A GREWSOME GUARDIAN
Apparently the trail, that had once been formed through the axis of the
island, had been found of little use. It was overgrown by all manner
of plants well-nigh to extinction.
The region hereabout was obviously the final retreat of many beasts,
both timid and bold. Grenville found signs of at least one Malay bear
and of many wild hogs in the thickets. He fancied he saw one flash of
moving orange, where either his tiger or another of his ilk moved
silently through the growth behind him. Of the monkeys there appeared
to be no end; and the snakes were amply represented.
He was glad for every clearing that he came upon and crossed, and felt
a decided sense of relief on achieving his hill at last. This worn old
eminence of rock and substances volcanic was far more steep and rugged
than the one where he had left Elaine. It possessed no caves, and no
particular flatness at the summit.
Grenville explored it rapidly, considerably disappointed to find
nothing of special utility upon its broken surface. He had hoped for
some hard and useful stone at least, if not for actual flints.
Completing its round in a haste that the rapidly increasing heat of the
day considerably accelerated, he presently came upon an unusual ledge
protruding from the slope's unpromising surface.
Here he halted in idle curiosity. The ledge was of sulphur--a blow-out
from the hill's once molten interior, lying untouched and useless in
the sun for the elements to wear away and sluice at last to the sea.
With no particular purpose in view, he broke away a fragment, dropped
it carelessly into his pocket, and continued on his way.
His gaze returned with a certain steadfast eagerness to the hill and
camp beyond. He was not precisely disappointed on failing to discover
Elaine, who might have been waiting to wave him a signal from the
heights; he was somewhat concerned to know if all was well upon her
rock. She was not to be seen at all about the place. He clambered to
the top of a broken bowlder for a view more comprehensive.
This, too, appeared a wasted effort, at least as concerned Elaine. The
island map, however, was laid out before him in a manner to complete
his former survey of the place. There were several clearings thus
revealed that could never be seen from the farther point of vantage.
Acknowledging each of these in turn, Grenville was once more about to
direct his footsteps homeward when one of the smaller, near-by breaks
in the jungle, quite at the top of a species of rift in the island's
ruggedness, down upon his left, attracted a second glance.
For a moment he fancied some colossal remains, as of an animal long
since extinct, were lying there in the clinging embrace of the
creepers. He decided, then, it was a boat, but dismissed this notion
as preposterous, so high above the water's edge, and so near the
island's center, did it lie. About ready to conclude that certain
giant shadows contributed much to round out a half-imagined form, his
gaze encountered a bowsprit thrust through all the foliage, its
identity not to be mistaken. The hull of a ship was undoubtedly there.
He hastened down, expectantly, to make its better acquaintance.
The wonder when he came there was--how it came to be stranded so high
and far above the water. As for the vessel itself, it was merely a
rotted old shell, with its cargo bursting through its ribs.
So far as Grenville could judge from its fast-decaying remains, it had
been an inferior type of the old-fashioned barque, and of very modest
dimensions. Its masts, however, were gone, together with every
accessible piece of metal that eager hands could remove. Its moldy and
slimy old cabin had partially collapsed. Without effecting an entrance
through the treacherous deck, Sidney could discover nothing respecting
its interior.
He could peer through the ribs at several places along the hull, and
even near the keel, by stooping low, but the most he could determine by
such a superficial examination was that there was nothing even here
that he could use. The cargo he thought for a moment to be chalk, or
lime. He scraped a clean sample from the weathered heap, and rubbed it
in his palm. Its crystalline structure was not that of either lime or
chalk. When he placed a particle on his tongue, he dropped all he held
with no further interest.
The stuff was common saltpeter. That the vessel had been westward
bound, perhaps from Borneo, with this mineral common to so much of that
tropical section, he understood at once. But to find her stranded thus
so loftily was amazing. He scraped at the soil with the toe of his
boot to dig below the surface.
As he had rather expected, seashells and pebbles of a former beach were
readily brought to view. Some old upheaval had undoubtedly lifted
beach, vessel, and all to this altitude above the tides, and left it
there to decay.
Considerably disappointed to find the hulk so completely stripped of
the metal furnishings of which he might have wrought some sort of tools
or weapons, Grenville hesitated between an impulse to continue home to
Elaine without greater delay, and a strong desire to investigate the
cabin of the barque. The latter temptation was not to be resisted.
He grasped the branch of an overhanging tree and, by dint of much
active scrambling, clawing, and thrusting his toes into various chinks,
at length gained the planks of the slanted deck and broke his way into
the one-time sanctum of the captain and his mates.
