What a night it was! Overhead one glorious; maze of scintillating
stars; in the jungle ebon: blackness, shot with the soft glow of myriad
fireflies, that flashed their tiny lamps only to leave-the spot they had
illumined more intensely black than before.
Don's surmise as to the spring path proved correct--it extended quite
to the foot of the hill, where it merged almost imperceptibly into the
scantier vegetation fringing the sea-shore. After a hard fight with the
difficulties of the way--increased in no small degree by the dead weight
of the tiger-skin--he and Puggles at length reached the limits of the
jungle and paused for breath. The utmost caution was now necessary in
order to avoid untimely discovery.
The moon was not yet up, and the cocoa-nut _tope_ in which, but a stoned
throw away, nestled the village that formed at once their destination
and Jack's place of imprisonment, lay wrapped in gloom so impenetrable
that not a single outline of tree or hut could be distinguished from
where they stood. Excepting a faint glow, which at infrequent intervals
flickered amid the lofty branches of the palm-trees, there was nothing
to show that the spot was tenanted by any human being. This light--or,
to speak more correctly, this reflection of a light--Don attributed to a
fire in the village street.
“They done lighting um for company, maybe,” suggested Puggles. “Plenty
people going feast, black man 'fraid got, making fire keep tiger-witch
off.”
“So much the better for us,” said his master; “especially if everybody's
at the town except the fellows in charge of Jack. But shut up, Pug; it
won't do to risk their overhearing our palaver.” With stealthy steps
they advanced, pausing often to listen, until they gained the deeper
shade of the trees close under the rear of the huts. Leaving the black
boy here, Don skirted the nearer row of cabins and took a cautious view
of the street.
The huts stood in two irregular rows, one facing the other, and
midway down the open space or street between was a smouldering fire of
brushwood, about which, in listless, drowsy attitudes, there lolled a
group of perhaps twenty natives. Save for these the place, so far as he
could make out, was quite deserted. The doors of the huts were closed,
and no glimmer of lamp or fire shone through them to indicate that any
occupants were within. A little to one side of the fire the light fell
upon an object at sight of which Don started violently. It was the
stolen keg of powder. Jack could not be far off, then!
Quitting the spot as noiselessly as he had approached it, he made his
way back to the rear of the huts, and with the assistance of Puggles,
adjusted the limp tigers pelt upon his back, shoulders, and head. Next
he gave the black boy his orders. He was to lie close until the natives
about the fire took to flight--which, if they fled at all, would, in the
ordinary course of events, be in the direction of the other extremity of
the street--when he was to join his master in searching the huts.
All was now in readiness, and Don, gripping the defunct tiger's ears at
either side of his head to hold the skin in position, once more skirted
the row of huts, Puggles in close attendance. His former post of
observation gained, he went down upon all-fours, and when Puggles had
readjusted the skin to his satisfaction, in this attitude he boldly
advanced into the street.
The distance to be traversed in order to reach the group about the fire
was not less than fifty yards. He had covered a third of the ground
unobserved, when one of the natives rose to his feet and threw a fresh
bundle of faggots on the smouldering embers. Fanned by the breeze, the
fire blazed up fiercely, illuminating the street from end to end. The
tiger-witch uttered a terrific roar.
When this sound fell upon the ears of the native, he wheeled and peered
fearfully into the semi-darkness in which Don's end of the street lay.
A second roar brought a second native to his feet. He was followed by
another and another, till all were on the alert. The witch-tiger was now
in full view.
For a little while the group about the fire hesitated. Should they
stand their ground or decamp? As the intruder advanced, and the ruddy
firelight threw its gruesome outlines into stronger relief, they
suddenly perceived what manner of apparition this was that had stolen
up an them out of the darkness. To them the tiger-witch, with its swift,
silent visitations of death, had doubtless long been a dread reality.
The island held but one tiger--and here it was! With frantic outcries
they turned and fled pell-mell down the village street.
This was just what Don desired--what he had calculated upon. Until
the heels of the hindermost had quite disappeared in the darkness, he
sustained his rôle. Thus far the ruse had succeeded admirably. But the
real business of the night had as yet only begun. Shaking the clammy
skin from off his back, he rose to his feet and made a dash for the door
of the nearest hut. Just as he reached it, Puggles, who had watched the
rout of the natives with shaking sides, came trotting up.
