The Castaways
Clayton dreamed that he was drinking his fill of water, pure,
delightful drafts of fresh water. With a start he gained consciousness
to find himself wet through by torrents of rain that were falling upon
his body and his upturned face. A heavy tropical shower was beating
down upon them. He opened his mouth and drank. Presently he was so
revived and strengthened that he was enabled to raise himself upon his
hands. Across his legs lay Monsieur Thuran. A few feet aft Jane Porter
was huddled in a pitiful little heap in the bottom of the boat—she was
quite still. Clayton knew that she was dead.
After infinite labor he released himself from Thuran’s pinioning body,
and with renewed strength crawled toward the girl. He raised her head
from the rough boards of the boat’s bottom. There might be life in that
poor, starved frame even yet. He could not quite abandon all hope, and
so he seized a water-soaked rag and squeezed the precious drops between
the swollen lips of the hideous thing that had but a few short days
before glowed with the resplendent life of happy youth and glorious
beauty.
For some time there was no sign of returning animation, but at last his
efforts were rewarded by a slight tremor of the half-closed lids. He
chafed the thin hands, and forced a few more drops of water into the
parched throat. The girl opened her eyes, looking up at him for a long
time before she could recall her surroundings.
“Water?” she whispered. “Are we saved?”
“It is raining,” he explained. “We may at least drink. Already it has
revived us both.”
“Monsieur Thuran?” she asked. “He did not kill you. Is he dead?”
“I do not know,” replied Clayton. “If he lives and this rain revives
him—” But he stopped there, remembering too late that he must not add
further to the horrors which the girl already had endured.
But she guessed what he would have said.
“Where is he?” she asked.
Clayton nodded his head toward the prostrate form of the Russian. For a
time neither spoke.
“I will see if I can revive him,” said Clayton at length.
“No,” she whispered, extending a detaining hand toward him. “Do not do
that—he will kill you when the water has given him strength. If he is
dying, let him die. Do not leave me alone in this boat with that
beast.”
Clayton hesitated. His honor demanded that he attempt to revive Thuran,
and there was the possibility, too, that the Russian was beyond human
aid. It was not dishonorable to hope so. As he sat fighting out his
battle he presently raised his eyes from the body of the man, and as
they passed above the gunwale of the boat he staggered weakly to his
feet with a little cry of joy.
“Land, Jane!” he almost shouted through his cracked lips. “Thank God,
land!”
The girl looked, too, and there, not a hundred yards away, she saw a
yellow beach, and, beyond, the luxurious foliage of a tropical jungle.
“Now you may revive him,” said Jane Porter, for she, too, had been
haunted with the pangs of conscience which had resulted from her
decision to prevent Clayton from offering succor to their companion.
It required the better part of half an hour before the Russian evinced
sufficient symptoms of returning consciousness to open his eyes, and it
was some time later before they could bring him to a realization of
their good fortune. By this time the boat was scraping gently upon the
sandy bottom.
Between the refreshing water that he had drunk and the stimulus of
renewed hope, Clayton found strength to stagger through the shallow
water to the shore with a line made fast to the boat’s bow. This he
fastened to a small tree which grew at the top of a low bank, for the
tide was at flood, and he feared that the boat might carry them all out
to sea again with the ebb, since it was quite likely that it would be
beyond his strength to get Jane Porter to the shore for several hours.
Next he managed to stagger and crawl toward the near-by jungle, where
he had seen evidences of profusion of tropical fruit. His former
experience in the jungle of Tarzan of the Apes had taught him which of
the many growing things were edible, and after nearly an hour of
absence he returned to the beach with a little armful of food.
The rain had ceased, and the hot sun was beating down so mercilessly
upon her that Jane Porter insisted on making an immediate attempt to
gain the land. Still further invigorated by the food Clayton had
brought, the three were able to reach the half shade of the small tree
to which their boat was moored. Here, thoroughly exhausted, they threw
themselves down to rest, sleeping until dark.
For a month they lived upon the beach in comparative safety. As their
strength returned the two men constructed a rude shelter in the
branches of a tree, high enough from the ground to insure safety from
the larger beasts of prey. By day they gathered fruits and trapped
small rodents; at night they lay cowering within their frail shelter
while savage denizens of the jungle made hideous the hours of darkness.
