and
other stuff back into the water than they had thought. In the first
place, it was not heaped up in one spot, but thrown about, and in the
darkness they could not always find it; besides, they had no proper
tools to work with, and, in fact, had to depend mainly on their hands.
After a little of this kind of work they grew impatient and a bit
nervous, and began to claw about energetically, and to handle the
stuff, as they lighted on it, with small regard to the noise. It did
not make very much, anyway, and they took the chance.
At last they thought they had done enough, and after a whisper between
them knocked off. They slipped their knives back into the loops
in their girdles, and began to run. They could tell, even in the
obscurity, where the hill rose against the sky.
They did not look around, and so did not see four creeping shapes come
out of the bushes beyond the hollow, and dart softly but swiftly along
in their wake. Yet these shapes, coming down from the camp, had passed
within half a spear’s cast of them, and then had wormed unheard into
the bushes. These bushes clumped out hard by the spring itself, and
from there it would be convenient to make a rush. But just then the two
finished and started off, and instead of the rush the hiders waited a
moment, and then came sneaking after.
At first, on account of the rough ground, the two runners held back,
and did not go much faster than a dog-trot; now, on the more even space
above, they let out a notch.
Now they were near the rock, and its great face loomed black, and cut
off what light there was. There was a small noise behind them, and they
both slackened, and turned their heads. It was suspiciously like the
slapping of bare feet on the hard ground. And it was that, for while
their heads were still screwed around, the noise sharpened, and four
black human shapes took outline against the darkness.
There was no lack of plain-enough noises now. The four yelled, and
other men creeping down the slopes answered them, and at the camp broke
out a clatter of spears and axes on shields. From the rock above came
down shouts and encouraging cries.
Wing-foot and Sure-dart were not looking over their shoulders now, but
were running as only two of the fleetest human beings then on the earth
could run. The looming figures behind began to grow dim again.
Wing-foot, pelting to it wonderfully, and going almost as fast as a
hunting dog, was now in the lead. Sure-dart, however, was not many
paces behind.
The rock was nigh. Wing-foot stopped, and began pawing and plucking at
the rope. He had it now, and was off the ground.
Sure-dart stopped, breathing hard. It was not so much lack of breath as
something else, for the rope would hold but one at a time. Death, in
the shape of the looming-up figures, seemed at hand.
He had not lost his knife. He drew it, and turned. Nothing else came
into his mind to do, for here could be no surrender. That would be
merely a shorter road to a smashed skull, and an unknown number of
hungry stomachs. Better to fight it out, then, and go down in hot
blood, perhaps hardly knowing when the ending blow came. Besides, that
was the way a Rock-man and a warrior was expected to do.
Out of the “tail of his eye” he saw Wing-foot hoisting and hitching
his way to safety. That was right in him, for he could do nothing by
staying, and it was properly a case of “first come, first served.”
He stood up straight, but a little sidewise, his knife drawn back.
Now the gang was upon him. There were yells, and--something or other
was wrong. He could not exactly see, and he thought his knees were
sagging under him. The yells seemed farther off--he did not hear them
at all.
It was merely that a stone had struck him on the side of the head. It
did no more than stun him. One man bent over him, knife drawn back, but
the warrior who had thrown the stone, a tall, strong fellow, pushed him
aside.
“No! he is mine. We will take him to the camp and eat him.”
It was a short speech, but very much to the point. Besides, the speaker
was Long-spear, and the man, like all the others who had come up, was a
Fisher. He mumbled something, but stood back, and obeyed his chief. One
of the late comers had a spear, and the chief took it, and lashed the
boy to it with belts. Then two men took up the load, and with a little
care, on account of the darkness, the whole gang swarmed off across the
flat.
Wing-foot was safe. He had pulled and hitched so fast that he was two
spears’ lengths clear of the ground when Sure-dart went down. Some
of the gang had thrown stones at him, but in the obscurity they had
missed, and a few who seized the rope and shook it did not break his
desperate grip. Probably they would soon have thought of taking hold
together and snapping the rope, risking a heavy thump from the falling
climber, or else they might have whipped him, so to speak, against
the rock; but before they were ready to do either they found that
they had lost their chance to do anything. The shrewd and cool fellow
had stopped, and, with a turn of his leg around the rope to sustain
him, had jerked up the end of it, and made it fast. Then he went on
steadily and uninterruptedly to the top. There were no spears or darts
seasonably on hand to throw at him.
