The sun shining on his upturned face awakened Lafayette Smith. At
first he had difficulty in collecting his thoughts. The events of the
previous night appeared as a dream, but when he sat up and discovered
the figures of the sleeping girls a short distance from him his mind
was jerked rudely back into the world of realities. His heart sank. How
was he to acquit himself creditably of such a responsibility? Frankly,
he did not know.
He had no doubt but that he could find the fissure and lead his
charges to the outer world, but how much better off would they be
then? He had no idea now, and he realized that he never had, where his
camp lay. Then there was the possibility of meeting the lion again
in the fissure, and if they did not there was still the question of
sustenance. What were they going to use for food, and how were they
going to get it?
The thought of food awoke a gnawing hunger within him. He arose and
walked to the shore of the lake where he lay on his belly and filled
himself with water. When he stood up the girls were sitting up looking
at him.
"Good morning," he greeted them. "I was just having breakfast. Will you
join me?"
They returned his salutation as they arose and came toward him. Lady
Barbara was smiling. "Thank the lord, you have a sense of humor," she
said. "I think we are going to need a lot of it before we get out of
this."
"I would much prefer ham and eggs," he replied ruefully.
"Now I know you're an American," she said.
"I suppose you are thinking of tea and marmalade," he rejoined.
"I am trying not to think of food at all," she replied.
"Have some lake," he suggested. "You have no idea how satisfying it is
if you take enough of it."
After the girls had drunk the three set off again, led by Smith, in
search of the opening to the fissure. "I know just where it is," he had
assured them the night before, and even now he thought that he would
have little difficulty in finding it, but when they approached the base
of the cliff at the point where he had expected to find it it was not
there.
Along the foot of the beetling escarpment he searched, almost
frantically now, but there was no sign of the opening through which he
had crawled into the valley of the land of Midian. Finally, crushed, he
faced Lady Barbara. "I cannot find it," he admitted, and there was a
quality of hopelessness in his voice that touched her.
"Never mind," she said. "It must be somewhere. We shall just have to
keep searching until we find it."
"But it's so hard on you young ladies," he said. "It must be a bitter
disappointment to you. You don't know how it makes me feel to realize
that, with no one to depend on but me, I have failed you so miserably."
"Don't take it that way, please," she begged. "Anyone might have
lost his bearings in this hole. These cliffs scarcely change their
appearance in miles."
"It's kind of you to say that, but I cannot help but feel guilty. Yet
I know the opening cannot be far from here. I came in on the west side
of the valley, and that is where we are now. Yes, I'm sure I must find
it eventually; but there is no need for all of us to search. You and
Jezebel sit down here and wait while I look for it."
"I think we should remain together," suggested Jezebel.
"By all means," agreed Lady Barbara.
"As you wish," said Smith. "We will search toward the north as far as
it is possible that the opening can lie. If we don't find it we can
come back here and search toward the south."
As they moved along the base of the cliff in a northerly direction
Smith became more and more convinced that he was about to discover
the entrance to the fissure. He thought that he discerned something
familiar in the outlook across the valley from this location, but still
no opening revealed itself after they had gone a considerable distance.
Presently, as they climbed the rise and gained the summit of one of the
numerous low ridges that ran, buttress-like, from the face of the cliff
down into the valley, he halted in discouragement.
"What is it?" asked Jezebel.
"That forest," he replied. "There was no forest in sight of the
opening."
Before them spread an open forest of small trees that grew almost to
the foot of the cliffs and stretched downward to the shore of the lake,
forming a landscape of exceptional beauty in its park-like aspect. But
Lafayette Smith saw no beauty there--he saw only another proof of his
inefficiency and ignorance.
"You came through no forest on your way from the cliffs to the
village?" demanded Lady Barbara.
He shook his head. "We've got to walk all the way back now," he said,
"and search in the other direction. It is most disheartening. I wonder
if you can forgive me."
"Don't be silly," said Lady Barbara. "One might think that you were
a Cook's Tour courier who had got lost during a personally conducted
tour of the art galleries of Paris and expected to lose his job in
consequence."
"I feel worse than that," Smith admitted with a laugh, "and I imagine
that's saying a lot."
"Look!" exclaimed Lady Barbara. "There are animals of some sort down
there in the forest. Don't you see them?"
