FEVER AND FIRE AND FEAR
By nightfall Winthrope was tossing and groaning on the bed of leaves
which Miss Leslie had heaped beneath his canopy. Though not delirious,
his high temperature, coupled with the pains which racked every nerve and
bone in his body, rendered him light-headed. He would catch himself up in
the midst of some rambling nonsense to inquire anxiously whether he had
said anything silly or strange. On being reassured upon this, he would
relax again, and, as likely as not, break into a babyish wail over his
aches and pains.
Blake shook his head when he learned that the attack had not been
preceded by a chill.
"Guess he's in for a hot time," he said. "There is more'n one kind
of malarial fever. Some are a whole lot like typhus."
"Typhus? What is that?" asked Miss Leslie.
"Sort of rapid fire, double action typhoid. Not that I think Win's got
it--only malaria. What gets me is that we've only been here these few
days, and yet it looks like he's got the continuous, no-chill kind."
"Then you think he will be very ill?"
"Well, I guess he'll think so. It ought to run out in a week or ten
days, though. We've had good water, and it usually takes time for
malaria to soak in deep. Now, don't worry, Miss Jenny. It'll do him no
good, and you a lot of harm. Take things easy as you can, for you've
got to keep up your strength. If you don't, you'll be down yourself
before Win is up."
"Ill while he is helpless and unable--? Oh, no; that cannot be! I must
not give way to the fever until--"
"Don't worry. You'll likely stave it off for a couple of weeks or so.
You're lively yet, and that's a good sign. I knew Win was in for it
when he began to grouch and loaf and do the baby act. I haven't much use
for dudes in general, and English dudes in particular; but I'll admit
that, while Win's soft enough in spots, he's not all mush and milk."
"Thank you, Mr. Blake."
"You're welcome. I couldn't say less, seeing that Win can't speak for
himself. Now you tumble in and get a good sleep. I'll go on as night
nurse, and work at the barricade same time. You're not going to do any
night-nursing. I can gather the thorn-brush in the afternoons, and pile
it up at night."
In the morning Miss Leslie found that Blake had built a substantial
canopy over the invalid, in place of the first ramshackle structure.
"It's best for him to be out in the air," he explained; "so I fixed
this up to keep off the dew. But whenever it rains, we'll have to tote
him inside."
"Ah, yes; to be sure. How is he?" murmured the girl.
"He's about the same this morning. But he got a little sleep. Keep him
dosed with all the hot broth he'll take. And say, roust me out at noon.
I've had my breakfast. Now I'll have a snooze. So long!"
He nodded, and crawled under the shade of the nearest bush, too drowsy
to observe her look of dismay.
At noon, having learned that Winthrope's condition showed little change,
Blake ate a hearty meal, and at once set off down the cleft. He did not
reappear until nightfall; though at intervals Miss Leslie had heard
his step as he came up the ravine with his loads of thorn-brush.
This course of action became the routine for the following ten days. It
was broken only by three incidents, all relating to the important matter
of food supply. Winthrope had soon tired of broth, and showed such an
insatiable craving for cocoanut milk that the stock on hand had become
exhausted within the week.
The day after, Blake took the rope ladder, as he called the tangle of
knotted creepers, and went off towards the north end of the cleft. When
he returned, a little before dark, the lower part of his trousers was
torn to shreds, and the palms of his hands were blistered and raw; but he
carried a heavy load of cocoanuts. After a vain attempt to climb the
giant palms on the far side of the river, he had found another grove
near at hand, in the little plain, and had succeeded in reaching the tops
of two of the smaller palms.
Under his directions, Miss Leslie clarified a bowl of bird
fat--goose-grease, Blake called it,--and dressed his hands. Yet even
with the bandages which she made of soft inner bark and the
handkerchiefs, he was unable to handle the thorn-brush the following day.
Unfortunately for him, he was not content to sit idle. During the night
he had cut a bamboo fishing-pole and lengthened Miss Leslie's line of
plaited cocoanut-fibre with a long catgut leader. In the afternoon he
completed his outfit with a hairpin hook and a piece of half-dried meat.
He was back an hour earlier than usual, and he brought with him a dozen
or more fair-sized fish. His mouth was watering over the prospective
feast, and Miss Leslie showed herself hardly less eager for a change
from their monotonous diet. As the fish were already dressed, she raked
up the coals and quickly contrived a grill of green bamboos.
