A NIGHT IN THE JUNGLE
It was not the tiger Grenville heard above the pounding of his heart.
The squealing of some little insignificant beast, apparently more in
sport than apprehension, betrayed very soon the fact that no sinister
visitor was even prowling near. So heavy a sound as the little brute
had made would doubtless be avoided when the master of the jungle
should arrive.
All the excitement unduly engendered in Grenville's system rapidly
subsided. He listened as intently as before, and peered below in an
effort to pierce the densest shadows, but could not detect the form or
whereabouts of his early visitor. He doubted if this small creature
drank, since the pool of the spring was still quite clearly visible,
like a surface half of ebony and half of tarnished silver.
At length the absolute silence prevailed as it had before. Save for
the lightest of zephyrs, that barely sufficed to fan the topmost
foliage, not even the slightest stir could be detected. The darkness
below became absolute, where shadows, tree-trunks, and thicket all
blended into one. A portion only of the pool was now discernible, and
in this, clearly mirrored, were two bright stars, that burned dull gold
in the ebon.
Grenville sat back in his lumpy perch and blew, as before, on his coal.
Its slender wreath of invisible smoke ascended pungently. The hour was
still very early for nocturnal business to begin. The tiger might not
come till midnight. Sidney reflected that the brute would doubtless
eat before a drink would be desired.
He regretted, vainly, that no bait had finally been provided. Even the
fish they had only partially eaten for dinner might have been
attractive to the tiger. Any price now would be cheap enough to rid
themselves of this terror.
His reflections ran the gamut of their island world, and sped far over
seas. He thought of that day with Fenton, and of what this friend
would think. Had they heard the news, in that far-away home, of the
steamer gone down with every soul?
He thought of the morning he had greeted Elaine--and the something that
had happened to his nature. He remembered in detail every hour of
every day they had spent together on the steamer. Then the hideous
details of all that last experience, in the storm and night, paraded by
for his review.
One after another the swiftly moving procession of events brought him
back to this present hour. He was, then, confronted once again by the
questions--how long would it last?--how might it end? The island's
mystery impinged once more on his varied cogitations, making him wish
he might have had a torch, by which to study the documents reposing in
his pocket.
Mentally picturing forth the signs on the leathery piece of parchment,
he busied himself for above an hour for a clew as to what they could
mean. They suggested nothing to his mind that made the slightest
sense. He tried to recall the characters on the "explanatory" sheet.
But this was a hopeless task.
Aware of the value of deduction, he began on a reasoning line.
Anything to occupy his thoughts and time till the hour when the tiger
might have fed, and would come for his evening drink, was highly
welcome.
He began by a natural presumption that both the documents, found
together in the tube, and so carefully concealed, related to this
particular island. Did they not, then of what possible value would be
their final decipherment and solution?
Granting this premise, then what should follow next? Certainly some
mention of the island--with its name--in the written message, at least.
There would naturally be, in these circumstances, some word in the
cipher spelling "Island"--but what would the place be called?
Such places, he knew, were frequently named quite unofficially, by
wandering sailors, adventurers, and drifters on the sea. Attempting to
level his state of mind to that of such human beings, he wondered what
he, if left to himself, would christen this bit of rock and jungle.
So often, he reflected, a place was named for its appearance. This
one, for instance, might aptly be called "Three Rocks," "Three Walls,"
or "Three Towers." He remembered, finally, the abominable sounds
produced by the tides twice daily--sounds he had thought might have
frightened the natives away. The cognomen, "Haunted Island," might not
seem wholly inappropriate to a superstitious mind.
The more he reflected, the more certain he felt that some one of the
names suggested to his mind might also have occurred to those of
others. Considerably aroused in his centers of curiosity, and
convinced that even by the dull cherry glow of his firebrand he might
be enabled to confirm or confute his theory, he moved sufficiently to
draw from his pocket the closely folded documents, and held them up to
his torch.
The one with the inexplicable signs he promptly returned as of no
immediate avail. At that instant his attention was arrested, by a
sound below him on the earth.
Something, he thought, was lapping at the water!
He leaned far forward, tense and rigid on the limb, shielding his spark
in one of his hands, while he peered about the pool.
There was nothing he could possibly discern--no form of a head
projected out to obliterate his stars. Yet the sounds at the edge of
the silent basin rose distinctly to his ears.
All but ready to bend to the end of his fuse, and touch his fire upon
it, he paused, looked closer, saw ripples move to disturb his mirrored
planets--and then beheld some form darkly limned on the waters.
