DYAK DARTS AND METHODS
Long-distance fighting began an hour after sunrise in the morning. It
was rather a long-distance attack, since Grenville, armed only with the
cannon, was powerless to retaliate, except at great expense of
ammunition, and with questionable results.
One of the Dyaks had stationed himself on the central hill of the
island with some sort of ancient rifle. He took a deliberate shot at
Sidney the moment that unsuspecting thorn in their sides chanced to
make an appearance on the western section of the terrace. The bullet
went wide, having struck among the rocks some fifteen feet away,
arousing Grenville's contempt.
Not even Elaine was greatly frightened by this overture from the enemy,
whose marksman could have but a limited view of that unused section of
the headland.
But the first small dart that sped lightly up from the jungle, to drop
almost at Grenville's feet, was another affair altogether. He knew the
thing was not only sharp, but literally soaked with poison. It had
only to prick through the skin of one's hand, or even, perhaps, through
the thinness of their garments, to perform its deadly function. The
merest chance shot was thus extremely likely to achieve what the
rifleman could not.
These hideous little messengers of agony and death were rained all
morning on the terrace. They fell near the furnace for keeping fire;
they dropped by the door of the shelter. A few even sped as far as the
powder magazine, where Grenville found them on the rock and gravel roof.
Ample protection was afforded by remaining under cover, but this was
not altogether wise or safe, except, perhaps, for Elaine. Grenville
felt he must constantly watch the clearing. In the light of day his
alarm could be discovered and removed, to permit an attack too sudden
to be opposed.
He, therefore, constructed a bamboo shield, with which to protect his
head and a part of his body, as he moved about among the rocks, or
concealed himself near the cannon.
Not more than twice in all the morning did he see so much as one of the
tubes--the long, slender blowguns of the hidden foe--while this silent
bombardment continued. It was useless to think of slewing about his
little brass piece for a shot at mere motionless jungle. It was
equally impossible, he confessed, to excite the Dyaks to another charge
until they should finally make up their minds a sudden assault would
succeed.
He was rather surprised they had made no attempt to rush him at
earliest dawn. The ledge was, however, very narrow. It afforded the
one and only approach, and the dire disaster of the night before had
rendered far more cowardly the set of treacherous and utterly craven
murderers these boatmen undoubtedly were.
All afternoon the darts continued falling, intermittently--and
Grenville made no response. His silence, indeed, was a mystery which
the Dyaks not only failed to understand, but, likewise, a little
dreaded. That he had no rifle they were thoroughly convinced. But
that roar of his cannon they had understood, and to hear it again they
had no appetite. Moreover, its deadly hail and detonation had come so
unexpectedly, from the erstwhile silent terrace, that they knew not
what to expect concerning the future.
Not without hopes of actually slaying some of the unknown forces on the
crest of the hill, they shot an exceptional number of their darts from
the nearby thicket as the sun at last declined. Grenville, having at
length established what he thought to be a line of the little missiles'
flight, hastily made and bound up a bomb of no more than two pounds'
weight.
This, with a fuse too short for ordinary safety, he finally carried to
the westward brink with one of his glowing coals of fire.
The patient rifleman, waiting on his hill, immediately blazed away, as
before--and missed the entire bulk of rock. Grenville paid not even
the tribute of a glance at the opposite summit, as he thrust his fuse
down upon his coal.
The hiss of the powder gave him a start, so swiftly did it travel
towards the bomb. With all his might he threw the thing outward at the
shadowed spot whence he thought the darts were flying.
The quick, sharp bark and the patch of flame behind the design of a
palm leaf, came like a clap of thunder, just before the second when the
bomb would have struck on the earth.
A yell of dismay, or anguish, or both, and a scattering shower of
shredded greenery supplied the only report of results that Grenville
was destined to receive. The flight of darts was ended. A few hurried
movements in the thicket, and a groan that Sidney felt was smothered,
were the only signs vouchsafed him that the powder had not been cheaply
wasted.
"It's a poor way to fight the hidden devils," he told Elaine, as he
came once more to the shelter, "but it may possibly serve to keep them
further away, and force them to different tactics."
It certainly had this latter effect, but not immediately.
There was no attack that night, and no disturbance in the jungle,
though Sidney descended to the thicket and returned, not only with more
fresh fruit he had located during the day, but also with a small wild
hog he had captured in one of the older traps which the Dyaks had
failed to discover.
The morning developed nothing aggressive, save the presence of the
marksman on hill number two with the rifle that Grenville said would
only be deadly around a corner. Some plan of patient waiting appeared
to have been matured in the Dyaks' mind, since one of their boats
issued forth at last from its place, to circle about the headland like
a vulture atilt for prey, while down in the cover of the greenery other
natives undoubtedly lurked.