When the odor of the broiling fish spread about in the still air, even
Winthrope sniffed and turned over, while Blake watched the crisping
delicacies with a ravenous look. Unable to restrain himself, he caught
up the smallest fish, half cooked, and bolted it down with such haste
that he burnt his mouth. He ran over to the spring for a drink, and
Winthrope cackled derisively.
Miss Leslie was too absorbed in her cooking to observe the result of
Blake's greediness. She had turned the fish for the last time, and was
about to lift them off the fire, when Blake came running back, and sent
grill and all flying with a violent kick.
"Salt!" he gasped--"where's the salt? I'm poisoned!"
"Poisoned?"
"Poison fish! Don't eat! God!--Where's the salt?"
The girl stared at him. His agony was so great that beads of sweat
were rolling down his face. He writhed, and stretched out a quivering
hand--"Salt, quick!--warm water--salt!"
"But there's none left! You remember, yesterday--"
"God!" groaned Blake, and for a moment he sank down, overcome by a
racking convulsion. Then his jaw closed like a bulldog's, and gritting
his teeth with the effort, he staggered up and rushed off down the cleft.
"Stop! stop, Mr. Blake! Where are you going?" screamed the girl.
She started to run after him, but was halted by an outburst of delirious
laughter. Winthrope was sitting upright and waving his fever-blotched
hands--"Hi, hi! look at 'im run! 'E's got w'at'll do for 'im! Run,
you swine; you--"
There followed a torrent of cockney abuse so foul that Miss Leslie
blushed scarlet with shame as she sought to quiet him. But the excitement
had so heightened his fever that he was in a raving delirium. It was
close upon midnight before his temperature fell, and he sank into a
death-like torpor. In her ignorance, she supposed that he had fallen
asleep.
Her relief was short-lived, for soon she remembered Blake. She could
see him lying beside the pool or out on the bare plain, his resolute
eyes cold and glassy, his powerful body contorted in the death agony.
The vision filled her with dismay. With all his coarseness, the man had
showed himself so resourceful, so indomitable, that when she sought to
dwell upon her reasons to fear him, she found herself admiring his virile
manliness. He might be a brute, but he did not belong among the jackals
and hyenas. Indeed, as she called to mind his strong face and frank,
blunt speech she all but disbelieved what her own ears had heard.
And anyway, without his aid, what should she do? Winthrope had already
become as weak as a child. The emaciation of his jaundiced features was a
mockery of their former plumpness. Blake had said that the fever might
run on for another week, and that even if Winthrope recovered, he would
probably be helpless for several days besides.
What was no less serious, though she had concealed the fact from Blake,
she herself had been troubled the past week with the depression and
lassitude which had preceded Winthrope's attack. If Blake was dead,
and she should fall ill before Winthrope recovered, they would both die
from lack of care. And if they did not die of the fever, what of their
future, here on this desolate savage coast!
But the very keenness of her mental anguish so exhausted and numbed the
girl's brain that she at last fell into a heavy sleep. The fire burned
low, and shadowy forms began to creep from behind the bamboos and the
trees and rocks down the gorge. There was no sound; but greedy, wolfish
eyes gleamed in the starlight.
Only the day before Blake had told Miss Leslie to store the last rack of
cured meat inside the baobab. The two sleepers lay between the fire and
the entrance to the hollow. Slowly the embers of the fire died away
into gray ashes, and slowly the night prowlers drew nearer. The boldest
of the pack crept close to Miss Leslie, and, with teeth bared and back
bristling, sniffed at the edge of her skirt. Whether because of her
heavy breathing or the odor of the leopard skin, the beast drew away,
with an uneasy whine.
There was a pause; then, backed by three others, the leader approached
Winthrope. He was still lying in the death-like torpor, and he lacked
the protection which, in all likelihood, the leopard skin had given Miss
Leslie. The cowardly brutes took him for dead or dying. They sniffed at
him from head to foot, and then, with a ferocious outburst of snarls and
yells, flung themselves upon him.
Had it not chanced that Winthrope was lying upon his side, with one arm
thrown up, he would have been fatally wounded by the first slashing
bites of his assailants. The two which sought to tear him were baffled
by the thick folds of Blake's coat, while their leader's slash at the
victim's throat was barred by the upraised arm. With a savage snap,
the beast's jaws closed on the arm, biting through to the bone. At the
same instant the fourth jackal tore ravenously at one of the outstretched
legs.
With a shriek of agony, Winthrope started up from his torpor, and struck
out frantically in a fury of pain and terror. Startled by the violence
of this unexpected resistance, the jackals leaped back--only to spring
in again as the remainder of the pack made a rush to forestall them.