For a moment he was certain his insolent tiger was there. Some huge
blunt muzzle seemed inkily contrasted with the dull gray surface of the
spring. Then the muzzle suddenly detached itself from the imagined
form behind. The entire figure of some little beast was seen as it
waded the pool.
Once more, disgustedly, Grenville reclined and relaxed the strain on
his nerves. It was some time, then, before he thought to return to his
quest of the cipher. He remembered, finally, he had meant to count the
characters in some of the words to see if the number of signs thus used
might not correspond with the number employed in "Island," "Three,"
"Haunted," "Wall," or "Tower."
A dull red glow, of most unsatisfactory dimensions and illuminative
capacity, was the most he could procure from his brand. It barely
sufficed to present the "writing" to his vision. For a moment, indeed,
he despaired of discriminating clearly between the ending of one word
and the beginning of the next. Fortunately, however, the writer had
used large periods between his every word.
Considerably to Grenville's satisfaction, the third word thus denoted
he was almost convinced was "Three." Not only had it the proper number
of letters, or signs, but the two final characters were exactly alike,
and both were the crosses he had previously selected as probably
representing E.
The next word along, he was equally certain, was either "Wall" or
"Hill." Its two final characters were the same particular sign
repeated, while its meaning, in conjunction with the preceding word
"Three," fulfilled his logical deduction.
A word of two characters followed this, and then, to Grenville's
intense delight, occurred a word of seven letters, which not only met
the numerical requirements of "Haunted," but, also, in proper sequence,
employed the various letter-signs already somewhat proved by the word
he felt certain was "Three."
This was more than sufficient evidence on which to base a test of the
message's sense, if it were not, indeed, enough of a key with which to
decipher the entire inscription.
Eagerly fumbling in his pocket for his pencil, with the intention of
attempting a bit of substitution of letters for the signs contained
upon the sheet, Grenville shifted his position--and the paper fell from
his fingers, fluttering obliquely from his sight.
He leaned quickly forward, as if to follow the flight of the missive
through the darkness so densely spread beneath him. But it disappeared
almost instantly--with its mystery still unsolved.
On the point of descending, at whatever cost, to recover the important
bit of foolscap, Sidney was halted in movement and impulse by some new
arrival at the spring.
As a matter of fact, two animals were there, as he presently
discovered. That neither was his tiger he was presently persuaded, but
that one or both were fairly large seemed equally assured.
It was certainly not a time to leave the tree. And while the
reflection that, perhaps, the silent visitors were leopards was
presented to Grenville's mind, and a momentary thought of slaying the
pair by igniting his fuse became a strong temptation, he contented
himself by staring more or less blindly down upon the place where they
seemed to be, and bided his time as before.
At nine o'clock it seemed, to the cramped and impatient hunter in the
tree, that ages had passed since he bade good-night to Elaine and came
to this lonely vigil. There were sounds in abundance about him now,
arising from time to time. Some were the cries of the lesser beasts,
in the clutches or jaws of their captors; some were sounds of munching.
All of them indicated rather grimly the tiger's absence from the scene.
There would be no petty murderers thereabout when the arch brute came
for his drink.
Leaning back once more, and long since weary of his fruitless
adventure, Grenville stared at the glowing cone of fire slowly eating
away his brand. It was lasting far longer than he had believed would
be possible--yet certainly less than one hour more could the consuming
substance serve to give him a spark.
He could almost fancy he saw a face, in the film of ash upon its
surface. He was sure the face was developing a likeness to Elaine.
Even the soft clear radiance of her cheek---- How eagerly she had
asked concerning his coming "home"--but how far it seemed away.... He
could hear her saying "You'll come home ... come home ... come back...."
He awoke with a start, for something had burned him on the wrist.
The firebrand, all but consumed in his relaxing fingers, had dropped
and deposited a blister. In his sudden move to rid himself of the
torture to his flesh, he threw off the red-hot candle of wood, and it
fell straight downward, sizzling once where it struck in a trickle of
the water.
Reviling himself for a stupid blunderer, and arousing vividly to a
sense of where he was, and why, he began to question the expediency of
returning at once to the terrace. He was still debating the wisdom of
the move, when the question was decided by the tiger.
That belated midnight reveler--the old roué of the jungle--was ushered
in with questionable pomp--the panic of lesser brutes in flight. And
when he drank, beside the useless bomb, there was no mistaking his
presence. He presently paused, half satisfied, and lifted his head,
against the shudder of the water, to sniff at the jungle breeze.
The wind had betrayed the presence of the man, and the great brute
voiced his satisfaction.