HE awoke hours after with an inarticulate feeling that someone wanted
him, and started up to the sound of a rifle shot that pierced the
stillness like a crack of thunder. In a second he would have been upon
his feet, but, even as he sprang, something else that was very close at
hand sprang also, and hurled him backwards. He found himself fighting
desperately in the grip of an immense savage, fighting at a hopeless
disadvantage, with the man's knees crushing the breath out of his body,
and the man's hands locked upon his throat.
He struggled fiercely for bare life, but he was powerless to loosen that
awful, merciless pressure. The barbaric face that glared into his own
wore a devilish grin, inexpressibly malignant. It danced before his
starting eyes like some hideous spectre seen in delirium, intermittent,
terrible, with blinding flashes of light breaking between. He felt as if
his head were bursting. The agony of suffocation possessed him to the
exclusion of all else. There came a sudden glaze in his brain that was
like the shattering of every faculty, and then, in a blood-red mist, his
understanding passed.
It seemed to him when the light reeled back again that he had been
unconscious for a very long time. He awoke to excruciating pain, of
which he seemed to have been vaguely aware throughout, and found himself
bound hand and foot and slung across the back of a camel. He dangled
helplessly face downwards, racked by cramp and a fiery torment of thirst
more intolerable than anything he had ever known.
Darkness had fallen, but he caught the gleam of torches, and he knew
that he was surrounded by a considerable body of men. The ground they
travelled was stony and ascended somewhat steeply. Herne swung about
like a bale of goods, torn by his bonds, flung this way and that, and
utterly unable to protect himself in any way, or to ease his position.
He set his teeth to endure the torture, but it was so intense that he
presently fainted again, and only recovered consciousness when the
agonizing progress ceased. He opened his eyes, to find the camel that
had borne him kneeling, and he himself being bundled by two brawny
savages on to the ground. He fell like a log, and so was left. But,
bound though he was, the relief of lying motionless was such that he
presently recovered so far as to be able to look about him.
He discovered that he was lying in what appeared to be a huge
amphitheatre of sand, surrounded by high cliffs, ragged and barren, and
strewn with boulders. Two great fires burned at several yards' distance,
and about these, a number of savages were congregated. From somewhere
behind came the trickle of water, and the sound goaded him to something
that was very nearly approaching madness. He dragged himself up on to
his knees. His thirst was suddenly unendurable.
But the next instant he was flat on his face in the sand, struck down by
a blow on the back of the neck that momentarily stunned him. For a while
he lay prone, gritting the sand in his teeth; then again with the
strength of frenzy he struggled upwards.
He had a glimpse of his guard standing over him, and recognized the
savage who had nearly strangled him, before a second crashing blow
brought him down. He lay still then, overwhelmed in darkness for a long,
long time.
He scarcely knew when he was lifted at last and borne forward into the
great circle of light cast by one of the fires. He felt the glare upon
his eyeballs, but it conveyed nothing to him. Over by the farther fire
some festivity seemed to be in progress. He had a vague vision of
leaping, naked bodies, and the flash of knives. There was a good deal of
shouting also, and now and then a nightmare shriek. And then came the
torment of the fire, great heat enveloping him, thirst that was anguish.
He turned upon his captors, but his mouth was too dry for speech. He
could only glare dumbly into their evil faces, and they glared back at
him in fiendish triumph. Nearer to the red glow they came, nearer yet.
He could hear the crackle of the licking flames. They danced giddily
before his eyes.
Suddenly the arms that bore him swung back. He knew instinctively that
they were preparing to hurl him into the heart of the fire, and the
instinct of self-preservation rushed upon him, stabbing him to vivid
consciousness. With a gigantic effort he writhed himself free from their
hold.
He fell headlong, but the strength of madness had entered into him. He
fought like a man possessed, straining at his bonds till they cracked
and burst, forcing from his parched throat sounds which in saner moments
he would not have recognized as human, struggling, tearing, raging, in
furious self-defence.
He was hopelessly outmatched. The odds were such as no man in his senses
could have hoped to combat with anything approaching success. Almost
before his bonds began to loosen, his enemies were upon him again. They
hoisted him up, fighting like a maniac. They tightened his bonds
unconcernedly, and prepared for a second attempt.
But, before it could be made, a fierce yell rang suddenly from the
cliffs above them, echoing weirdly through the savage pandemonium,
arresting, authoritative, piercingly insistent.
What it portended Herne had not the vaguest notion, but its effect upon
the two Wandis who held him was instant and astounding. They dropped him
like a stone, and fled as if pursued by furies.
As for Herne, he wriggled and writhed from the vicinity of the fire,
still working at his bonds, his one idea to reach the water that he knew
was running within a stone's throw of him. It was an agonizing progress,
but he felt no pain but that awful, consuming thirst, knew no fear but a
ghastly dread that he might fail to reach his goal. For a single
mouthful of water at that moment he would have bartered his very soul.