“Look alive, Pug!” cried his master, bursting in the frail door with a
crash. “Search the huts on the left, while I take these on the right.
Look alive, I say--they may come back at any minute.”
Puggles needed no urging. He was only too well aware of the danger that
threatened his master and his own precious self should the fugitives
think better of their cowardice and reappear on, the scene. He set to
work with a will.
Into hut after hut they forced their way, peering into every nook and
corner, and calling upon Jack as loudly as they dared; only to receive
for answer the dull echoes of their own shouts. Nowhere was there
any sign of Jack. “Had he been already removed?” Don asked himself
desperately, as he sped from door to door. It almost seemed so; but
while a single hut remained unsearched there was still hope.
Half-a-dozen only were left, when the catastrophe he had all along been
dreading actually occurred. The natives came trooping back. To their
infinite relief, no doubt, the witch-tiger had vanished, and in its
stead appeared two human figures darting from hut to hut. The natives
raised a shout of defiance and pressed forward to the attack, catching
up as weapons whatever came first to hand.
Crossing the street at a bound, Don joined the black boy, just as the
latter emerged from the doorway of a hut, and thrust into his hands one
of two pistols with which he had come provided. Backing against the door
of the hut, with pistols drawn they awaited the attack. It began with
a rattling volley of missiles, but the low, projecting thatch of the
native dwelling, jutting out as it did several feet from the wall,
served to somewhat break the force of the stony hail.
“Don't fire till I give the word,” said Don between his teeth. “We can't
afford to waste a shot. The beggars are drawing their knives.”
The words had barely left his lips when, with a shout and a disorderly
rush, the crowd broke for the spot where they stood.
“Ready, Pug. Fire!”
Simultaneously with the sharp crack of the pistols, there leapt skyward
from mid-street a sudden, blinding flash of lurid light, accompanied by
dense volumes of sulphurous smoke, and a thunderous shock that shook
the walls of the huts to their foundations. Don and his companion were
dashed violently through the door against which they stood, and hurled
upon the floor within. A thick shower of sand and stones rattled about
and upon them. But of this fact they were unconscious. The shock had
stunned them.
When Don came to himself he found Puggles seated on the ground by his
side, blubbering dismally.
Not only was the roof ablaze, but showers of glowing sparks fell thickly
upon them. The floor of the hut was a bed of fire, the heat intolerable.
Puggs, dazed “by the recent shock, and stupefied with fright, seemed to
comprehend not a word that was said to him. Don accordingly seized him
by the arm and dragged him into the street.
“What's the matter? Where are the natives?” he demanded, struggling to
his feet, and scanning the interior of the hut with bewildered eyes.
“Hullo, the roof's on fire!”
[Illustration: 0143]
Here the scene was appalling indeed. How long he had lain insensible he
could not tell; but the time thus spent upon the floor of the hut must
have been considerable, for from end to end the double line of thatched
dwellings was wrapped in flames that shot high into the inky air, and
there united in one roaring, swirling canopy of fire above the narrow
thoroughfare. As if to render the spectacle more awful, here and there
lay stretched upon the ground the mangled, blackened body of a native.
Through one of these a sharp splinter of wood had been driven. Don
examined it curiously. Then--he had been too dazed to realise it
before--the truth flashed upon him. The keg of powder had exploded!
Whilst crossing the street to Pug's side he had noticed, he remembered
now, that the head, of the keg was stove in. It then lay close beside
the fire, within a few feet of the scene of the attack. It was not there
now, but in its stead was a shallow, blackened cavity. That told the
whole story of the explosion. A handful of powder carelessly scattered,
a wisp of straw kicked into the fire amid the rush of feet, a chance
spark even, and---------
“Sa'b, sa'b, the huts done tumble in!”
Puggles was tugging at his sleeve, and pointing fearfully down the
street. For an instant Don gazed into the black boy's face blankly, not
grasping the import of his words. Then, like a repetition of that lurid
flash of light which had burnt itself into his very brain, came the
recollection of Jack.
