THE CHIEF IS PLEASED
My indignation having produced a wholesome effect, I decided not to be
placated readily by anything, and determined thereafter to maintain a
certain strictness which should compel a greater respect. It is not
entirely a human characteristic for a creature to grow too familiar when
treated with easy-going indulgence, for I have often seen dogs and other
animals impose on good nature with manners almost insolent.
For several days I treated the Links somewhat harshly, requiring much
work on the boat and on more of the arrows. I encouraged also a species
of fear which I found my conduct had created. It was high time, I knew,
to dominate the creatures, unless I was willing that they should
dominate me.
They were quick to see that I rarely even threatened physical violence,
however, and this soon tended to give them a confidence about
approaching my “sacred” person. I had been in hopes that my gruffness
and show of impatience had so discouraged the albino female that she
would keep her distance, for she did exhibit a becoming timidity for a
time, but this gradually wore away. I was exceedingly annoyed to
observe, not only that her disquieting symptoms were returning, but also
that she manifested greater ardour than ever before. My efforts to
appear disagreeable were producing an effect exactly the opposite of
what I desired.
That trouble would be brewed again I felt was inevitable. The chief had
somewhat manifested a spirit of doubt and alarm, in common with the
others, when he found me aroused, but this he was daily attempting to
overcome. I could see that the fire of jealousy, especially in regard to
the manœuvres of his fickle and silly mate was getting more assertive.
It could only be a matter of time till his animal-rage would burst all
bounds, and then—one or the other of us would get hurt, for I had early
decided that my life was quite as important as his, and I therefore
watched him narrowly, always.
The work on the boat and weapons was progressing, but I was all
impatience to make things ready for my contemplated flight. In the midst
of this state of affairs, the albino increased her advances, by bolder
demonstrations. Exasperated beyond endurance, I seemed powerless to
perform anything which should end the matter decisively. Upon coming
from my shelter, one morning, after having been to the spring, I saw her
down the hill, adoring my tracks.
She was on “all fours,” worshipping, by placing her forehead on the
ground where I had stepped, just as Reds and Blacks had done to the
tracks of the bear. She was obviously in a state of ecstasy which was
most insane. She had never before proceeded so far as this, to my
knowledge. It made me boil with wrath. I should have liked to box her
ears smartly. How alert and “secret” she was in her unseemly behaviour
was demonstrated by the activity with which she made off when her chief
appeared around the slope.
Two days later I was exceptionally provoked to find this female within a
rod of my dug-out, indulging in more of this madness. Moreover she was
being observed by the angry chief, although I was not aware of this at
the moment. So disgusted and desperate did I feel that I stepped quickly
to a rock, whereon my tortoise basin was standing, filled with water in
which I had washed, and grabbing it up I jumped toward her and dashed
the contents all over her head and body, while she was still upon the
ground, adoring.
She was simply wild. A wet cat could not begin to be half so surprised,
indignant and outraged as her ladyship became, instantly. She leaped to
her feet, gasping, dripping, shuddering at the contact of all that
water, her mouth wide open, her eyes afire with the light of sudden
hatred and fury. Not even a “woman scorned” could have been so ready to
shred my flesh from my bones. I thought for a second she would fly at my
throat, in her passion, and gouge out my eyes, but the fiendish laughter
of the chief and of ten or a dozen other females—who, of course, had
seen the whole performance—turned her attention. This derision, however,
made her face the more diabolical in its expressions of wrath.
Fortunately what the lady said to myself was wholly unintelligible, for
I had mastered hardly as much as twenty of their “words” at the time.
But I was left no room for doubt that the language was as “burning” as
it was impetuous. I laughed with the others; indeed the whole thing
struck me as being so comical that I was fairly doubled over with
unrestrained merriment. This acted like oil on a blazing fire, and being
no longer able to control herself at all, the drenched female dashed
madly off to the edge of the woods, to vent her rage as best she could.
The chief was immensely pleased.
In the immunity from the female’s attentions and the consequent jealousy
of her mate which I now enjoyed, I drove the work with hearty zest. The
boat was all but finished, yet it needed digging out at least two inches
more, and this I felt to be important, knowing how heavy was the log of
which it was made. I had even fashioned a pair of oars, the blades of
which were firmly lashed to the handles, but by then our tools of flint
were almost entirely useless. Many had been lost and all had been more
or less broken. The work actually ceased for lack of these necessary
implements.
I set my fellows to digging up the ground, in the hope of unearthing
more of the pebbles which furnished the flint. In the forest, where the
soil was damp, we found a white, efflorescent substance in great
abundance, near the surface. This, from its peculiar taste and general
appearance, I knew to be common saltpetre, doubtless of value to the
commercial world, but of no account to me when I wanted flint. We tried
the hillsides and various localities, but not one of the precious
chalcedony pebbles could we find.
The suggestion occurred to me at once that we could go to the old camp
and dig all we needed, but this presented difficulties which aroused my
impatience. I desired to get away before additional complications could
arise. As a matter of fact, I was watching Grin very closely for
evidence of further duplicity, which I thoroughly expected to detect,
soon or late. If once I could find the outlet of the lake, I thought, I
would say good-bye to these half-animal beings without the slightest
pang of regret, for they grated on me daily, more and more.
I determined to launch the boat as it was and begin my explorations.
This work we undertook one sultry morning. The clay which I had
plastered over the surface of the wood, where I had wished to protect it
from the fire, was baked hard. We broke it away in pieces, and when it
was off and the boat turned bottom downwards, I felt exceedingly proud
of the work and gratified to find the craft in much better shape than I
had thought to be possible.
It was placed on the rollers, after no little amount of pulling and
hauling, and we were all engrossed with the preparations to shove her
across the intervening beach to the water, when without the slightest
warning there was a sudden rush and yelling about us, and we were almost
instantly surrounded by a force of the savage black Links from the
jungle.