Sure-dart, lashed, like a captured bear, to the spear-shaft, was
meanwhile carried to the camping ground and dumped down. By this time
he had come to himself. He got a sharp thump on his wounded head, as
he brought up, but it did not stun him, and he did not mind it. He had
more serious things to think of.
Long-spear and the others seemed decidedly pleased at their capture,
and Sure-dart could not blame them for it, as it was really the first
successful piece of work that they had so far carried out. Even one
prisoner, and a boy at that, was something, especially as he was an
uncommonly smart boy, and as the ranks of the defenders were now so
thin. But Sure-dart was not only almost sick with horror at what
lay before him, but he was mortified as well. But for the haste and
carelessness with which he and his companion had worked, he would
probably have escaped trouble, as it was undoubtedly the noise, slight
as it was, that had attracted the attention of some of the keen-eared
rascals.
It was only a few minutes after he had been dumped down that a Fisher
came along, and with some pieces of lizard-skin lashed first his wrists
together, and then his ankles. He did this without untying the belts
that still held him to the spear. They seemed to be determined to lose
nothing by any carelessness on their part. When this fellow was through
with him, the man previously on guard came a little nearer and sat down
by him.
But wild creatures, whether men or animals, early pick up various
shrewd and cunning ways of getting out of scrapes, and perhaps are
helped besides by what we call instinct (though it is hard to say how
far this term properly applies); and so Sure-dart, a superior little
animal, had already started to do something toward getting out of his
scrape. When they tied his wrists together he thought of an old trick
that Big-axe had told him about, and swelled out the muscles of his
wrists as much as he could, and slightly pushed his wrists apart. He
managed this slyly, so that it was not noticed. Though there seemed
to be a very poor chance to get away, even if he could get rid of his
bonds, yet that offered the only chance that there seemed to be at all,
and he quickly caught at it. He now began to test his bit of work.
His joints and muscles were supple, and he had gained a little space
by his swelling-out trick, and he soon found that he could get rid of
the wrist fastenings. This he did, and then started at the leg bonds.
Here he would, of course, have had an easy time, since he had the use
of his fingers, but that he would have to change his position a bit in
order to work, and this might attract the notice of his guard. In fact,
he now had to wait several minutes, till the guard was looking another
way, and then, very cautiously, made a little crawl. The guard looked
back, but did not seem to notice anything new, and Sure-dart once more
lay still.
But even if he should get rid of the thongs about his wrists and
ankles, there would still be left the bands about his body, which
lashed him to the spear-shaft. They were secured in such a way that
it would be very difficult to get rid of them undetected, and yet he
could not stir a foot with them on. As the spear projected both above
his head and below his feet, he could not rise, and even if he managed
to shove the spear up, so that his feet projected, he would still be
unable to go faster than a walk. Besides, any movement so pronounced as
thus altering the position of the spear must quickly be noticed.
Yet all this, though it must be thought of, could not be allowed to
weigh anything against the need of doing something; and something,
accordingly, he soon tried to do. Reaching down as far as he could, and
at the same time trying not to change noticeably the position of his
body, he finally got the leg thongs off. He did not, of course, throw
them aside, but kept them across his legs, so that a casual glance, in
the poor light, would make them appear still in place. In this way,
also, he had managed the wrist fastenings.
All this took a number of minutes, perhaps a half-hour. Meanwhile, he
was left to himself, except for the guard, though the nearest of the
others were hardly more than a spear’s length off. He found that there
was a talk of some moment going on, and that seemed considerably to
excite the talkers, especially the leaders and older warriors, and this
was helping him greatly by taking their attention from him. From what
he could understand of the talk (both dialects were considerably like
the speech of the Rock-men, seeming to indicate that the three peoples
came from the same original stock) he found that the leading men among
the Fishers, including Long-spear, were for continuing the siege, while
the Islanders seemed to be for making one more assault, and if that
failed, to give up and go home. There was only one thing on which they
seemed fully to agree, and that was that Sure-dart should be kept till
morning, and then taken out, and in full view of his friends should be
tortured, killed, and eaten.
The whole matter interested Sure-dart greatly, especially the last
part, and though this was only what he was looking for, yet, when he
came to hear it put so fully into words, it gave him a new and most
unpleasant thrill, and nerved him afresh to go on with what he was
doing.
