PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS
A short, sharp cry was the only note that Grenville uttered.
The tiger had turned his blazing eyes on the man he but partially
feared. Sidney was coming less at him than towards the helpless,
prostrate form that lay upon the grass.
The man had forgotten his danger in his greater concern for Elaine. He
reached her side before he confronted the jungle beast, who still
remained undecided. Slowly then, deliberately, the malignant animal,
superb not only in his strength and splendid proportions, but also in
his arrogance, his indifference to man, the master butcher of the
world, ran out his tongue to lick his chops, stretched his terrible
mouth in a fang-revealing yawn, and trod his way into the thicket.
The fruits she had gathered were scattered all about as Grenville
lifted Elaine in his arms and carried her up the steep ascent. Not
having actually swooned, she had fairly begun to revive once more
before he reached the cave.
When he placed her down on a heap of half-dried grass she had thrown
together while awaiting his return, a faint tinge of color was
returning to her face, and her eyes dimly focused upon him.
"You've worked too much, that's what it means," he said. "You see
you're tired."
"I'm--sorry," she faltered, faintly. "I really--didn't mean to be--so
weak."
"Never mind," he said. "I'll kill the brute. His skin is certainly a
beauty." With the utmost apparent indifference to Elaine's recovery,
he went at once to the clearing for the bits of old junk he had dropped.
When he returned, his mind was still on the tiger.
"We've got to live--move about--and not be annoyed," he said. "If I
had a single rifle! But I'll get him somehow, soon!"
Elaine still remained upon the hay.
"If he doesn't get us sooner," she replied, a little grimly, but not as
one in fear.
"I shall wall up the trail," mused Grenville, aloud, looking about at
the quantity of rock so readily afforded. "That much I can do this
afternoon."
She sat up a bit more sturdily.
"I dropped our luncheon, I suppose.... I hope to do better, later on,
when I get more used to conditions." She was mortified to think he had
been thus promptly obliged to carry her "home" in his arms.
"You are doing fairly well," he said, in his off-hand manner. "We
shall soon be all right. It's a fine and tight little island."
Her one idea was to get away as soon as possible.
"Shouldn't we put up a flag, or something, in case a steamer should
happen to be passing?"
"As soon as I can cut a long bamboo. I must have both tools and fire
as promptly as possible."
"You must be hungry," she remarked, arising rather weakly and going to
the end of her cave, where all the water that remained in the half of
the paw-paw shell had been carefully stored, in Grenville's absence.
Then, emerging with her burden, she added, "I meant to have your
luncheon ready, but we have almost nothing left."
"All that you gathered was left by the tiger," he answered, cheerfully.
"The beast prefers more solid diet." Once more descending the trail,
he presently returned with the fruits that had fallen from her arms.
They ate, as before, in the shade of her cave, for the sun on the rocks
was becoming hot.
"The wall this afternoon," said Grenville, as he finally concluded his
simple repast with a drink of tepid water. "Then our mast and signal
of distress must be erected. I shall try for fire directly. I must
make a bow and some arrows. A clay pit I found will provide us with
earthenware utensils, and then--if only I could manage to melt some
brass---- You see, the worst of it is, no stone I've discovered on the
place is fit to use for a tool."
Elaine avoided the boyish gleaming of his gaze. "Are we thrust so far
back as the stone age, then? It's really as bad as that?"
"Bad?" he said. "It's tremendously diverting. I've got to begin, as
it were, with my naked hands. But fortunately, I believe, for us, the
bronze and stone ages lap," and he drew from his pockets some bits of
the heterogeneous collection he had brought from the rotting barque.
"You have found some metal?" Elaine inquired, excitedly. "But where?"
"In a wreck that must have arrived here years ago." He related as much
as he thought advisable and undisturbing to the thoroughly wondering
girl.
She could see no possible use for all the rusted bronze and brass he
had earned away from the wreck so strangely discovered, but she made no
discouraging comments to dampen an ardor which to her was not precisely
comprehensible.
"I hope I can help," she told him, as she had before. "I'm afraid I'm
not very clever."
"We'll see," he answered, cheerfully. "Necessity is rather a strict
instructor."
But she could not assist him with the wall, at which he was presently
perspiring. The stones he rolled and carried to the narrowest shelf or
ledge that was scaled by the trail were far too heavy for her delicate
hands and muscles.
"Can't I do something else?" she begged, eager for any employment.
"There must be some work I could do."
"You might plait a basket of some sort," he said. "We shall need some
presently."
He thereupon went below again, cut all he could carry of tough and
limber creepers, and, fetching them up to the shade of her cave,
instructed Elaine in such of the rudiments of basket-weaving as he
himself could readily invent, and left her busily employed.