They slept upon litters of jungle grasses, and for covering at night
Jane Porter had only an old ulster that belonged to Clayton, the same
garment that he had worn upon that memorable trip to the Wisconsin
woods. Clayton had erected a frail partition of boughs to divide their
arboreal shelter into two rooms—one for the girl and the other for
Monsieur Thuran and himself.
From the first the Russian had exhibited every trait of his true
character—selfishness, boorishness, arrogance, cowardice, and lust.
Twice had he and Clayton come to blows because of Thuran’s attitude
toward the girl. Clayton dared not leave her alone with him for an
instant. The existence of the Englishman and his fiancee was one
continual nightmare of horror, and yet they lived on in hope of
ultimate rescue.
Jane Porter’s thoughts often reverted to her other experience on this
savage shore. Ah, if the invincible forest god of that dead past were
but with them now. No longer would there be aught to fear from prowling
beasts, or from the bestial Russian. She could not well refrain from
comparing the scant protection afforded her by Clayton with what she
might have expected had Tarzan of the Apes been for a single instant
confronted by the sinister and menacing attitude of Monsieur Thuran.
Once, when Clayton had gone to the little stream for water, and Thuran
had spoken coarsely to her, she voiced her thoughts.
“It is well for you, Monsieur Thuran,” she said, “that the poor
Monsieur Tarzan who was lost from the ship that brought you and Miss
Strong to Cape Town is not here now.”
“You knew the pig?” asked Thuran, with a sneer.
“I knew the man,” she replied. “The only real man, I think, that I have
ever known.”
There was something in her tone of voice that led the Russian to
attribute to her a deeper feeling for his enemy than friendship, and he
grasped at the suggestion to be further revenged upon the man whom he
supposed dead by besmirching his memory to the girl.
“He was worse than a pig,” he cried. “He was a poltroon and a coward.
To save himself from the righteous wrath of the husband of a woman he
had wronged, he perjured his soul in an attempt to place the blame
entirely upon her. Not succeeding in this, he ran away from France to
escape meeting the husband upon the field of honor. That is why he was
on board the ship that bore Miss Strong and myself to Cape Town. I know
whereof I speak, for the woman in the case is my sister. Something more
I know that I have never told another—your brave Monsieur Tarzan leaped
overboard in an agony of fear because I recognized him, and insisted
that he make reparation to me the following morning—we could have
fought with knives in my stateroom.”
Jane Porter laughed. “You do not for a moment imagine that one who has
known both Monsieur Tarzan and you could ever believe such an
impossible tale?”
“Then why did he travel under an assumed name?” asked Monsieur Thuran.
“I do not believe you,” she cried, but nevertheless the seed of
suspicion was sown, for she knew that Hazel Strong had known her forest
god only as John Caldwell, of London.
A scant five miles north of their rude shelter, all unknown to them,
and practically as remote as though separated by thousands of miles of
impenetrable jungle, lay the snug little cabin of Tarzan of the Apes.
While farther up the coast, a few miles beyond the cabin, in crude but
well-built shelters, lived a little party of eighteen souls—the
occupants of the three boats from the _Lady Alice_ from which Clayton’s
boat had become separated.
Over a smooth sea they had rowed to the mainland in less than three
days. None of the horrors of shipwreck had been theirs, and though
depressed by sorrow, and suffering from the shock of the catastrophe
and the unaccustomed hardships of their new existence there was none
much the worse for the experience.
All were buoyed by the hope that the fourth boat had been picked up,
and that a thorough search of the coast would be quickly made. As all
the firearms and ammunition on the yacht had been placed in Lord
Tennington’s boat, the party was well equipped for defense, and for
hunting the larger game for food.
Professor Archimedes Q. Porter was their only immediate anxiety. Fully
assured in his own mind that his daughter had been picked up by a
passing steamer, he gave over the last vestige of apprehension
concerning her welfare, and devoted his giant intellect solely to the
consideration of those momentous and abstruse scientific problems which
he considered the only proper food for thought in one of his erudition.
His mind appeared blank to the influence of all extraneous matters.