"Oh, yes," cried Jezebel, "I see them."
"What are they?" asked Smith. "They look like deer."
"They are goats," said Jezebel. "The North Midians have goats. They
roam over this end of the valley."
"They look like something to eat, to me," said Lady Barbara. "Let's go
down and get one of them."
"They will probably not let us catch them," suggested Lafayette.
"You've a pistol," the English girl reminded him.
"That's a fact," he agreed. "I can shoot one."
"Maybe," qualified Lady Barbara.
"I'd better go down alone," said Smith. "Three of us together might
frighten them."
"You'll have to be mighty careful or you'll frighten them yourself,"
warned Lady Barbara. "Have you ever stalked game?"
"No," admitted the American, "I never have."
Lady Barbara moistened a finger and held it up. "The wind is right,"
she announced. "So all you have to do is keep out of sight and make no
noise."
"How am I going to keep out of sight?" demanded Smith.
"You'll have to crawl down to them, taking advantage of trees, rocks
and bushes--anything that will conceal you. Crawl forward a few feet
and then stop, if they show any sign of nervousness, until they appear
unconcerned again."
"That will take a long time," said Smith.
"It may be a long time before we find anything else to eat," she
reminded him, "and nothing we do find is going to walk up to us and lie
down and die at our feet."
"I suppose you are right," assented Smith. "Here goes! Pray for me."
He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled slowly forward over the
rough ground in the direction of the forest and the goats. After a few
yards he turned and whispered: "This is going to be tough on the knees."
"Not half as hard as it's going to be on our stomachs if you don't
succeed," replied Lady Barbara.
Smith made a wry face and resumed his crawling while the two girls,
laying flat now to conceal themselves from the quarry, watched his
progress.
"He's not doing half badly," commented Lady Barbara after several
minutes of silent watching.
"How beautiful he is," sighed Jezebel.
"Just at present the most beautiful things in the landscape are those
goats," said Lady Barbara. "If he gets close enough for a shot and
misses I shall die--and I know he will miss."
"He didn't miss Lamech last night," Jezebel reminded her.
"He must have been aiming at someone else," commented Lady Barbara
shortly.
Lafayette Smith crawled on apace. With numerous halts, as advised
by Lady Barbara, he drew slowly nearer his unsuspecting quarry. The
minutes seemed hours. Pounding constantly upon his brain was the
consciousness that he must not fail, though not for the reason that
one might naturally assume. The failure to procure food seemed a less
dreadful consequence than the contempt of Lady Barbara Collis.
Now, at last, he was quite close to the nearest of the herd. Just a
few more yards and he was positive that he could not miss. A low bush,
growing just ahead of him, concealed his approach from the eyes of his
victim. Lafayette Smith reached the bush and paused behind it. A little
farther ahead he discovered another shrub still closer to the goat, a
thin nanny with a large udder. She did not look very appetizing, but
beneath that unprepossessing exterior Lafayette Smith knew there must
be hidden juicy steaks and cutlets. He crawled on. His knees were raw
and his neck ached from the unnatural position his unfamiliar method of
locomotion had compelled it to assume.
He passed the bush behind which he had paused, failing to see the kid
lying hidden upon its opposite side--hidden by a solicitous mamma while
she fed. The kid saw Lafayette but it did not move. It would not move
until its mother called it, unless actually touched by something, or
terrified beyond the limit of its self-control.
It watched Lafayette crawling toward the next bush upon his
itinerary--the next and last. What it thought is unrecorded, but it is
doubtful that it was impressed by Lafayette's beauty.
Now the man had reached the concealment of the last bush, unseen by
any other eyes than those of the kid. He drew his pistol cautiously,
lest the slightest noise alarm his potential dinner. Raising himself
slightly until his eyes were above the level of the bush he took
careful aim. The goat was so close that a miss appeared such a remote
contingency as to be of negligible consideration.
Lafayette already felt the stirring warmth of pride with which he would
toss the carcass of his kill at the feet of Lady Barbara and Jezebel.
Then he jerked the trigger.
Nanny leaped straight up into the air, and when she hit the ground
again she was already streaking north in company with the balance of
the herd. Lafayette Smith had missed again.