His breathing came in great gasps. The sweat was running down his face.
His heart beat thickly, spasmodically. His senses were tottering. But he
clung tenaciously to the one idea. He could not die with his thirst
unquenched. If he crawled every inch of the way upon his stomach, he
would somehow reach the haven of his desire.
There came the padding of feet upon the sand close to him, and he cursed
aloud and bitterly. It was death this time, of course. He shut his eyes
and lay motionless, waiting for it. He only hoped that it might be
swift; that the hellish torture he was suffering might be ended at a
blow.
But no blow fell. Hands touched him, severed his bonds, dragged him
roughly up. Then, as he staggered, powerless for the moment to stand, an
arm, hard and fleshless as the arm of a skeleton, caught him and urged
him forward. Irresistibly impelled, he left the glare of the fire, and
stumbled into deep shadow.
Ten seconds later he was on his knees by a natural basin of rock in
which clear water brimmed, plunged up to the elbows, and drinking as
only a man who has known the thirst of the desert can drink.
V
He turned at last from that exquisite draught with the water running
down his face. His Arab dress hung about him in tatters. He was bruised
and bleeding in a dozen places. But the man's heart of him was alive
again and beating strongly. He was ready to sell his life as dearly as
he might.
He looked round for the native who had brought him thither, but it
seemed to him that he was alone, shut away by a frowning pile of rock
from the great amphitheatre in which the Wandis were celebrating their
return from the slaughter of their enemies. The shouting and the
shrieking continued in ghastly tumult, but for the moment he seemed to
be safe.
The moon was up, but the shadows were very deep. He seemed to be
standing in a hollow, with sheer rock on three sides of him. The water
gurgled away down a narrow channel, and fell into darkness. With
infinite caution he crept forward to peer round the jutting boulder that
divided him from his enemies.
The next instant sharply he drew back. A man armed with a long, native
spear was standing in the entrance.
He was still a prisoner, then; that much was certain. But his guard was
single-handed. He began to consider the possibility of overpowering him.
He had no weapon, but he was a practised wrestler; and they were so far
removed from the yelling crowd about the fire that a scuffle in that
dark corner was little likely to attract attention.
It was fairly obvious to him why he had been rescued from the fire.
Doubtless his gigantic struggles had been observed by the onlooker, and
he was considered too good a man to burn. They would keep him for a
slave, possibly mutilate him first.
Again, stealthily, he investigated the position round that corner of
rock. The man's back was turned towards him. He seemed to be watching
the doings of the distant tribesmen. Herne freed himself from his ragged
garment, and crept nearer. His enemy was of no great stature. In fact,
he was the smallest Wandi that he had yet seen. He questioned with
himself if he could be full grown.
Now or never was his chance, though a slender one at that, even if he
escaped immediate detection. He gathered himself together, and sprang
upon his unsuspecting foe.
He aimed at the native weapon, knowing the dexterity with which this
could be shortened and brought into action, but it was wrenched from him
before he could securely grasp it.
The man wriggled round like an eel, and in a moment the point was at his
throat. Herne flung up a defending arm, and took it through his flesh.
He knew in an instant that he was outmatched. His previous struggles had
weakened him, and his adversary, if slight, had the activity of a
serpent.
For a few breathless seconds they swayed and fought, then again Herne
was conscious of that deadly point piercing his shoulder. With a sharp
exclamation, he shifted his ground, trod on a loose stone, and sprawled
headlong backward.
He fell heavily, so heavily that all the breath was knocked out of his
body, and he could only lie, gasping and helpless, expecting death. His
enemy was upon him instantly, and he marvelled at the man's strength.
Sinewy hands encompassed his wrists, forcing his arms above his head. In
the darkness he could not see his face, though it was close to his own,
so close that he could feel his breathing, quick and hard, and knew that
it had been no light matter to master him.
He himself had wholly ceased to fight. He was bleeding freely from the
shoulder, and a dizzy sense of powerlessness held him passive, awaiting
his deathblow.
But still his adversary stayed his hand. The iron grip showed no sign of
relaxing, and to Herne, lying at his mercy, there came a fierce
impatience at the man's delay.
"Curse you!" he flung upwards from between his teeth. "Why can't you
strike and have done?"
His brain had begun to reel. He was scarcely in full possession of his
senses, or he had not wasted his breath in curses upon a savage who was
little likely to understand them. But the moment he had spoken, he knew
in some subtle fashion that his words had not fallen on uncomprehending
ears.
The hands that held him relaxed very gradually. The man above him seemed
to be listening. Herne had a fantastic feeling that he was waiting for
something further, waiting as it were to gather impetus to slay him.
And then, how it happened he had no notion, suddenly he was aware of a
change, felt the danger that menaced him pass, knew a surging darkness
that he took for death; and as his failing senses slid away from him he
thought he heard a voice that spoke his name.