SURPRISE AND SUSPENSE
I held my breath, I shivered with sudden excitement.
The figure, slight, beautifully erect, clothed in a skirt-like garment
of skins, came nearer and nearer. I was so thoroughly intent on seeing
why the arms were moved in those singular gestures that I clean forgot
to scan the face.
The stranger came closer, followed now by scores of the Blacks, who
adored and worshipped in the tracks which were left by the feet. I could
see the heavy coils of some ornament about the neck and over the slender
shoulders of this human. Suddenly I knew what the hands were doing;
suddenly the most astounding intelligence broke on my brain.
The figure was that of a woman, young, beautiful, clad like Diana, and
the coils about her maidenly form were those of a monster serpent, the
head of which she held in her hand while with the other she gently
unwound the wrappings of the tail.
I whistled again, more softly, my excitement growing at every second.
On she came, uncertainly, down along the edge of that open cage in the
jungle, her head held finely in a listening poise, her face white, set
and smileless. She moved like a goddess in a dream. In her eyes burned a
half-wild light of anxiety; on her lips there was a tense look of
suppressed emotion. Her beautiful arms seemed marble-white, as they
moved in those snake-soothing gestures; her whole deportment was that of
one who questions, yearns eagerly for a sign on which to build a hope,
but dares not believe that a cruel fate could possibly relent.
She was almost opposite where I was lying. I knew I should speak to
her—do something instantly, before the moment should be gone, but my
tongue now cleaved fast to its sheath in my mouth, my teeth clenched
hard together and my muscles were all but paralysed at that fateful
moment.
She was just before me—passing me by—in reach of the slightest sound.
“Who is it?” she said aloud, in a voice that trembled.
“It’s me—a man,” I whispered with ungrammatical suddenness, “Don’t
stop—you’ll betray me—Come to-night!”
Half prepared as she was, she still started violently. She loosened her
hold on the head of the snake. The horrible thing wrapped itself about
her arm and tightened all its coils. Hastily clutching the serpent by
the neck again, she twisted and choked it into submission. Her eyes were
ablaze with fear and a wild, unbelieving hope! How luminous they were,
even in the meagre light! What a wondering, beseeching face she
revealed, as she turned for a second in her instinctive effort to see
where I was!
As she had mastered the snake, so she mastered the womanly instinct to
cry out and dash to the spot where I lay. I saw her weave slightly, as
she recovered her poise, after which she resumed her singular march
toward the river.
The Blacks came to where she had paused, adoring the trail so near me
that I could hear them breathing. What hideous brutes they were, now
that I had seen a beautiful human being! They passed, and I longed to
leap upon their backs and strike them all to death.
All about that clearing the goddess-like prisoner led the creatures who
had made her captive. She was almost lost to sight in the darkness which
was now enveloping the wood. She was only the faint suggestion of a form
when at last I saw her pass again inside her shelter.
I loosened a thousand tense muscles the second she disappeared, and lay
limber and all unstrung on the earth. I had not been seen by any Links.
It had perhaps been foolish and a waste of time to kill the bear and
adopt his hide after all. But it had given me the courage to come—and
great Heavens! what a find I had made!
A woman!—among these monsters! No wonder there were no new houses, no
ovens, no weapons of war of her making. I had been profoundly stupid. I
should have been able to guess it was not a man—that soft, clear voice,
the absence of mannish contrivances, and then that suggestive little
line of her washing—these should have been enough to tell me the story.
A woman—a helpless, beautiful woman—and I had almost thought of giving
up the effort to rescue this friend!—this fellow human!
“Gee whizz!” said I to myself, for the thing was tremendous.
Then I wondered what would happen next. Would she come—return to the
place where she had heard my voice? Would she wait till all the Links
were safely asleep and then place her trust in a stranger? At what time
were these black beasts likely to retire? Would they wake and catch her
in the act? Could we find my boat in the dark? But everything else was
as nothing compared to the question, which I repeated over and over,
would she come?
I believed she would. I intended to wait, whatever might occur, and to
wait until morning, if she did not sooner appear. A thousand times I
wished we were already in my boat and away on the lake.
“All these days gone to waste for a bear-skin,” I muttered, “and all the
time it was easy to sneak into their place under their very noses.”
I was glad now, however, of the warmth of the skin, for the ground was
moist. In the clearing the night had descended like a curtain, but five
or six fires somewhat illumined the place. The scene presented was
strange. About the centres of ruddy light were groups of these weird,
semi-human creatures, standing and squatting, eating like so many apes.
