THE BAMBOO BOMBS
In my haste to reach the clearing before that electrifying tom-tom
melody should cease, I took no account of the distance between the edge
of the wood and the place where I had halted. It was not so far as I had
feared, however, though it was further than I had any business to have
been away from home.
Upon coming to the slope, I got upon my hands and knees to crawl, for my
ankle required rest. The fires were burning brightly in our village, but
the mist was still weaving thickly about the summit.
When I turned up again among my fellows, like the penny which cannot be
lost, they were nearly knocked dumb with astonishment. Hungry, disgusted
and weary, I limped off to bed as soon as I had indicated the need of
sentries throughout the night. Such a war as this made me snort with
contempt.
Sometime during the night the fog disappeared, as mysteriously as it had
come. I had rested badly, having been kept awake by the pain in my foot,
so that I arose before morning and sat by the fire. There, after bathing
the ankle in water from the spring of brine, I bound it up with strips
of squirrel skin, fastened on with cord made of divided creepers. This
treatment gave me much relief. The only luck I had in the accident was
that the sprain was not so serious as my facial contortions (when alone)
might have indicated to a keen observer.
The morning broke clear as glass; one could feel that the day meant to
be hot before it finished. In our settlement we were all somewhat cross,
from lack of food, myself in particular, because this game of starving
us out seemed so nonsensical, and also because my relief expedition had
fizzled out to such a miserable end. I began to be anxious to try
results with our cunning besiegers. If they delayed the fight for the
day again, I meant to carry the issue into their own headquarters, for
we had to eat!
Thinking I might enrage them to the point of starting the battle, I
carried the gold-nugget club from my shelter and planted it, nugget end
uppermost, on our ramparts, directly in line with their camp and the
mine of bombs below. Then I induced old Fatty to beat the drum, while I
got up on top of the wall and paraded, somewhat after the top-loftical
style of the American Indians, beating my breast with my fist, shouting
derisively and pointing with maniacal glee to the gleaming club which we
had taken, as a token of victory worthily won.
This bit of vanity produced an immediate effect, for a score of the
fellows down in the trees appeared from the cover, sufficiently furious
to suit the most exacting mind. They screamed shrilly to express their
wrath, they beat the unoffending earth with their clubs, and they danced
about as if the soil were hot. Nevertheless they advanced hardly as much
as a stone-toss up the slope, being evidently under some powerful
restraint. I executed the most aggravating evolutions, limping about on
the wall, but to no apparent purpose. What was the game which the
creatures played with such assurance that they could wait with this
remarkable patience? I was angry to think they would not attack; I was
annoyed to be obliged to admit that their warfare threatened to be
subtle and effective. I hated to be starved into retreat, which would
certainly be disastrous, or into a charge, down hill, against an ambush,
which charge would doubtless prove to be an insupportable calamity.
“Come up, you cowards!” I bawled in a sneering tone of voice. “Lay on,
you black McDuffers—we can wipe you off the map!”
My only answer was an echo of the cries I had heard the morning before,
away in the jungle. This puzzled me again; it made me impatient. My
Links had surged about me, wrought to a fine frenzy of excitement, eager
to eat up the whole nation of Blacks—as splendid a pack of starving
wolves as one could find. They also heard the cries, where the enemy
appeared to be scouring through the forest, and I noted that many grew
silent and worried. They reminded me of animals which have an instinct
that warns them against the dangers which a human being cannot see nor
feel.
The chief stood a little away, aloof from the others, leaning as ever on
his club. What a brilliant, coruscating spot was made by the great,
deadly crystal which he wielded so terribly in the fight! His mate, the
indignant albino, stood beside him, eyeing myself with scorn and hatred.
Her round, pink eyes were as nervous as quicksilver; her whole demeanour
expressed the jealousy she nourished against me for pushing aside the
chief, and the undisguised desire she felt to avenge herself for my
former repudiation of her serene regard.
I gave her only a glance, and to the chief a nod of recognition. Below
me little Tike was looking up in my face; near him old Fatty was
standing, his quick, bright eyes upon me, his arms akimbo and the
battered old skull on his head pushed aside, revealing hairless spots
where, by rubbing, it had worn the growth off his leather-covered pate.
“Animals or primitive men—what are you all?” I muttered, and I shook my
head and gave it up.
Again came the concerted cries from the jungle. They were nearer; there
seemed to be a great commotion, not far from the edge of the trees, and
this appeared to increase with every second. I saw several of my fellows
begin to edge away, as if to make a run to a place of safety from a foe
most dread. All the Links were making uneasy sounds, comparable only to
the whimpering of a frightened dog.
“Here—come back here. Brace up, you fellows!” I cried to stop the
incipient panic. “Pigs coming—pigs to shoot—pigs to kill!”
I raised my bow and notched an arrow on the string. I jumped down and
stirred up the fire which must furnish me a brand for the fuses. Then
again I got on the wall and shouted our defiance to all the jungle-world
about us. Old Fatty began to beat the drum like a fury.