By this time he had made one discovery, which was that several warriors
of both of the tribes were sore and rather stiff from wounds, and
that two had died of poison from the defenders’ darts. Not only that,
but several had been made sick by the change of food and water, and
by the fumes of the terrible shower from the thrown-up mountain. In
this connection it is to be thought of that savages, though they may
be strong and hardy, are often unable to stand a small change of food
and climate, and that many kinds of powerful wild animals cannot stand
them at all. The Rock-people had already felt some ill effects from the
change, especially the older and weaker ones; and yet, high up on the
rock and away from the ground damps and the settling fumes of the bad
vapors they were better off than the besiegers. Sure-dart was therefore
the more encouraged, as far as the result for his people was concerned,
than he had been at any time before, though for himself personally he
had only a kind of desperate hope.
After a while the Islander chief (Sure-dart had found that his name was
Strong-back) came along and looked at Sure-dart, and pleasantly gave
him a few light jabs with his spear.
Sure-dart could hardly help wincing, but he had time to think that it
would not be the thing for a warrior of the Rock-people to do, and
managed to hold himself steady. He had the satisfaction of thinking
that the long weapons of the Islanders, like those of the Fishers and
of his own people, were not usually poisoned. These pricks were not
very deep, either, and not at all crippling.
Strong-back grunted, but whether with satisfaction at the pleasure he
got from the pricking, or out of respect for the boy’s pluck, it was
hard to say. He turned away, and went about his business again, to
Sure-dart’s great relief.
Then the desperate little fellow went at the thongs that bound him to
the spear, and by dogged perseverance found and untied the knots.
The next thing was to wait for the right moment. It really began to
look like a possible chance, and Sure-dart felt some of his old
confidence and steadiness coming back. He got everything ready for a
fling and a jump, and even rubbed his somewhat numbed legs, that they
might not work too slowly.
And then came, almost as if it had been a stunning blow, something new
and totally unexpected. The most of the warriors lay down to sleep,
and when the guards were posted another Fisher came along, and sat
down beside him. The fellow had a hound-like air of alertness and
watchfulness, and even put his spear down in a handy position beside
him. Sure-dart could not help a little sigh, but was able to hide his
disappointment otherwise. Inwardly he felt, as he might have expressed
it, as if somebody had hit him in the stomach. His very fingers turned
cold.
Soon it came to him what this extra watchfulness probably meant.
His captors thought that the lion-hearted Big-axe might lead out a
desperate rescue party, it being perhaps in his mind, too, to do what
damage generally he could, and in that case the guard would see to it
that they got no boy, unless it was a dead one.
It is merely painful to dwell further on the poor fellow’s
disappointment. He was watched so closely all night that he could
hardly stir without the notice of his guards. Once, when he was tired
of lying in one position, and turned a little, the second guard punched
him with the butt of his spear, and told him to lie still. After that,
till sunrise, he moved as little as possible.
As soon as it was fairly light the camp began to stir, and first all
hands had breakfast. This, light as was their supply of provisions, did
not take long. Then they got together and started to settle the great
question of their future policy. Now, as Sure-dart saw, a number of the
Fishers sided with the Islanders, and wanted to make one more assault,
and if that failed, to give up the whole affair. Here there was some
friction between Long-spear and Strong-back, and the Islander who had,
it seemed, a little irritating wound, and was not well besides, growled
out some rather sharp things; among them he hinted that Long-spear was
pretty careful of his own safety, as had been proved by his conduct in
the former assaults. It was a fact that Long-spear had not appeared
to be very eager in the hottest part of the fighting, and had not
been wounded, and that Strong-back had been nearer the barricade,
and had got a long-distance jab from a spear. Long-spear, though he
was more crafty than eager in battle, and had a good command of his
temper, fired up at this, and for a moment it looked as if there would
be a lively little war in the camp itself. However, after some sharp
jabbering and gesticulating and the interference of some of the older
warriors, the trouble was patched up, and the original talk was resumed.
It was wound up pretty soon this time, and ended with rather a queer
compromise. There would neither be an assault nor a prolonged siege,
but they would first torture Sure-dart, making believe, as they did it,
to be off their guard, and hoping thus to draw out a relief party, and
if this failed they would give up the whole affair.
This settled, they picked up poor Sure-dart, and carried him farther
out in the open, where he would be plainly in sight from the fort,
and in a leisurely way, meaning to give the garrison time to plan and
attempt a dash, made ready to begin the torture.