Their long, thin arms made their appearance most grotesque, silhouetted
as they were against the light. Here and there the red glow lighted up a
negro-gorilla countenance, flat-nosed, big-jawed and large-eared, till
it seemed like a region where the imps of darkness breed. And back of
all this, the play of the flames threw monster shadows, on the
background of trees and creepers, till it all had a strange appearance
of life, as if incredible snakes and incongruous animals weaved an
endless woof of mystery into the warp of night.
An hour passed and I had hardly moved. By groups the creatures slunk
away to their huddling places. The groans of many wounded, unnoted
before in the chatter, arose to chorus with the distant sounds of the
jungle. Regularly, like a marker of time, came the rumble and grumble
from the cauldron of gold.
Around the largest fire, a grim old warrior hovered for an interminable
time, after all the others had departed. I had no patience with his
pretence of cogitating over all the problems of the universe; I wished
him safely abed and snoring. He pothered about for an age, and finally
stretched himself near the embers and went to sleep.
I waited and waited, expecting every moment to be rewarded by a vision
of the prisoner, gliding toward me. The moon arose above the trees
behind me and made the place altogether too bright for any good. To
allay my impatience I watched the matchless orb sailing above the
jungle. Turning at last from the brilliant picture, my heart leaped
wildly. The goddess was almost there!
Slipping quickly, but noiselessly forth, I emerged from the vines on
hands and knees and started to arise.
The girl gave a scream and fled like a startled doe.
“Don’t be scared,” I half shouted, guardedly, “it’s only a skin,” but my
assurance was then too late.
On the instant the Blacks bounded up, alert and alarmed. Club in hand,
the grim old fighter near the fire came running toward me. The shadows
were with us, by great good fortune. The girl, moreover, had the
presence of mind to disappear in the trees and emerge further up toward
her shelter.
Realising that now or never I must act my part, I fell on all fours like
a plummet. Browsing about unconcernedly, I moved a little in the grass
at the edge of the growth, and then, having made myself sure that I had
been seen by the Links who came dashing excitedly up, I slowly rooted
back into the thicket and disappeared.
It worked like magic. Chattering a lot of drivel which was plainly
eulogistic of all the bear family and congratulatory to all the black
Links in existence—who had thus been honoured in the night—the savages
kow-towed on the ground and otherwise wrote themselves down as
unmitigated asses for a longer period by far than they need have done
for my satisfaction. Indeed it began to look as if they had taken a
notion to spend the remainder of the night in adoration of the ground I
had condescended to spurn with my hands and knees. When at last I heard
them go, I crept silently back to the edge of the growth and watched
them stir up the fire and blunder off to bed.
“Confound the skin!” I muttered to myself. “Why didn’t I tell her what a
beastly old bear I am?”
Such a time now went by that I began to fear the girl had missed my
hurried explanation, in her natural fright, when she ran. However, it
did not seem possible she would give up so easily and be afraid to come.
Yet I knew it all depended upon her condition of mind. She had doubtless
become more than usually timid while subjected to all that she must have
undergone here among the Links, all alone, and no human being could
entirely eliminate a feeling of dread for the jungle in the dark.
Trusting that in all the medley of night-sounds, a whistle would not
awaken the Links, I set up my piping on the bar of our Yankee
acquaintance again, repeating it, as before, as often as I deemed it
prudent. More of the endless waiting, in my far from enviable position,
ensued. If the moon got another half hour in which to sail before the
prisoner came, she would drive every friendly shadow squarely back to
the forest.
I watched till my neck was stiff and my body cramped. “If the goddess
doesn’t hurry,” I muttered, “the game will be up for the night.” Still
she lingered in her shelter. I began to grow cross; I vowed she must be
crimping her hair and putting on a new pair of gloves.
Suddenly she appeared again, coming out of the trees, not far away. This
time I whistled, ever so softly. She paused, came silently on a rod, and
halted as before. Another little whistle brought her almost before me.
“Now please don’t yell again,” I whispered ungallantly. “Slip into the
woods as quietly as you can—we’ve got to hurry.”
“Who is it?” she stopped to answer, below her breath, as I rose to my
feet.
“It’s just John Nevers, a common, ordinary man—American. If we’re going
to get away, I wish you wouldn’t fool around another minute.”
