AROUND THE HEADLAND
It was mid morning before Blake reappeared. He came from the mangrove
swamp where it ran down into the sea. His trousers were smeared to the
thigh with slimy mud; but as he approached, the drooping brim of his
palm-leaf hat failed to hide his exultant expression.
"Come on!" he called. "I've struck it. We'll be over in half an
hour."
"How's that?" asked Winthrope.
"Bar," answered Blake, hurrying forward. "Sling on your hats, and get
into my coat again, Miss Jenny. The sun's hot as yesterday. How about
the nuts?"
"Here they are. Three strings; all that I fancied we could carry,"
explained Winthrope.
"All right. The big one is mine, I suppose. I'll take two. We'll leave
the other. Lean on me, if your ankle is still weak."
"Thanks; I can make it alone. But must we go through mud like that?"
"Not on this side, at least. Come on! We don't want to miss the ebb."
Blake's impatience discouraged further inquiries. He had turned as he
spoke, and the others followed him, walking close together. The pace
was sharp for Winthrope, and his ankle soon began to twinge. He was
compelled to accept Miss Leslie's invitation to take her arm. With her
help, he managed to keep within a few yards of Blake.
Instead of plunging into the mangrove wood, which here was undergrown
with a thicket of giant ferns, Blake skirted around in the open until
they came to the seashore. The tide was at its lowest, and he waved his
club towards a long sand spit which curved out around the seaward edge
of the mangroves. Whether this was part of the river's bar, or had been
heaped up by the cyclone would have been beyond Winthrope's knowledge,
had the question occurred to him. It was enough for him that the sand was
smooth and hard as a race track.
Presently the party came to the end of the spit, where the river water
rippled over the sand with the last feeble out-suck of the ebb. On their
right they had a sweeping view of the river, around the flank of the
mangrove screen. Blake halted at the edge of the water, and half turned.
"Close up," he said. "It's shallow enough; but do you see those logs
over on the mud-bank? Those are alligators."
"Mercy!--and you expect me to wade among such creatures?" cried Miss
Leslie.
"I went almost across an hour ago, and they didn't bother me any. Come
on! There's wind in that cloud out seaward. Inside half an hour the
surf'll be rolling up on this bar like all Niagara."
"If we must, we must, Miss Genevieve," urged Winthrope. "Step behind
me, and gather up your skirts. It's best to keep one's clothes dry in
the tropics."
The girl blushed, and retained his arm.
"I prefer to help you," she replied.
"Come on!" called Blake, and he splashed out into the water.
The others followed within arm's-length, nervously conscious of the rows
of motionless reptiles on the mud-flat, not a hundred yards distant.
In the centre of the bar, where the water was a trifle over knee-deep,
some large creature came darting down-stream beneath the surface, and
passed with a violent swirl between Blake and his companions. At Miss
Leslie's scream, Blake whirled about and jabbed with his club at the
supposed alligator.
"Where's the brute? Has he got you?" he shouted.
"No, no; he went by!" gasped Winthrope. "There he is!"
A long bony snout, fringed on either side by a row of lateral teeth, was
flung up into view.
"Sawfish!" said Blake, and he waded on across the bar, without further
comment.
Miss Leslie had been on the point of fainting. The tone of Blake's voice
revived her instantly.
There were no more scares. A few minutes later they waded out upon a
stretch of clean sand on the south side of the river. Before them the
beach lay in a flattened curve, which at the far end hooked sharply
to the left, and appeared to terminate at the foot of the towering
limestone cliffs of the headland. A mile or more inland the river jungle
edged in close to the cliffs; but from there to the beach the forest
was separated from the wall of rock by a little sandy plain, covered
with creeping plants and small palms. The greatest width of the open
space was hardly more than a quarter of a mile.
Blake paused for a moment at high-tide mark, and Winthrope instantly
squatted down to nurse his ankle.
"I say, Blake," he said, "can't you find me some kind of a crutch?
It is only a few yards around to those trees."
"Good Lord! you haven't been fool enough to overstrain that ankle--
Yes, you have. Dammit! why couldn't you tell me before?"
"It did not feel so painful in the water."
"I helped the best I could," interposed Miss Leslie. "I think if you
could get Mr. Winthrope a crutch--"
"Crutch!" growled Blake. "How long do you think it would take me to
wade through the mud? And look at that cloud! We're in for a squall.
Here!"
He handed the girl the smaller string of cocoanuts, flung the other up
the beach, and stooped for Winthrope to mount his back. He then started
off along the beach at a sharp trot. Miss Leslie followed as best she
could, the heavy cocoanuts swinging about with every step and bruising
her tender body.
The wind was coming faster than Blake had calculated. Before they had
run two hundred paces, they heard the roar of rain-lashed water, and the
squall struck them with a force that almost overthrew the girl. With the
wind came torrents of rain that drove through their thickest garments
and drenched them to the skin within the first half-minute.
Blake slackened his pace to a walk, and plodded sullenly along beneath
the driving down-pour. He kept to the lower edge of the beach, where the
sand was firmest, for the force of the falling deluge beat down the waves
and held in check the breakers which the wind sought to roll up the beach.
The rain storm was at its height when they reached the foot of the
cliffs. The gray rock towered above them, thirty or forty feet high.