“Never,” said the exhausted Mr. Samuel T. Philander, to Lord
Tennington, “never has Professor Porter been more difficult—er—I might
say, impossible. Why, only this morning, after I had been forced to
relinquish my surveillance for a brief half hour he was entirely
missing upon my return. And, bless me, sir, where do you imagine I
discovered him? A half mile out in the ocean, sir, in one of the
lifeboats, rowing away for dear life. I do not know how he attained
even that magnificent distance from shore, for he had but a single oar,
with which he was blissfully rowing about in circles.
“When one of the sailors had taken me out to him in another boat the
professor became quite indignant at my suggestion that we return at
once to land. ‘Why, Mr. Philander,’ he said, ‘I am surprised that you,
sir, a man of letters yourself, should have the temerity so to
interrupt the progress of science. I had about deduced from certain
astronomic phenomena I have had under minute observation during the
past several tropic nights an entirely new nebular hypothesis which
will unquestionably startle the scientific world. I wish to consult a
very excellent monograph on Laplace’s hypothesis, which I understand is
in a certain private collection in New York City. Your interference,
Mr. Philander, will result in an irreparable delay, for I was just
rowing over to obtain this pamphlet.’ And it was with the greatest
difficulty that I persuaded him to return to shore, without resorting
to force,” concluded Mr. Philander.
Miss Strong and her mother were very brave under the strain of almost
constant apprehension of the attacks of savage beasts. Nor were they
quite able to accept so readily as the others the theory that Jane,
Clayton, and Monsieur Thuran had been picked up safely.
Jane Porter’s Esmeralda was in a constant state of tears at the cruel
fate which had separated her from her “po, li’le honey.”
Lord Tennington’s great-hearted good nature never deserted him for a
moment. He was still the jovial host, seeking always for the comfort
and pleasure of his guests. With the men of his yacht he remained the
just but firm commander—there was never any more question in the jungle
than there had been on board the _Lady Alice_ as to who was the final
authority in all questions of importance, and in all emergencies
requiring cool and intelligent leadership.
Could this well-organized and comparatively secure party of castaways
have seen the ragged, fear-haunted trio a few miles south of them they
would scarcely have recognized in them the formerly immaculate members
of the little company that had laughed and played upon the _Lady
Alice_. Clayton and Monsieur Thuran were almost naked, so torn had
their clothes been by the thorn bushes and tangled vegetation of the
matted jungle through which they had been compelled to force their way
in search of their ever more difficult food supply.
Jane Porter had of course not been subjected to these strenuous
expeditions, but her apparel was, nevertheless, in a sad state of
disrepair.
Clayton, for lack of any better occupation, had carefully saved the
skin of every animal they had killed. By stretching them upon the stems
of trees, and diligently scraping them, he had managed to save them in
a fair condition, and now that his clothes were threatening to cover
his nakedness no longer, he commenced to fashion a rude garment of
them, using a sharp thorn for a needle, and bits of tough grass and
animal tendons in lieu of thread.
The result when completed was a sleeveless garment which fell nearly to
his knees. As it was made up of numerous small pelts of different
species of rodents, it presented a rather strange and wonderful
appearance, which, together with the vile stench which permeated it,
rendered it anything other than a desirable addition to a wardrobe. But
the time came when for the sake of decency he was compelled to don it,
and even the misery of their condition could not prevent Jane Porter
from laughing heartily at sight of him.
Later, Thuran also found it necessary to construct a similar primitive
garment, so that, with their bare legs and heavily bearded faces, they
looked not unlike reincarnations of two prehistoric progenitors of the
human race. Thuran acted like one.
Nearly two months of this existence had passed when the first great
calamity befell them. It was prefaced by an adventure which came near
terminating abruptly the sufferings of two of them—terminating them in
the grim and horrible manner of the jungle, forever.
Thuran, down with an attack of jungle fever, lay in the shelter among
the branches of their tree of refuge. Clayton had been into the jungle
a few hundred yards in search of food. As he returned Jane Porter
walked to meet him. Behind the man, cunning and crafty, crept an old
and mangy lion. For three days his ancient thews and sinews had proved
insufficient for the task of providing his cavernous belly with meat.
For months he had eaten less and less frequently, and farther and
farther had he roamed from his accustomed haunts in search of easier
prey. At last he had found nature’s weakest and most defenseless
creature—in a moment more Numa would dine.