The wall he required to prevent any possible night attack on the part
of the beast that was already inclined to stalk either one of them, or
both, was not of any considerable length, owing to the narrowness of
the pass he had chosen to block with bowlders. He had, however, to
make it thick and high. By taking advantage of three large blocks,
which he rolled down hill to the place selected, he secured a
substantial foundation with comparative ease. After that it became a
matter merely of carrying stone after stone, from their inexhaustible
supply on the summit, to lodge in rough, uneven tiers to the height
desired.
He had left a narrow gateway next the natural wall that made his
structure complete. This he could block with a heavy log, or even more
stones, for the night.
For fully three hours he wrought prodigiously, returning from time to
time to Elaine, to guide and assist her with her basket. Between them
they managed to produce from their rough material a crude, misshapen
receptacle, coarse of mesh and clumsy, yet strong and not to be
despised. Grenville expected to use it to fetch his clay from the pit.
It was not until this product of their combined ingenuity was fairly
complete that Grenville discovered he could split the bark of the
creepers readily, and tear out a smooth white core, like a withe, far
more suitable to their uses. He then not only stripped out several
full-length cores, but he also found that the bark or covering thus
removed was constructed of numerous thread-like strands amazingly tough
and long. These fibers were not so readily separated as the core had
been from the covering with which they were incorporated, although
their recovery was not a difficult operation. His inventive mind saw
ample employment for them later.
The wall was not entirely finished when, at length, he left it for the
day. He was weary in all his bone and sinew, despite the prodding of
his will. He had made no attempt at kindling fire, and none towards
procuring a mast to erect for a flag of distress. These were tasks
that must wait for the morrow, with the others he was eager to attack.
The dinner at sundown was necessarily a repetition of the previous
meals of the day. It could not be followed by the cheer and comfort of
a fire, and the darkness, that drew on rapidly, brought a sense of
chill and depression to Elaine, notwithstanding her bravery of spirit.
The wind had ceased, except for the merest intermittent puffs of breath
that floated upward from the sea. Not even the lapping of the tide
against the wall arose to break the silence. The stillness was
painfully profound, though Elaine's imagination depicted a hundred
nocturnal brutes of the jungle, prowling in every trail and clearing,
in a savage quest for blood.
As a matter of fact, the nightly tragedies were already well begun.
But it was not until some victim shrilly voiced its animal fear and
agony, just beneath the towering wall, that Elaine had a realizing
sense of her nearness to these creatures of the darkness, or the
working of life's inexorable laws.
Her mind reverted, by natural process, to all the terrible occurrences
crowded into her life within the last couple of days--occurrences that
seemed so needlessly tragic, and all the alarms excited in her breast,
not only by the frightful accident to the "Inca," but likewise by the
almost unknown man upon whom she was now dependent.
She recalled with singular vividness every accent, every gesture, look,
and deed that had accompanied Grenville's declaration. She burned
again, with shame and indignation, to think of the things he had dared
to say and do--the treachery done to his friend--the indignity done to
herself.
She hated him now more intensely than before, since he seemed, by some
enormity of purpose, to have been in some manner responsible for the
fate that had brought her here in his company, absolutely at his mercy.
That his promptness of action had saved her life she willingly and
justly conceded--but to fetch her here, all by herself, to an island
unpeopled and awful, far from the track of ocean-going steamers--with
his threat to compel her love still ringing in her ears--this seemed to
outweigh any possible service he had done or could ever accomplish.
What would he do, she wondered, on the morrow? When would he speak of
his passion again? What means, in this situation, might he presently
adopt to coerce the love she knew she should never bestow?
There could be no answer to her questions--least of all from the man
himself. He, too, had fallen into silence, and a study of the vast and
merciless problems, not only of existence till their escape could be
effected, but likewise as to how that escape could be attempted, in
safety, and where they must steer their ocean course to come to a land
which should not prove inhospitable.
He seemed, for the time, to have quite forgotten the presence of the
girl at the cave. This she finally observed. She wondered, then, what
sinister outcome his brooding might presage.
Keyed to a pitch of nervous sensibility she had never experienced
before, she retired at length within her shelter like a child thrust
alone in the dark. Much as she felt she disliked the man, she found
herself most reluctant to move very far from his presence, or refuse
his protecting care. She was certain her dread of all it meant to be
hopelessly cast upon this island, with one doubtful human being only
for comfort and companionship, would haunt her to sleeplessness
throughout the night. Yet she fell into slumber almost at once, and
only dreamed she was still awake and worried.
It was still quite early in the evening. Elaine was finally
approaching a thoroughly restful oblivion, when a low, moaning wail,
and then shrill screams, abruptly ushered once more into play that
hideous chorus of the morning, produced by some phenomenon of the tides.
"Sidney! Sidney!" came an answering cry; and Grenville arose, to see
Elaine running wildly towards him from her cave.