They affrighted a flock of parrots here and there, from time to time,
or set the timid monkeys to chattering and leaping through the upper
foliage, apprising Grenville thus that the thickets were haunted below.
No darts sped upward from the jungle edge, however, which, Sidney
argued, might signify that the men with the deadly blow-guns possibly
hoped to excite over-confidence in the keepers of the terrace, who
might finally expose themselves to fewer, but more accurate, shots.
In his forced inactivity, Grenville once more waxed impatient. He felt
the heat of the blazing sun, which was daily growing more intense. He
chafed at the thought of doing nothing while their water supply was
steadily diminishing, and the Dyaks apparently planned to subdue him by
thirst or famine. He dared not risk an exposure of the door to the
secret passage by going for water to the cave below, especially as all
his jugs were porous and permitted the water's escape by percolation,
whereas the supply in the basins below might be better preserved where
it was.
A hundred useless plans for taking the war to the enemy's camp were
presented to his mind, always to be promptly abandoned. He could only
utilize his artillery for defense, and could not even hasten an attack.
He could devise no means of ascertaining how many of the natives had
either been killed or disabled. That fully ten survived, however, he
felt was probable. One or two at the most was all the little cannon
would be likely to rake in a charge.
Early in the afternoon there was ample evidence of exceptional activity
down in the heavy jungle growth, though none of the Dyaks was seen.
The movements of birds and animals, as well as the swaying of branches
or trees in various thickets under the cliff, sufficiently advertised
the facts.
Grenville was puzzled to understand what might be occurring, till, at
length, he discovered that some of the fruit-bearing trees, on which he
had counted for supplies, had been quietly denuded of their burdens, or
even altogether destroyed. One large banana palm with fruit of
exceptional quality, he even beheld as it toppled to the earth, where
some fiendish head-hunter hacked through its fibrous trunk.
Something sank in his breast as he witnessed this atrocious vandalism,
and realized his helplessness to avert the oncoming famine of himself
and the girl in his charge. That the spring would be guarded, night
and day, was, of course, a foregone conclusion. And not even a plan
for goading the Dyaks to another attack came in working order to his
brain.
That was a thoroughly disheartening day, sultry, and fraught with
menace from all directions, as the Dyak craft continued to hover about
upon the sea, and the pillaging continued in the thickets. All the
work was, moreover, silent, grim, and ominous, with once in a while a
dart spinning swiftly up from the tangle below, or, from time to time,
an echoing shot coming from the opposite height with a bullet singing
crazily by, or ripping along the rocks.
Sidney made no attempt to descend that night, aware of the folly of an
exploration into the enemy's lines, and the utter impossibility of
discovering fruit in a nearer portion of the jungle. His entire wild
hog had been roasted. For, perhaps, two days the meat might keep, in
the coolness of the passage to the cave.
Once more the night was uneventful, and silent. Once more came the
day, and a blazing hot sun poured unveiled caloric on the summit of the
terrace, where sultriness drank up the water that oozed through the
substance of the jugs.
"I've got to do something," Sidney declared. "We can't go on like
this." Elaine was already denying herself the food and water she
required. "I shall try to invent some means of enticing the creatures
to the cave below--and, perhaps, explode a mine. If the watchers on
that hovering ship saw me disappear in the hole, it is rather more than
likely they would follow, thinking they had me bottled."
Elaine always manifested interest, no matter what his scheme.
"But how could that possibly be managed, now that you haven't your
raft?"
"I think by a ladder and platform, the ladder anchored as we had it the
day I came up with your assistance, and the platform arranged of bamboo
poles, which I can carry down through the passage. It will take me
some time to get it ready--but something has got to be done."
Elaine's eyes brightened with hope.
"Please say there is something I can do to help," she begged. "You
work so hard and constantly."
"There will be rather warm employment for us both," he assured her, in
his former way of cheer, "particularly towards the end."
He brought his neglected ladder to the shelter, where Elaine was
presently as busy as himself, rewinding the rungs in the creepers, and
testing it all for strength. Just what his final plan would be she did
not understand, but her confidence in his ability and resourcefulness
was almost wholly without bounds.
The usual vigilance was not for a moment neglected, but nothing
occurred in the world below, save a repetition of the former day's
activity on the part of the unseen natives. It was not until well in
the afternoon that the Dyaks' plan developed.
A breeze had sprung up from the north, bringing gushes of heat and
jungle fragrance across the summit of the hill. Then, at length, as if
this steadying wind was the final agency for which they had waited, the
Dyaks set up a queer, wild chant from various places in the thicket.
A few minutes later a cloud of smoke arose from one of their centers.
This was followed by several more. A huge, thick smudge was soon
rising upward from the earth, and rolling on the breeze to envelop all
the headland.
The Dyaks had gathered enormous quantities of resinous wood, and had
deliberately fired the jungle!