He had scarcely time to realize the astounding and humiliating fact as
he rose to his feet when something struck him suddenly and heavily from
behind--a blow that bent his knees beneath him and brought him heavily
to earth in a sitting posture. No, not to earth. He was sitting on
something soft that wriggled and squirmed. His startled eyes, glancing
down, saw the head of a kid protruding from between his legs--little
Capra hircus had been terrified beyond the limit of his self-control.
"Missed!" cried Lady Barbara Collis. "How could he!" Tears of
disappointment welled to her eyes.
Eshbaal, hunting his goats at the northern fringe of the forest cocked
his ears and listened. That unfamiliar sound! And so near. From far
across the valley, toward the village of the South Midians, Eshbaal had
heard a similar sound, though faintly from afar, the night before. Four
times it had broken the silence of the valley and no more. Eshbaal had
heard it and so had his fellows in the village of Elija, the son of
Noah.
Lafayette Smith seized the kid before it could wriggle free, and
despite its struggles he slung it across his shoulder and started back
toward the waiting girls. "He didn't miss it!" exclaimed Jezebel. "I
knew he wouldn't," and she went down to meet him, with Lady Barbara,
perplexed, following in her wake.
"Splendid!" cried the English girl as they came closer. "You really did
shoot one, didn't you? I was sure you missed."
"I did miss," admitted Lafayette ruefully.
"But how did you get it?"
"If I must admit it," explained the man, "I sat on it. As a matter of
fact it got me."
"Well, anyway, you have it," she said.
"And it will be a whole lot better eating than the one I missed," he
assured them. "That one was terribly thin and very old."
"How cute it is," said Jezebel.
"Don't," cried Lady Barbara. "We mustn't think of that. Just remember
that we are starving."
"Where shall we eat it?" asked Smith.
"Right here," replied the English girl. "There is plenty of deadwood
around these trees. Have you matches?"
"Yes. Now you two look the other way while I do my duty. I wish I'd hit
the old one now. This is like murdering a baby."
Upon the opposite side of the forest Eshbaal was once again
experiencing surprise, for suddenly the goats for which he had been
searching came stampeding toward him.
"The strange noise frightened them," soliloquized Eshbaal. "Perhaps it
is a miracle. The goats for which I have searched all day have been
made to return unto me."
As they dashed past, the trained eye of the shepherd took note of
them. There were not many goats in the bunch that had strayed, so he
had no difficulty in counting them. A kid was missing. Being a shepherd
there was nothing for Eshbaal to do but set forth in search of the
missing one. He advanced cautiously, alert because of the noise that he
had heard.
Eshbaal was a short, stocky man with blue eyes and a wealth of blond
hair and beard. His features were regular and handsome in a primitive,
savage way. His single garment, fashioned from a goat skin, left his
right arm entirely free, nor did it impede his legs, since it fell not
to his knees. He carried a club and a rude knife.
Lady Barbara took charge of the culinary activities after Lafayette
had butchered the kid and admitted that, beyond hard boiling eggs, his
knowledge of cooking was too sketchy to warrant serious mention. "And
anyway," he said, "we haven't any eggs."
Following the directions of the English girl, Smith cut a number of
chops from the carcass; and these the three grilled on pointed sticks
that Lady Barbara had had him cut from a nearby tree.
"How long will it take to cook them?" demanded Smith. "I could eat mine
raw. I could eat the whole kid raw, for that matter, in one sitting and
have room left for the old nanny I missed."
"We'll eat only enough to keep us going," said Lady Barbara; "then
we'll wrap the rest in the skin and take it with us. If we're careful,
this should keep us alive for three or four days."
"Of course you're right," admitted Lafayette. "You always are."
"You can have a big meal this time," she told him, "because you've been
longer without food than we."
"You have had nothing for a long time, Barbara," said Jezebel. "I am
the one who needs the least."
"We all need it now," said Lafayette. "Let's have a good meal this
time, get back our strength, and then ration the balance so that it
will last several days. Maybe I will sit on something else before this
is gone."
They all laughed; and presently the chops were done, and the three fell
to upon them. "Like starving Armenians," was the simile Smith suggested.
Occupied with the delightful business of appeasing wolfish hunger, none
of them saw Eshbaal halt behind a tree and observe them. Jezebel he
recognized for what she was, and a sudden fire lighted his blue eyes.