I saw that she stood undecided a second, with that evil-looking snake
about her shoulders; its eyes gleamed like beads in a ray of moonlight
which touched on its hateful head. For that brief space of time I felt
such a disgust for the serpent and such a growing impatience, that I had
a half impulse to trudge away alone. But she moved toward me; the light
which had fallen on the head of the snake silvered her pale, beautiful
face. The appeal which was there in her eyes, the trust which was born
on the moment, and the helplessness of a maiden, all combined to shame
me and to make me her champion against the terrors of all the world.
“Come through here,” I whispered, bending back a branch, and she stepped
toward me, confident and strong in the hope newly kindled in her breast.
The branch slipped from my fingers and swished noisily back. I heard a
snort; the light-sleeping old devil of a Link was up on his feet in a
second. He ran toward us again, this time unaccompanied by any of the
others. We stood there as silent as statues. My knife was out, for I had
instantly determined to slay this watch-dog of the tribe, if he came a
foot into the brush.
He merely whined about, uneasily, a time, and then returned to his post.
Without waiting to let him lose himself in sleep, I led and cleared the
way, moving as slowly as a frozen tortoise, for a considerable time,
while the goddess followed, as silently as my shadow.
Past the clearing, where the gilded skeleton hung in the moonlight we
glided. Here I saw the stiffened form of Grin, lying stark on the earth.
The deep, mysterious rumble of the gold-cauldron began anew.
“Now hurry, while this racket drowns out all the noise we can make,” I
whispered.
We made no mean bit of progress while the noise continued, after which I
felt there was no more need of particular care. The jungle thickets were
fearfully dark, as soon as we got away from the clearings, and I was
obliged to forge ahead as best I could, guided only by my sense of
direction.
Half an hour went by and although we should have been at the river,
where the boat was on the bank, there was no immediate prospect of our
coming to the proper place. In the midst of my efforts, mental and
physical, to extricate myself and the girl from the maze, a peculiar
shriek went up in the distance behind us. I paused, inquiringly.
“Oh—that is the voice of the horrid old woman,” said the goddess
anxiously. “I think she has found I have gone.”
“The deuce!” said I. “She has alarmed the whole works, the old villain!”
Judging by the noise which was raised one would have thought she had
awakened the whole world. I was certain every Link in the camp was up
and dancing about that clearing in the wildest confusion.
“Come ahead,” said I, calmly enough, “they are all afraid of the woods
at night; they will never catch us now—unless the morning overtakes us
before we reach the river.”
I knew she shuddered, but like a brave, good girl she made no fuss. As
for the racket, it furnished me with a bearing, as it were. Knowing
where their settlement was, I knew the approximate direction in which
the boat should be found. Indeed before we had travelled another fifty
yards I caught a gleam of reflected moonlight from Outlet river and knew
my way directly.
“It’s lucky that beastly old woman didn’t make her discovery sooner,”
said I.
“Yes,” replied the trembling voice of the goddess, “that was why I kept
you waiting so long; she wouldn’t go to sleep.”
“Um,” was all I muttered. I was thinking about that crimping of her
hair, poor girl, and the putting on of tight, new gloves.
We reached the boat, to my intense relief. “Please get in and make
yourself as comfortable as possible,” said I, and ripping off the
bear-skin, I flung it down to make her a seat.
Out into the limpid stream I shoved my clumsy but beloved craft, and
manning the oars I swung her about, headed her toward the lake and made
the liquid silver shiver from the prow.
The moonlight fell on the sweet, womanly face. The goddess looked at me
dumbly—almost with the divine expression I had seen on the face of
little Tike. Her eyes were eloquent of gratitude, relief and things too
great to be expressed. Slowly her head came forward on her breast, away
from which she held that ugly serpent, and she sobbed and sobbed like a
child.
Ah what a night it was! I felt a throb of triumph all through my veins.
Rowing steadily and stoutly I said nothing, but let her have her cry. At
last she looked upon my face again.
“Where—are we—going?” she faltered.
“Home,” said I, “to the camp on top of the hill.”
“Home?” she echoed softly. “To your—people, do you—mean?”
“Yep,” I agreed. “For a while, at least. But they’re not exactly my
people. They’re a lot of Missing Links.”
“Oh—what? Missing Links? You don’t mean things like the horrible
creatures we have just escaped?”
“Same species,” I assured her cheerfully, “but mine are red.”
“Oh—oh,” she moaned with a shudder, “but I’d rather not! Oh I hate them
so; they are all so horrid; they frighten me terribly, and I know they
will act exactly like the others—”
“No they won’t,” I interrupted, with a grin, “they’ll get off the earth,
if I say the word, for they know that I am the King!”