Winthrope was staggering to his feet, when the foremost brute leaped
upon him. He fell heavily against one of the main supports of his bamboo
canopy, and the entire structure came down with a crash. Two of the
jackals, caught beneath the roof, howled with fear as they sought to
free themselves. The others, with brute dread of an unknown danger,
drew away, snarling and gnashing their teeth.
Wakened by the first ferocious yelps of Winthrope's assailants, Miss
Leslie had started up and stared about in the darkness. On all sides she
could see pairs of fiery eyes and dim forms like the phantom creatures
of a nightmare. Winthrope's shriek, instead of spurring her to action,
only confused her the more and benumbed her faculties. She thought it
was his death cry, and stood trembling, transfixed with horror.
Then came the fall of the canopy. His cries as he sought to throw it off
showed that he was still alive. In a flash her bewilderment vanished. The
stagnant blood surged again through her arteries in a fiery, stimulating
torrent. With a cry, to which primeval instinct lent a menacing note,
she groped her way to the fallen canopy, and stooped to lift up one side.
"Quick!--into the tree!" she called.
Still frantic with terror, Winthrope struggled to his feet. She thrust
him towards the baobab, and followed, dragging the mass of interwoven
bamboos. Emboldened by the retreat of their quarry, the snarling pack
instantly began to close in. Fortunately they were too cowardly to rush
at once, and fear spurred their intended victims to the utmost haste.
Groping and stumbling, the two felt their way to the baobab, and Miss
Leslie pushed Winthrope headlong through the entrance. As he fell, she
turned to face the pack.
The foremost beasts were at the rear edge of the bamboo framework, their
eyes close to the ground. Instinct told her that they were crouching to
leap. With desperate strength she caught up the canopy before her like
a great shield, and drew it in after her until the ends of the cross-bars
were wedged fast against the sides of the opening. Though it seemed
so firm, she clung to it with a convulsive grasp as she felt the pack
leaders fling themselves against the outer side.
But Blake had lashed the bamboos securely together, and none of the
beasts was heavy enough to snap the supple bars. Finding that they could
not break down the barrier, they began to scratch and tear at the thatch
which covered the frame. Soon a pair of lean jaws thrust in and snapped
at the girl's skirt. She sprang back, with a cry: "Help! Quick, Mr.
Winthrope! They're breaking through!"
Winthrope made no response. She stooped, and found him lying inert where
he had fallen. She had only herself to depend upon. A screen of sharp
sticks which she had made for the entrance was leaning against the inner
wall, within easy reach. To grasp it and thrust it against the other
framework was the work of an instant.
Still she trembled, for the eager beasts had ripped the thatch from the
canopy, and their inthrust jaws made short work of the few leaves on her
screen. Unaware that even a lion or a tiger is quickly discouraged by
the knife-like splinters of broken bamboo, she expected every moment that
the jackals would bite their way through her frail barrier.
She remembered the stakes given her by Winthrope, hidden under the leaves
and grass of her bed. She groped her way across the hollow, and uncovered
one of the stakes. In her haste she cut her hand on its razor-like edge.
All unheeding, she sprang back towards the entrance. She was none too
soon. One of the smaller jackals had forced its head and one leg between
the bars, and was struggling to enlarge the opening.
Fearful that the whole pack was about to burst in upon her, the girl
grasped the bamboo stake in both hands, and began stabbing and lunging
at the beast with all her strength. The jackal squirmed and snarled and
snapped viciously. But the girl was now frantic. She pressed nearer,
and though the white teeth grazed her wrist, she drove home a thrust
that changed the beast's snarls into a howl of pain. Before she could
strike again, it had struggled back out of the hole, beyond reach.
Tense and panting with excitement, she leaned forward, ready to stab at
the next beast. None appeared, and presently she became aware that the
pack had been daunted by the experience of their unlucky fellow. Their
snarls and yells had subsided to whines, which seemed to be coming from
a greater distance. Still she waited, with the bamboo stake upraised
ready to strike, every nerve and muscle of her body tense with the strain.
So great was the stress of her fear and excitement that she had not
heeded the first gray lessening of the night. But now the glorious
tropical dawn came streaming out of the east in all its red effulgence.
Above and through the bamboo barrier glowed a light such as might have
come from a great fire on the cliff top. Still tense and immovable, the
girl stared out up the cleft. There was not a jackal in sight. She
leaned forward and peered around, unable to believe such good fortune.
But the night prowlers had slunk off in the first gray dawn.
