_The Taste of Rope_
Stubbs was lying flat upon his chest staring anxiously down into the
fissure where Wilson had disappeared when suddenly he felt a weight
upon his back and another upon each of his outstretched arms. In spite
of this, he reached his knees, but the powerful brown men still clung.
He shook himself as a mad bull does at the sting of the darts. It was
just as useless. In another minute he was thrown again, and in
another, bound hand and foot with a stout grass rope. Without a word,
as though he were a slain deer, he was lifted to their shoulders and
ignominiously carted down the mountain side. It was all so quickly
done that he blinked back at the sun in a daze as though awaking from
some evil dream. But his uncomfortable position soon assured him that
it was a reality and he settled into a sullen rage. He had been
captured as easily as a drunken sailor is shanghaied.
They never paused until they lowered him like a bundle of hay within a
dozen feet of where he had tethered his burros. Instantly he heard a
familiar voice jabbering with his captors. In a few minutes the
Priest himself stepped before him and studied him curiously as he
rolled a cigarette.
"Where is the other?" he asked.
"Find him," growled Stubbs.
"Either I or the Golden One will find him,--that is certain. There is
but one pass over the mountain," he added in explanation.
"Maybe. What d' ye want of us, anyway?"
The Priest flicked the ashes from his cigarette.
"What did _you_ want--by the hut yonder? Your course lay another
way."
"Ain't a free man a right up there?"
"It is the shrine of the Golden One."
"It ain't marked sech."
"But you have learned--now. It is better in a strange country to learn
such things before than afterwards."
"The same to you--'bout strange people."
The Priest smoked idly a few minutes longer.
"Where is the other?" he asked again.
"Ask your Golden Man."
"He knows only the dead. Shall I wait?"
"Jus' as you damned please," growled Stubbs.
He saw no use in trying to pacify this devil. Even if he had seen a
hope, it would have gone too much against him to attempt it. He felt
the same contempt for him that he would of a mutinous sailor; he was
just bad,--to be beaten by force and nothing else.
The yellow teeth showed between the thin lips.
"The bearded men are like kings until--they lie prostrate like
slaves."
Stubbs did not answer. His thoughts flew back to Wilson. He pictured
his return to find his partner gone. Would he be able to climb out of
that ill-fated hole without aid? It was possible, but if he succeeded,
he might fall into worse hands. At any cost he must turn suspicion
aside from that particular spot. Apparently it had as yet no especial
significance, if its existence were known at all, to the natives.
"My partner," said Stubbs, deliberately, "has gone to find the girl."
"And you waited for him--up there in the sun?"
"Maybe."
"He had better have remained with you."
"There would have been some dead niggers if he had."
"My friend," said the Priest, "before morning I shall know if you have
told the truth this time. In the meanwhile I shall leave you in the
company of my children. I hope you will sleep well."
"D' ye mean to keep me tied like this till morning?"
"I see no other way."
"Then damn your eyes if----"
But he bit off the phrase and closed his eyes against the grinning
face before him. As a matter of fact, he had made a discovery which
brought with it a ray of hope. He found that with an effort he was
able to bring his teeth against the rope where it passed over his
shoulder. His hands were tied behind his back, but with the slack he
would gain after gnawing through the rope, he would be able to loosen
them. They had taken his revolver, but they had overlooked the hunting
knife he always carried within his shirt suspended from his neck--a
precaution which had proved useful to him before. The very thing he
now hoped for was that they would leave him as he was.
The Priest departed and did not appear again. The three brown men
settled down on their haunches and fell into that state of Indian
lethargy which they were able to maintain for days, every sense
resting but still alert. With their knees drawn up to their chins they
chewed their coca leaves and stared at their toes, immovable as
images. Stubbs looked them over; they did not appear to be strong men.
Their arms and legs were rounded like those of women, and their chests
were thin. He wondered now why he had not been able to shake them
off.
Stubbs settled back to wait, but every now and then he deliberately
tossed, turning from his back to his side and again to his back. He
had two objects in mind; to keep the watchmen alert so that the strain
would tell eventually in dulled senses, and to throw them off their
guard when the time came that the movements really meant something.
But they never even looked up; never shifted their positions. Each had
by his side a two-edged sword, but neither revolver nor rifle. His own
Winchester still lay in the grass near the hut, if they had not stolen
it.
In this way several hours passed before he made the first move
towards escape. They gave him neither water nor nourishment. So he
waited until dark. Then he turned his head until his teeth rested upon
the rope. He remained in this position without moving for ten minutes
and then slowly, carefully began to nibble. The rope was finely knit
and as tough as raw hide. At the end of a half hour he had scarcely
made any impression at all upon it. At the end of an hour he had
started several strands. The wiry threads irritated his lips and
tongue so that they soon began to bleed, but this in turn softened the
rope a trifle. The three brown men never stirred. The stars looked
down impartially upon the four; also upon the girl by the lake and the
man in the cave. It was all one to them.
