THE PLACE OF SKULLS
Cyrus Hammer, as he was forced along beside Jenson, was aware that
the crisis had come in the twinkling of an eye and that he had proven
wanting. Sara Helmuth had met it in his place--and Krausz had proven
victor.
On the surface, at least. But, as he heard Sara Helmuth telling the
scientist the tale of the real fort, Hammer smiled to himself. She
might reveal the secret of the fort and treasure and all else--for
Krausz had done the very thing which Hammer had never for an instant
dreamed that he would do in releasing John Solomon.
The American recollected that, to Krausz, Solomon was no more than a
mere pudgy little man who had shoved himself into the affairs of
others, and for whom a day of wandering in the jungle would be
veritable torture.
Krausz had woven his own net, for the only man there able to warn him
against Solomon was Jenson, and from Jenson he would receive no
warning. Moreover, Hammer saw that vengeance was like to be taken
from his hands, since Jenson's punishment was slowly but surely
drawing in upon him.
His exultation did not last long, however. He soon saw that, short
of a murderous volley which would cut down all four _askaris_ and
Krausz with them, Solomon could not do much to help them just at
present.
The girl was telling Krausz of the treasure now as they stood among
the trenches on the hill, where tools lay flung about as the natives
had deserted them.
Krausz had done a good deal, thought Hammer; in that week he had
found out for himself that he was on a false scent--and that despite
Solomon's prediction to the contrary.
Behind them the camp lay quiet, smoke curling up from the fires, the
seamen and the four remaining _askaris_ looking after the party. In
front stretched the jungle, deep green and yellow tangles of vines
and trees and bamboos. The girl turned to Hammer.
"Do you know just how to get in there, Hammer?" she said wearily.
"I've promised to guide the doctor there, and----"
He saw that she was trying not to betray the secret of the camp from
which she had come, but with Solomon gone to his men, as he plainly
was, there was naught to be feared.
"Lead us by the path you came," he reassured her, Krausz paying no
heed, but searching the jungle with eager eyes. "The ruins ought to
be straight back from these, about two hundred yards or so."
She caught the meaning of his words and his quick smile and, with an
answering flash in her eyes, turned back to Krausz, who still bore
the whip taken from the _askari_. Though he carried no gun, Hammer
caught a bulge in the coat-pocket of the big Saxon and knew that he
was not unarmed.
Now, without further hesitation, Sara Helmuth led the way across the
half-trenched lines of ruins. The American saw that when she had
come to the camp that morning out of the jungle-hid fort it had been
with little fear of such a result as this.
Perhaps trusting in John Solomon or himself, perhaps determined, if
necessary, to force the doctor's hand by threat of exposure--any one
of a hundred reasons flashed through Hammer's mind; but the central
thought was that she had borne herself far better than had he.
Bound, helpless, marched at the side of the staggering, moaning
Jenson, he found himself forced into a narrow path, and the jungle
closed around them.
Krausz was not careless, however. Finding that the path was actually
walled in by trees, bamboos, and creepers, and doubtless suspicious
at seeing it recently cleared, he sent an _askari_ ahead, then Sara
Helmuth, and followed himself, with another _askari_ behind, his long
whip ready for action, and ordered Hammer and his guard immediately
behind, while Jenson and the fourth Masai brought up the rear.
Barely had they got well in shelter of the jungle than Hammer, with
Jenson's moans coming from behind like the inarticulate cries of a
trapped beast, felt the hand of his guard fumbling with the cords
that bound his wrists.
He half-turned in surprise, when a hand on his shoulder pressed him
about again; with the fingers of his other hand the Masai tapped
gently on the little silver ring Hammer still wore, and the latter
understood.
This Masai fighting man, brought by Jenson from Zanzibar to defend
Krausz, with the German eagle on tunic and fez, had recognized the
sign of John Solomon, and had made answer to it!
Almost as the unbelievable thought found its way into his brain he
felt that his bonds were loosened; a warning hand pressed his wrist
again, and was gone. He comprehended that for the present he was not
to free himself, and though the impulse was in him to leap on Krausz
from behind, he held it in check and followed blindly.