The girl drew in a deep, shuddering sigh, and sank back. Her hand struck
against Winthrope's foot. She turned about quickly and looked at him. He
was lying upon his face. She hastened to turn him upon his side, and
to feel his forehead. It was cool and moist. He was fast asleep and
drenched with sweat. The great shock of his pain and fear and excitement
had broken his fever.
With the relief and joy of this discovery, the girl completely relaxed.
Not observing Winthrope's wounds, which had bled little, she sought
to force a way out through the entrance. It was by no means an easy task
to free the wedged framework, and when, after much pulling and pushing,
she at last tore the mass loose, she found herself perspiring no less
freely than Winthrope.
She was far too preoccupied, however, to consider what this might mean.
Her first thought was of the fire. She ran to her rude stone fireplace
and raked over the ashes. They were still warm, but there was not a live
ember among them. Yet she realized that Winthrope must have hot food
when he wakened, and Blake had carried with him the magnifying glass.
For a little she stood hesitating. But the defeat of the jackals had
given her courage and resolution such as she had never before known. She
returned into the cave, and chose the sharpest of her stakes. Having
made certain that Winthrope was still asleep, she set off boldly down
the cleft.
At the first turn she came upon Blake's thorn barricade. It stretched
across the narrowest part of the cleft in an impenetrable wall, twelve
feet high. Only in the centre was a gap, which could have been filled by
Blake in less than two hours' work. The girl's eyes brightened. She
herself could gather the thorn-brush and fill the gap before night. They
no longer need fear the jackals or even the larger beasts of prey. None
the less, they must have fire.
Spurred on by the thought, she was about to spring through the barricade
when she heard the tread of feet on the path beyond. She crouched down,
and peered through the tangle of brush in the edge of the gap. Less
than ten paces away Blake was plodding heavily up the trail. She stepped
out before him.
"You--you! Are you alive?" she gasped.
"'Live? You bet your boots!" came back the grim response. "You bet
I'm alive--though I had to go Jonah one better to do it. The whale
heaved him up; I heaved up the whale--and it took about a barrel of
sea-water to do it."
"Sea-water?"
"Sure . . . . I tumbled over twice on the way. But I made the beach.
Lord! how I pumped in the briny deep! Guess I won't go into details--but
if you think you know anything about seasickness-- _Whew!_ Lucky for
yours truly, the tide was just starting out, and the wind off shore.
I'd fallen in the water, and the Jonah business laid me out cold.
Didn't know anything until the tide came up again and soused me."
"I am very glad you're not dead. But how you must have suffered! You
are still white, and your face is all creased."
Blake attempted a careless laugh. "Don't worry about me. I'm here,
O. K., all that's left,--a little wobbly on my pins, but hungry as
a shark. But say, what's up with you? You're sweating like a-- Good
thing, though. It'll stave off your spell of fever a while. How 'd
you happen to be coming down here so early?"
"I was starting to find you."
"Me!"
"Not you--that is, I thought you were dead. I was going to make certain,
and to--to get the burning-glass."
"Um-m. I see. Let the fire go out, eh?"
"Do not blame me, Mr. Blake! I was so ill and worn out, and I've paid
for it twice over, really I have. Didn't those awful beasts attack you?"
"Beasts? How's that?" he demanded.
"Oh, but you must have heard them! The horrid things tried to kill
us!" she cried, and she poured out a half incoherent account of all that
had happened since he left.
Blake listened intently, his jaw thrust out, his eyes glowing upon her
with a look which she had never before seen in any man's eyes. But his
first comment had nothing to do with her conduct.
"How's that?--sorry Win got rousted out of his nice little snooze--
Snooze! Why, don't you know, we'd been all alone in our glory by
to-night if it hadn't been for those brutes. He was in the stupor,
and that would have been the end of him if the beasts hadn't stirred
him up so lively. I've heard of such a thing before, but I always
thought it was a fake. Here you are sweating, too."
"I feel much better than yesterday. I did not tell you, but I have felt
ill for nearly a week."
"'Fraid to tell, eh?--and you were so scared over the beasts-- Scared!
By Jiminy, you've got grit, little woman! There's two kinds of
scaredness; you've got the Stonewall Jackson kind. If anybody asks
you, just refer them to Tommy Blake."
"Thank you, Mr. Blake. But should we not hasten back now to prepare
something for Mr. Winthrope?"
"Ditto for yours truly. I'm like that sepulchre you read about--white
outside, and within nothing but bare bones and emptiness."