The sudden return of the natives had left but half-a-dozen huts
unsearched. These were situated at the extreme end of the street--the
end opposite to that from which Don and Puggles had approached the
village. Towards these the former now ran, only to discover, to his
consternation, that the fire was before him. For in this direction the
wind blew, and the unsearched huts, like the rest, were a seething mass
of flames. Of all save one the roofs had already given way, while at the
very moment he ran up that also crashed in.
As the blood-red flames shot skyward, an agonised, inarticulate shriek
rose from within the glowing walls.
Was it Jack?
Shielding his face with his hands, Don attempted to force an entrance,
but the heat of the furnace-like doorway drove him back. In frantic
accents he called his chum by name--called again and again--to be
answered only by the hissing of the pitiless flame-tongues that licked
the black heavens.
Was it Jack? Had the natives who escaped--if, indeed, any did--the
deadly effects of the explosion, carried him with them in their flight
from the burning village, or had he been mercilessly abandoned to a
fiery grave within his prison walls?
It was a terrible question; but not that night, nor for many nights to
come, was he to know whether those unnumbered moments of unconsciousness
had consigned his chum to continued captivity or to death.
One thing only was certain: their mission to the village had reached
a disastrous climax. To remain longer where they were was useless; to
follow the trail of the natives who had escaped, impossible. No course
was left but immediate return to the camp.
Weary, dejected, with aching bodies and aching hearts--for even
light-hearted Puggles, heathen though he was, felt crushed by their sad
misadventure--they sought the spot where, the axe and lantern had been
left, and then set their blackened faces towards the hill.
By this time the moon had risen, making the task of finding the footpath
an easy one. Just as they turned their backs upon the beach and the
burning village, out upon the tense stillness of the night--a stillness
softened rather than broken by the music of the surf--from the shadowy
hill above rang the sharp report of a gun.
“Something wrong up there, I'm afraid,” said Don, rousing himself and
pausing to listen. “Hullo!” as a second report broke the stillness,
“there goes another! Come, Pug, we must pull ourselves together a bit
and get over the ground faster. The captain's not a man to waste powder;
those reports mean danger.”
“Him maybe another lubberly warmint shooting, sa'b,” Pug suggested.
“Unless I'm very much mistaken, there's something a jolly sight worse
afoot,” was his master's uneasy rejoinder as they began the ascent.
Here and there upon the hillside were spots where the rains of many
summers had so washed away the thin surface-soil as to lay bare the rock
beneath and leave little or no roothold for vegetation. As he paused for
a brief breathing space in one of these clearings, Don's attention was
drawn to a dull red glare, which, though but a short distance in advance
of the spot where he stood, had up to that moment been quite concealed
by the intervening jungle.
“Say, Pug, what do you make of that light?”
The black boy knuckled his eyes vigorously, as if to assure himself they
were playing him no trick.
“Me linking there one fire got, sa'b,” said he, after a long look at the
mysterious light.
“In that case we'd better stir our stumps. The breeze seems to be
freshening, and once the fire gets a hold on this tindery jungle, why,
there's no knowing----”
“There another got, sa'b!” broke in Puggles, pointing excitedly to the
right.
“Phew! And, by Jove, there's a third beyond that again! And the wind's
blowing straight for the camp, too! Now I understand why the captain
fired those shots! The hill's on fire! Point, Pug!”
Up the hillside they bounded, panting, stumbling. There was light enough
now and to spare, for the fire towards which they were advancing had
made more headway than at first sight appeared. The wonder was that they
had not observed it sooner; but this perhaps was sufficiently accounted
for by the fact that the thoughts of both had lagged behind in the
burning village.
The point of danger was soon reached. The fire had not yet crossed the
path, but only a few yards of tindery underbrush separated the swaying
wall of flame-shot smoke from the narrow trail, while every instant the
margin grew perceptibly less.
“Now for it, Pug!”
Don raced past with head lowered, the greedy flames licking his face.
Half-blinded, he stumbled on for a dozen yards or so before turning
to ascertain how Puggles had stood the ordeal. To his horror he then
discovered that the fire had swallowed up the pathway at a single bound,
and that Puggles was nowhere to be seen.