He gnawed as steadily and as patiently as a rat. Each nibble soon
became torture, but he never ceased save to toss a bit that the guards
might not get suspicious. The dark soon blurred their outlines, but he
had fixed their positions in his mind so that he could have reached
them with his eyes shut. At the end of the third hour he had made his
way half through the rope. It took him two hours more to weaken one
half of the remainder. The pain was becoming unendurable. He quivered
from head to foot each time he moved his jaw, for his lips were torn
to the quick. His tongue was shredded; his chest damp with blood.
Finally he ceased. Then carefully, very carefully, threw back his
shoulders so as to bring a strain to the rope. He felt it pull apart,
and sank to rest a bit.
Apparently he lay without moving. The brown men were like dead men.
But inch by inch he had drawn the rope slack until he was able to
unwind it from his wrists. Then by half inches he moved his hands
free, slipping one of them from behind him to his side. It seemed to
him as though Nature herself had paused to watch and listen. He turned
now with his free hand beneath him. Slowly his fingers crept towards
his chest, grasped the sheath, freed the blade, and then back to his
side once more. He turned to his back, his hand behind him, his
fingers grasping the horn handle.
His feet were still bound, but he figured that he could raise himself
to a sitting posture and sever these with a single slash at the moment
he sprang. But he must be quick--must be strong--must be calm. To this
end he stretched himself upon his back and waited. If he were able to
kill the first man with a single blow, he felt he would stand more
than an equal chance with the two others. He was an adept in the use
of the knife.
In a flash he was upright; in another he had cut through the rope on
his ankles. He leaped forward, striking deep as his feet touched the
earth. The knife sank to the hilt in the brown body. One of the others
was reaching for his sword as Stubbs struck home again. But as he drew
out his knife, the third was rushing for him with his long sword in
his hands. He never reached him. With the skill of long experience,
Stubbs threw his knife with the speed of an arrow from a bow. It
struck the man just above the heart and he stumbled over his own feet.
Stubbs melted into the shadow of the trees.
Once out of sight of the scene of this struggle, he stopped and
listened. If this were all of them, there were several things he would
get before he returned to the heights. A light breeze rustled the
heavy tops above him, but otherwise the world seemed sound asleep.
There was not the cracking of a twig--not the movement of a shadow. He
ventured back. The three forms, save that they had settled into
awkward positions, looked very much as they had a few minutes ago when
they had stood between him and freedom. He passed them, stopping to
recover his knife, and then moved on to where he had hidden the
provisions. He took a rope, a can of beef, some crackers, and a small
quantity of coca leaves. Then he went to the spring nearby and soothed
his sore throat and mouth with water. He also filled a quart flask
which he tied behind him. Returning to the cache, he covered it up
again and, placing a roll of the coca leaves beneath his tongue,
started on the ascent.
The dawn was just appearing in a flush of pink when he reached the
top. A reconnaissance of the rocks around the hut and at the entrance
to the crevice convinced him that no guards had been left here.
Evidently the Priest had not thought their capture of supreme
importance. It was more an act of precaution than anything else.
He felt more refreshed at the top of the peak than he had at the
bottom and, wondering at this, it suddenly occurred to him that this
was the effect of the coca leaves. He had heard in Bogova that the
natives under its influence were able to endure incredible hardships
without other nourishment of any kind. He took a larger mouthful. At
any rate, they acted as balm upon his tongue and macerated lips. He
felt no inclination to rest. Even had he felt fatigue, his anxiety
over Wilson would have forbidden further delay.
He fastened one end of his rope securely about a point of rock and
then sat down to study the map once more. He realized that he would
need the help of every detail of these directions. Already he had
committed them to memory,--he was calmer than Wilson about it and so
had remembered them better,--but he went over them once more. There
was more than treasure at stake this time.
He lowered himself into the crevice which had swallowed up his
companion, with almost a sense of relief at being for the moment
beyond the power of the Priest. He was tempted to cut the rope behind
him, but a brief examination convinced him that this would be
foolhardy. He still had sufficient left for an emergency--in case the
rope was drawn up from above. Two men should stand a better chance of
getting out of here than would a single man.
At the end of the first ten feet along the narrow path Stubbs felt
much less confident than at the start that Wilson was alive. And he
worked his way along the dangerous course with increasing fear. It
was with a gasp of relief that he finally saw the opening ahead of him
which marked the end. He paused to shout. He received no reply. He
called his comrade's name again. The dark walls about him caught his
voice and imprisoned it.
Taking new risks, he pushed ahead. To the left he saw the cave mouth.
He stopped once more, half fearing what he should find, and ran the
remaining steps. At the entrance to the cave itself he stumbled over a
prostrate body.