My warriors were inflamed; they crowded forward to see what was
happening below. By this the cries of the enemy had become shrieks as of
madness. We saw fifty of the Blacks burst quickly from cover, run to
right and left and dash back in the woods, as if to flank an approaching
cavalcade. To my amazement I saw among the fellows the traitor
Grin—miserable coward! The Links observed him, too, and they chattered
their rage and their Link maledictions on his head.
Once more I got down, this time to arm myself with a glowing brand from
the flames. With this I shook out our only banner—a banner of smoke.
Suddenly the screen of trees, vines and creepers, seemed to bulge toward
us, then to break. Two massive dark chunks of the jungle appeared to be
bursting through. Then I saw what they were and realised what the cries
had meant, what the plan of the Blacks had been from the first—and what
a diabolical and clever scheme it was.
Two trumpeting elephants, goaded and maddened, smashed ponderously out
of the jungle and headed up the hill—surrounded and driven toward us by
hundreds of the yelling, dancing devils, with Grin in their midst, all
of them incredibly nimble, daring and wrought up to force their
irresistible allies over and through us.
The Links behind me, terrified beyond all control, were too stricken
with panic to know what to do. They fell headlong over and upon each
other; they ran in every direction. Females and children cried out in
fear; chief, fighters, all were seized in the maelstrom of fright, and
all went dashing away. Already we were as good as routed. Flight to the
jungle would mean separation, death of all who were lost and murder of
all who were overtaken by the terrible Blacks.
Confused for a moment, I attempted to call them back, to restore the
order. This was worse than useless.
The elephants came unwillingly up the hill; the din of voices and
trumpeting was appalling to hear. I jumped from my place, unconscious of
my wounded foot and dashed down the hill as if to meet this oncoming
tumult of death alone—racing toward my fuses. I had dropped my bow. My
only weapon was the smoking brand of fire.
Shrieks from the Reds, who could not but see me, and screams of delight
from the enemy, greeted the sight of a single crazy man, running down to
the jaws of this living Juggernaut from the wilds.
I reached my goal, I fell to my knees and fumbled the matches. The
monstrous battalion was nearly half way up to the trench of bombs. My
fuses failed to ignite. In desperation I broke off the ends and bore
them down upon my living coal. My thumb was burned, but I felt nothing.
A fierce hiss from the powder electrified my every fibre. I leaped to my
feet and darted part way back to the wall.
“Man,” came the cry of a sweet small voice.
Turning, I saw that my little Tike had followed me down the slope to the
fuses. There he sat beside them—and the serpents of igniting powder were
racing down to the mines, and the thundering horde of foes was racing
upward, toward the little chap and me. Insanely I ran with all my might
to rescue my only loyal Link—the baby who sat in the sunlight.
How far away he was! What a time it seemed to take me to reach him! The
elephants—how near and awful they looked! I could see their
white-showing eyes. The monsters began to gallop upward, mad to wreak
vengeance on something, for that goading behind their backs. The yells
became a din. Already the brutes must be past my trench. It would
fail—it would kill little Tike and myself—anything but the terrible
creatures pounding the earth as they came upon us!
I snatched the little fellow up and ran desperately away. Would nothing
ever happen? I fell—the ankle had gone at the critical moment. I rolled
and saw the dread spectacle crowding up and up the sun-lit hill.
Then the earth was rent wide open—great castles of earth and elephants
rose toppling in the air, along with a glare of red-and-yellow flames
and a mighty volcano of smoke. The world belched forth a detonation like
the crack of doom.
Another and yet another fearful fan of fire leaped exultantly upward,
hurling Blacks and fragments of Blacks, and soil and rock that blew
through the bellies of the elephants and shot away in every direction
toward the tranquil sky.
I was deaf with the mighty roar and concussion. From the air the debris
came raining down. The smoke seemed a fountain of enveloping fog.
Shrieks—now of terror and dreadful pain—stabbed through the confusion.
Then a rock whirred down so close to my head that it puffed me with its
cushion of air. I heard a sound and looked for little Tike, whom I had
permitted to slip to the ground as I fell.
He was there beside me, his steady, wistful eyes looking up in my face,
his poor little legs fairly crushed into the earth, beneath that
fragment of adamant, torn from its bed and hurled upon him.
I was over him instantly heaving away the hunk of stone. But I did not
attempt to lift the little mangled body. I saw he was numbed by the
shock; I knew he was dying. He lay there and smiled, as I bent above his
tiny form. He made no motion with hand or head, but when I placed my
finger in his wee palm, he closed his baby-like grip upon it and gave me
the fondest look I have ever beheld.
The Blacks could have swooped upon me, the earth could have quivered
with agony and death, but I should have known nothing of it all, nor
have cared. All the pangs of wrenched affection darted through my
breast. I was smitten dumb to see that human look of love, gratitude and
hope. The homely little face became transfigured with a look of inward
beauty; the promise of a dawning, evolving human being was there,
glowing like the life in a spark. The wistful eyes burned with that
singular light which makes us hope for things supernal.
On my finger the tiny grip fluttered. I felt myself breaking down like a
woman.
The little chap’s lip quivered a second; his fleeting breath came forth
lightly.
“Man,” he whispered in the stillness, and smiling, closed his tired
little eyes—forever.