Blake deposited Winthrope upon a wet ledge, and straightened up to scan
the headland. Here and there ledges ran more than half-way up the rocky
wall; in other places the crest was notched by deep clefts; but nowhere
within sight did either offer a continuous path to the summit. Blake
grunted with disgust.
"It'd take a fire ladder to get up this side," he said. "We'll
have to try the other, if we can get around the point. I'm going on
ahead. You can follow, after Pat has rested his ankle. Keep a sharp
eye out for anything in the flint line--quartz or agate. That means
fire. Another thing, when this rain blows over, don't let your clothes
dry on you. I've got my hands full enough, without having to nurse you
through malarial fever. Don't forget the cocoanuts, and if I don't
show up by noon, save me some."
He stooped to drink from a pool in the rock which was overflowing with
the cool, pure rainwater, and started off at his sharpest pace. Winthrope
and Miss Leslie, seated side by side in dripping misery, watched him
swing away through the rain, without energy enough to call out a parting
word.
Beneath the cliff the sand beach was succeeded by a talus of rocky debris
which in places sloped up from the water ten or fifteen feet. The lower
part of the slope consisted of boulders and water-worn stones, over which
the surf, reinforced by the rising tide, was beginning to break with
an angry roar.
Blake picked his way quickly over the smaller stones near the top of
the slope, now and then bending to snatch up a fragment that seemed to
differ from the others. Finding nothing but limestone, he soon turned
his attention solely to the passage around the headland. Here he had
expected to find the surf much heavier. But the shore was protected by
a double line of reefs, so close in that the channel between did not
show a whitecap. This was fortunate, since in places the talus here sank
down almost to the level of low tide. Even a moderate surf would have
rendered farther progress impracticable.
Another hundred paces brought Blake to the second corner of the cliff,
which jutted out in a little point. He clambered around it, and stopped
to survey the coast beyond. Within the last few minutes the squall had
blown over, and the rain began to moderate its down-pour. The sun,
bursting through the clouds, told that the storm was almost past, and
its flood of direct light cleared the view.
Along the south side of the cliff the sea extended in twice as far as
on the north. From the end of the talus the coast trended off four or
five miles to the south-southwest in a shallow bight, whose southern
extremity was bounded by a second limestone headland. This ridge ran
inland parallel to the first, and from a point some little distance back
from the shore was covered with a growth of leafless trees.
Between the two ridges lay a plain, open along the shore, but a short
distance inland covered with a jungle of tall yellow grass, above
which, here and there, rose the tops of scrubby, leafless trees and the
graceful crests of slender-shafted palms. Blake's attention was drawn
to the latter by that feeling of artificiality which their exotic
appearance so often wakens in the mind of the Northern-bred man even
after long residence in the tropics. But in a moment he turned away,
with a growl. "More of those darned feather-dusters!" He was not
looking for palms.
The last ragged bit of cloud, with its showery accompaniment, drifted
past before the breeze which followed the squall, and the end of the
storm was proclaimed by a deafening chorus of squawks and screams along
the higher ledges of the cliff. Staring upward, Blake for the first time
observed that the face of the cliff swarmed with seafowl.
"That's luck!" he muttered. "Guess I haven't forgot how to rob
nests. Bet our fine lady'll shy at sucking them raw! All the same,
she'll have to, if I don't run across other rock than this, poor girl!"
He advanced again along the talus, and did not stop until he reached
the sand beach. There he halted to make a careful examination, not
only of the loose debris, but of the solid rock above. Finding no sign
of flint or quartz, he growled out a curse, and backed off along the
beach, to get a view of the cliff top. From a point a little beyond him,
outward to the extremity of the headland, he could see that the upper
ledges and the crest of the cliff, as well, were fairly crowded with
seafowl and their nests. His smile of satisfaction broadened when he
glanced inland and saw, less than half a mile distant, a wooded cleft
which apparently ran up to the summit of the ridge. From a point near
the top a gigantic baobab tree towered up against the skyline like a
Brobdingnagian cabbage.
"Say, we may have a run for our money, after all," he murmured.
"Shade, and no end of grub, and, by the green of those trees, a
spring--limestone water at that. Next thing, I'll find a flint!"
He slapped his leg, and both sound and feeling reminded him that his
clothes were drenched.
"Guess we'll wait about that flint," he said, and he made for a clump
of thorn scrub a little way inland.
As the tall grass did not grow here within a mile of the shore, there
was nothing to obstruct him. The creeping plants which during the rainy
season had matted over the sandy soil were now leafless and withered by
the heat of the dry season. Even the thorn scrub was half bare of leaves.
Blake walked around the clump to the shadiest side, and began to strip.
In quick succession, one garment after another was flung across a branch
where the sun would strike it. Last of all, the shoes were emptied of
rainwater and set out to dry. Without a pause, he then gave himself a
quick, light rub-down, just sufficient to invigorate the skin without
starting the perspiration.
Physically the man was magnificent. His muscles were wiry and compact,
rather than bulky, and as he moved, they played beneath his white skin
with the smoothness and ease of a tiger's.
After the rub-down, he squatted on his heels, and spent some time trying
to bend his palm-leaf hat back into shape. When he had placed this also
out in the sun, he found himself beginning to yawn. The dry, sultry
air had made him drowsy. A touch with his bare foot showed him that the
sand beneath the thorn bush had already absorbed the rain and offered
a dry surface. He glanced around, drew his club nearer, and stretched
himself out for a nap.