In one respect at least the scientist seemed sincere, and that was in
his belief, inspired by Jenson, that Hammer had stabbed Harcourt.
Indeed, in matters foreign to his calling Krausz was probably all
that could be wished.
But he, too, beginning at the comparatively innocuous point of taking
the papers belonging to the dying Helmuth, had been wound in the
skein of cumulative wrong-doing, reflected Hammer. He was not weak
like Jenson, however; his wrong-doing was aggressive, determined,
positive, while that of Jenson was decidedly negative.
Where the hiding-place of the relics and papers was the American
himself did not know, though Solomon and the girl did. Now Krausz
knew as well, or soon would, for Hammer divined Sara's intention
perfectly.
She would give up all in order to appease the Saxon, depending on
Solomon to eventually overpower the latter, if he did not first
prevent the disclosure of the secret.
Hammer spared no thought on himself. That he was in any present
danger did not occur to him, since he could not suspect the thoughts
behind the doctor's heavy-lidded eyes and throbbing band of muscle.
For the jungle smell had entered into the nostrils of the
scientist--and whether it be in jungle or forest or sand reaches, no
man can taste the loneliness of Nature and hold to his veneer of
man-learning.
It is the same whether he be beside the Mackenzie or the Mahakkam,
under Kilimanjaro or Tacoma. Once away from his kind, man forgets
his kind, for the despotism of the wild overbears all else.
It was so with Krausz and, to a certain sense, with Sara Helmuth; it
was so with Hammer, though he did not comprehend it; but if it was so
with John Solomon no man could say.
"We are here," exclaimed the girl dully.
The party halted. Without perceiving it in the half-gloom of the
overhanging masses of vegetation, they had suddenly come among
half-fallen walls, ruined stone structures that loomed far up and
were held in place by thigh-thick vines.
Through some had pierced old trees and limbs of trees, yet the walls
still held in grotesque mimicry; no roofs were there, but only walls
and ruins of walls. And over the place brooded silence, with never a
chattering of monkey or parrot's screech to quiver hollowly up.
Hammer felt a twitch at his arm, but shook off the hand of the
_askari_. If the man thought he was going to run for it and leave
Sara Helmuth in the lurch, he was much mistaken. Slowly, very
slowly, the American saw that men had been here not long before,
since in amid the ruins were evidences of clearing--lopped branches
piled up in places, flickering shadow-gleams of sunlight that
filtered down from somewhere above, and queer white fragments that
strewed the ground in spots.
If Krausz saw this, however, he paid small heed, but clambered over a
smoothed-out pile of stones, the others following.
"_Gott_! Truly thiss iss the real place!"
He stood looking around, caressing the handle of the whip with his
fingers. On three sides towered walls and trees and vines,
inextricable and undefined; where walls ended and trees began it was
impossible to say, for the growth of two hundred jungle years is not
to be lightly set aside by a few Arabs in a week's time. Jenson sank
down where he stood, cowed into silence by the silence around.
Suddenly, as if the echoes of the doctor's words had worked through
the interstices of the leafy roof, a great burst of shrill chattering
arose somewhere overhead.
Hammer jumped, startled; at the same instant two or three white
objects shot down from nowhere, apparently. Two burst into shreds,
the other struck a mossy wall and rebounded to the feet of Krausz,
who leaped back in alarm.
One half-stifled shriek burst from the first _askari_ and stilled the
clamour above. Sara Helmuth stared at the thing, as did everyone
else, her face very pale; and Hammer knew, at last, that Omar ibn
Kasim had spoken truth indeed--for the object was a skull.
An oath from Krausz recalled the frightened _askaris_ to their
vigilance. He stood mopping his brow and staring from the unbroken
skull to the trees above, and, as Hammer glanced up, he saw one or
two dark forms flitting about the top of the nearest wall and
vanishing in the trees.
"Monkeys!" exclaimed Sara Helmuth, her eyes unnaturally large, but
her voice firm. "Are you afraid of monkeys and skulls, Herr Doctor?"
For answer Krausz snorted and picked up the skull. He flung it away
instantly.
"Pah! It iss mouldy--it hass been the ground in. Monkeys--pigs of
scavengers! Yess, thiss iss the place."