This, too, had been pillaged with exceptional thoroughness. There was,
however, a passageway leading to another apartment beyond, where a
door, half open, was revealed by sunlight streaming through the broken
roof. Thither Grenville made his way--to behold an extraordinary sight.
The place was a room, partitioned off from considerably larger
quarters. It contained one object only--a form, half mummy, half
skeleton, that had once been a powerful man. _And this was chained to
the wall!_
It was sitting propped against the lintel of a second door, a panel of
which was raggedly broken out. It had never been robbed of its head.
A strong, black beard still remained upon the emaciated face, and the
eye-sockets stared straight forward at the door by which the visitor
had entered.
Grenville was not to be easily dismayed, yet the attitude of this
grewsome thing was very far from being pleasant. The being had been
almost naked when he perished here alone with a heavy iron band about
his waist. All this his visitor swiftly discerned while inclined to
turn about and flee the place. He discovered, then, an additional
mystery.
The skin, in a patch fully six inches square, had disappeared from the
helpless being's breast. That it had not wasted away by a natural
process was, moreover, perfectly obvious, since the square-cut edges of
parchment, which the remainder of his cuticle had become by the
mummifying process, were distinctly to be seen. It had been removed
with a knife. It appeared to Grenville that the captive had been
propped artificially where he sat, as if to guard the passage. A
trickle of water, saturated with saltpeter, had served to embalm both
his flesh and skin, in part.
That the cabin beyond had likewise been despoiled of its treasure was
almost a foregone conclusion. However, Sidney stepped closer to the
silent form and peered through the broken panel.
The room into which he was gazing was dimly lighted by the rays of
daylight filtering through a number of cracks which the weather had
opened in its ceiling. When his sight grew accustomed to the darkness,
he saw that the place had evidently served not only as quarters for the
former crew, but likewise as a storage hold for ropes, paints, extra
furnishings, and, doubtless, victuals.
Its contents lay scattered about in confusion and decay, yet promised
more "treasure" for Grenville's needs than all the rest of the vessel.
He drove his shoulder against the door, and its lock broke the rotted
woodwork away with a suddenness the man had not expected. He passed
the mummified guardian at the portal somewhat hurriedly, as he lurched
inside the chamber; and he nearly fell across a box that had spilled
out a dozen old pieces of brass.
Upon these he pounced with avidity, despite the fact they were greenly
incrusted with "rust." Among other articles of plunder thus provided
to his hand were several row-locks, a broken turnbuckle, a dozen at
least of useless hinges, and a hatful of screws more or less cemented
together.
With vague ideas of employing the metal somehow, he filled his pockets
with the smaller articles and looked about for possible tools. From a
broken locker in a corner much similar scrap stuff had fallen. Here
was a large brass porthole rim, parts of a broken binnacle, half of the
brazen cap from a towing-bit, two heavy bronze handles of swords now
fallen to pieces with decay, an old brass lantern with a useless lamp,
a large coil of excellent copper wire, a ball of lead, and remains of
several iron marlinespikes, mere effigies now in flaky rust.
From beneath a heap of rotted cordage a greenish cylinder protruded.
Grenville drew it forth. It proved to be a small brass cannon,
unmounted, and apparently filled with mud. Near by he discovered the
rapidly disintegrating remnants of an old-time flintlock musket. This
was a priceless treasure, for the flint, which was still intact. He
likewise saved a bit of the steel that the cordage had protected.
The thin and wasted skeleton of a hand-saw hung upon a hook. When he
took the blade between his fingers it fell apart like paper, charred,
but still holding its original form. Not an object he found of iron
was worth removing to the camp. Resolved to return at an early date,
to annex the old cannon and such other heavy bric-à-brac as he could
not conveniently carry away to-day, Grenville finally left the
mysterious dead man still sitting in chains beside the door, and once
more regained the wholesome earth.
He finally glanced at his watch. The time was nearly twelve! He had
been for at least three hours away from Elaine, who was waiting alone
upon the hill! Back to the trail, and then along its sinuous windings
through the jungle, he strode at his swiftest pace.
When he came to the final clearing before the towering rock, he was all
but paralyzed with dread at a bit of drama being there enacted.
At the edge of the jungle stood Elaine, her arms and jacket filled with
fruits she had gathered against his coming. By the foot of the trail
that ascended to their camp, posed in a waiting attitude, his long tail
only in motion, gracefully sweeping his great tawny side, was the tiger
that wore the golden collar.
Not a sound escaped from Elaine's white lips, as she turned to glance
across at Sidney. Then she limberly sank on the earth.