Clayton, all unconscious of the lurking death behind him, strode out
into the open toward Jane. He had reached her side, a hundred feet from
the tangled edge of jungle when past his shoulder the girl saw the
tawny head and the wicked yellow eyes as the grasses parted, and the
huge beast, nose to ground, stepped softly into view.
So frozen with horror was she that she could utter no sound, but the
fixed and terrified gaze of her fear-widened eyes spoke as plainly to
Clayton as words. A quick glance behind him revealed the hopelessness
of their situation. The lion was scarce thirty paces from them, and
they were equally as far from the shelter. The man was armed with a
stout stick—as efficacious against a hungry lion, he realized, as a toy
pop-gun charged with a tethered cork.
Numa, ravenous with hunger, had long since learned the futility of
roaring and moaning as he searched for prey, but now that it was as
surely his as though already he had felt the soft flesh beneath his
still mighty paw, he opened his huge jaws, and gave vent to his
long-pent rage in a series of deafening roars that made the air
tremble.
“Run, Jane!” cried Clayton. “Quick! Run for the shelter!” But her
paralyzed muscles refused to respond, and she stood mute and rigid,
staring with ghastly countenance at the living death creeping toward
them.
Thuran, at the sound of that awful roar, had come to the opening of the
shelter, and as he saw the tableau below him he hopped up and down,
shrieking to them in Russian.
“Run! Run!” he cried. “Run, or I shall be left all alone in this
horrible place,” and then he broke down and commenced to weep. For a
moment this new voice distracted the attention of the lion, who halted
to cast an inquiring glance in the direction of the tree. Clayton could
endure the strain no longer. Turning his back upon the beast, he buried
his head in his arms and waited.
The girl looked at him in horror. Why did he not do something? If he
must die, why not die like a man—bravely; beating at that terrible face
with his puny stick, no matter how futile it might be. Would Tarzan of
the Apes have done thus? Would he not at least have gone down to his
death fighting heroically to the last?
Now the lion was crouching for the spring that would end their young
lives beneath cruel, rending, yellow fangs. Jane Porter sank to her
knees in prayer, closing her eyes to shut out the last hideous instant.
Thuran, weak from fever, fainted.
Seconds dragged into minutes, long minutes into an eternity, and yet
the beast did not spring. Clayton was almost unconscious from the
prolonged agony of fright—his knees trembled—a moment more and he would
collapse.
Jane Porter could endure it no longer. She opened her eyes. Could she
be dreaming?
“William,” she whispered; “look!”
Clayton mastered himself sufficiently to raise his head and turn toward
the lion. An ejaculation of surprise burst from his lips. At their very
feet the beast lay crumpled in death. A heavy war spear protruded from
the tawny hide. It had entered the great back above the right shoulder,
and, passing entirely through the body, had pierced the savage heart.
Jane Porter had risen to her feet; as Clayton turned back to her she
staggered in weakness. He put out his arms to save her from falling,
and then drew her close to him—pressing her head against his shoulder,
he stooped to kiss her in thanksgiving.
Gently the girl pushed him away.
“Please do not do that, William,” she said. “I have lived a thousand
years in the past brief moments. I have learned in the face of death
how to live. I do not wish to hurt you more than is necessary; but I
can no longer bear to live out the impossible position I have attempted
because of a false sense of loyalty to an impulsive promise I made you.
“The last few seconds of my life have taught me that it would be
hideous to attempt further to deceive myself and you, or to entertain
for an instant longer the possibility of ever becoming your wife,
should we regain civilization.”
“Why, Jane,” he cried, “what do you mean? What has our providential
rescue to do with altering your feelings toward me? You are but
unstrung—tomorrow you will be yourself again.”
“I am more nearly myself this minute than I have been for over a year,”
she replied. “The thing that has just happened has again forced to my
memory the fact that the bravest man that ever lived honored me with
his love. Until it was too late I did not realize that I returned it,
and so I sent him away. He is dead now, and I shall never marry. I
certainly could not wed another less brave than he without harboring
constantly a feeling of contempt for the relative cowardice of my
husband. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” he answered, with bowed head, his face mantling with the flush
of shame.
And it was the next day that the great calamity befell.