For a moment he stood silent. Then, for the gruesome thing must have
wakened the depths of him, he swiftly changed the whip to his left
hand, drew a revolver with the other, and turned on the group behind
him.
Hammer started at the change in the man. His great brow was mottled,
as were his cheeks, save for the panting band of muscle that stood
out deep red, and his black eyes gleamed with something that was near
akin to ferocity. Never had Hammer seen such a face on a man, and
now, for the first time, a strange alarm stirred within him.
Krausz tried to speak, but could not for a moment; lips and tongue
were dry, and his voice came in a hoarse growl that betrayed how that
monkey-flung skull had got on his nerves.
"You tricked me, yess!" he cried at length. "You tricked me, Sigurd
Krausz! You, _fräulein_, you, and Adolf here! But no more shall you
trick me, no. I----"
He paused quickly, plainly fighting for his lost self-control,
meeting the firm eyes of Sara Helmuth. Hammer, fearing that the man
would break out into violence, tensed his muscles and measured the
distance between them, but Krausz lowered his revolver as slow sanity
crept back into his eyes.
The girl still faced him, though she had shrunk back before that mad
outburst, and in reply her voice came low, but with a note that
seemed to calm his rage, so cold and self-contained was it. Hammer
noted that she made no gesture as for a weapon; she must have come
unarmed, probably on the impulse of the moment.
"Yes, you were tricked, Her Doctor--tricked by a girl. And you are
called the greatest archaeologist in Europe! Dresden will laugh when
it hears the story, doctor--the story of how you dug for a week in
the ruins of a storehouse, while the fort you were in search of lay
under your nose here. And then the treasure!
"Now free me and Mr. Hammer there, and I promise you that this shall
never be known in Europe, Dr. Krausz. If the story came out it would
blast your reputation, and you know it well."
Krausz looked at her, frowning as if in hard thought. Hammer saw
that the strain was telling heavily upon her, and breathed a sigh of
relief when the scientist replied:
"Yess, it would my reputation blast, _fräulein_. That iss very
right--very. But listen. You have told me that the treasure was in
two parts, yess, and the relics and papers, I do not know where they
are. But you know, _fräulein_. Now tell me, take me to thiss place
also, then will I free you and Mr. Hammer and Adolf--yess, you shall
go free with Adolf, both of you!"
As he made this offer, there was something about the narrowed eyes of
the man that Hammer did not like. Sara Helmuth studied him for a
moment, but she was plainly weakening fast.
Something of the fetid aspect of the place seemed to be in the face
of Krausz, and she palpably distrusted him; but he forced quietude
into his features and stared stolidly at her, waiting.
Another white object fluttered down from above with a chattering that
floated away amid the tree-tops, and the girl shuddered as the skull
struck the wall behind her and shivered rottenly.
"How--how if I refuse?"
"If you refuse, _fräulein_, the whip--and no promise."
He gestured with his hand toward Hammer. The girl flung the latter
one helpless glance, and bowed her head as she turned.
"Come."
Krausz, with triumph beaming from his massive features, motioned the
others to fall in line, and they went as at first, out across the
fallen wall. To the American the place was shapeless, formless, but
Krausz cast quick nodding glances about him, and Sara Helmuth did not
hesitate.
Hammer felt his heart throbbing--the atmosphere of the jungle-hid
ruins was oppressive, stultifying. The girl led them across fallen
walls and past cleared spaces to a great heap of ruins overgrown
thickly.
Through it led a hard-beaten path, and with half-darkness about them
she paused at what seemed to be a square hole in the ground, perhaps
a dozen feet across, with trees roofing all in overhead. Here the
path ended.
"It is there," she said simply.
Krausz growled something at the _askaris_, and went forward. Hammer,
watching, saw him stop suddenly as though listening. Then, at the
edge of the hole, he laid down revolver and whip and went to his
knees, and so flat on his belly, his hands gripping roots on either
side of him.
Here he stayed motionless for what seemed ages to the overwrought
American. When, at last, he crawled upright, his hands were shaking
tremulously, his face was ghastly white, and he clutched at a near-by
tree for support.
"_Mein Gott_!" he said thickly, staring at the girl. "_Mein Gott_!
_Mein Gott_!"