The others were enigmas to him--especially their strange apparel.
Of one thing Eshbaal was convinced. He had found his lost kid and there
was wrath in his heart. For just a moment he watched the three; then he
glided back into the forest until he was out of their sight, when he
broke into a run.
The meal finished, Smith wrapped the remainder of the carcass in the
skin of the kid; and the three again took up their search for the
fissure.
An hour passed and then another. Still their efforts were not crowned
with success. They saw no opening in the stern, forbidding face of the
escarpment, nor did they see the slinking figures creeping steadily
nearer and nearer--a score of stocky, yellow haired men led by Eshbaal,
the Shepherd.
"We must have passed it," said Smith at last. "It just cannot be this
far south," yet only a hundred yards farther on lay the illusive
opening into the great fissure.
"We shall have to hunt for some other way out of the valley then," said
Lady Barbara. "There is a place farther south that Jezebel and I used
to see from the mouth of our cave where the cliff looked as though it
might be scaled."
"Let's have a try at it then," said Smith. "Say, look there!" he
pointed toward the north.
"What is it? Where?" demanded Jezebel.
"I thought I saw a man's head behind that rock," said Smith. "Yes,
there he is again. Lord, look at 'em. They're all around."
Eshbaal and his fellows, realizing that they were discovered, came into
the open, advancing slowly toward the three.
"The men of North Midian!" exclaimed Jezebel. "Are they not beautiful!"
"What shall we do?" demanded Lady Barbara. "We must not let them take
us."
"We'll see what they want," said Smith. "They may not be unfriendly.
Anyway, we couldn't escape them by running. They would overtake us in
no time. Get behind me, and if they show any signs of attacking I'll
shoot a few of them."
"Perhaps you had better go out and sit on them," suggested Lady
Barbara, wearily.
"I am sorry," said Smith, "that my marksmanship is so poor; but,
unfortunately perhaps, it never occurred to my parents to train me in
the gentle art of murder. I realize now that they erred and that my
education has been sadly neglected. I am only a school teacher, and in
teaching the young intellect to shoot I have failed to learn to do so
myself."
"I didn't intend to be nasty," said Lady Barbara, who detected in the
irony of the man's reply a suggestion of wounded pride. "Please forgive
me."
The North Midians were advancing cautiously, halting occasionally for
brief, whispered conferences. Presently one of them spoke, addressing
the three. "Who are you?" he demanded. "What do you in the land of
Midian?"
"Can you understand him?" asked Smith, over his shoulder.
"Yes," replied both girls simultaneously.
"He speaks the same language as Jezebel's people," explained Lady
Barbara. "He wants to know who we are and what we are doing here."
"You talk to him, Lady Barbara," said Smith.
The English girl stepped forward. "We are strangers in Midian," she
said. "We are lost. All we wish is to get out of your country."
"There is no way out of Midian," replied the man. "You have killed a
kid belonging to Eshbaal. For that you must be punished. You must come
with us."
"We were starving," explained Lady Barbara. "If we could pay for the
kid we would gladly do so. Let us go in peace."
The Midians held another whispered conference, after which their
spokesman addressed the three again. "You must come with us," he said,
"the women at least. If the man will go away we will not harm you, we
do not want him; we want the women."
"What did he say?" demanded Smith, and when Lady Barbara had
interpreted he shook his head. "Tell them no," he directed. "Also tell
them that if they molest us I shall have to kill them."
When the girls delivered this ultimatum to the Midians they laughed.
"What can one man do against twenty?" demanded their leader, then he
advanced followed by his retainers. They were brandishing their clubs
now, and some of them raised their voices in a savage war cry.
"You will have to shoot," said Lady Barbara. "There are at least
twenty. You cannot miss them all."
"You flatter me," said Smith, as he raised his .32 and levelled it at
the advancing Midians.
"Go back!" shouted Jezebel, "or you will be killed," but the attackers
only came forward the faster.
Then Smith fired. At the sharp crack of the pistol the Midians halted,
surprised; but no one fell. Instead, the leader hurled his club,
quickly and accurately, just as Smith was about to fire again. He
dodged; but the missile struck his pistol hand a glancing blow, sending
the weapon flying--then the North Midians were upon them.