eight months old, whose mother had died the previous day. His owner, a
busy lumberman, was now sending him across the river to a neighbour's
farm to be cared for, because he was of good "Morgan" strain. The
ferryman had taken the precaution to hitch the end of his halter-rope to
a thwart amidships, lest he should get wild and jump overboard; but the
colt, though his dark brown coat was still woolly with the roughness of
babyhood, had too much breadth between the eyes to be guilty of any such
foolishness. He felt frightened, and strange, and very lonely; but he
knew it was his business just to trust the man and keep still.
When the animal trusts the man he generally comes out all right; but
once in a long while Fate interferes capriciously, and the utterly
unexpected happens. Hundreds of times, and with never a mishap, the
ferryman had poled his clumsy scow across the dangerous passage between
the rapids--the only possible crossing-place for miles in either
direction. But this evening, when the scow was just about mid-channel,
for some inexplicable reason the tough and well-tried pole of white
spruce snapped. It broke short off in the middle of a mighty thrust. And
overboard, head first, went the ferryman.
As the man fell his foot caught in the hook of a heavy chain used for
securing hay-carts and such vehicles on the scow; and as the clumsy
craft swung free in the current the man was dragged beneath it. He would
have been drowned in a few seconds, in such water; but at last, in the
twisting, the captive foot fell clear. The man came to the surface on
the upper side of the scow, made one despairing but successful clutch,
got hold of the edge, and with his last strength drew himself aboard,
all but suffocated, and with a broken ankle. Tricked by years of
security, he had left his spare pole on the shore. There was absolutely
nothing to do but let the scow drift, and pray that by some succession
of miracles she might survive nine miles of rapids and gain the placid
reaches below.
As the man, white and sullen, crouched on the bottom of the scow and
held his ankle, the colt eyed him wonderingly. Then he eyed the river,
very anxiously, and presently braced his legs wide apart as the scow
gave a strange, disconcerting lurch. The roar was growing swiftly
louder, and those fierce white waves appeared to be rushing right up the
middle of the river to meet the scow. Daunted at the sight, he crowded
as close as he could to the ferryman, and nosed him as if to call his
attention to the peril.
In a very few minutes the scow was in the rapids. But the current had
carried her well inshore, where there chanced to be, for several miles,
a comparatively free channel, few rocks, and no disastrous ledges. She
swung and wallowed sickeningly, bumping so violently that once the
colt's knees gave way beneath him and twice he was all but hurled
overboard. And she took in great, sloshing crests of waves till she was
half-full of water. But she was not built to sink, and her ribs were
sound. For miles she pounded her terrible way in safety through the
bewildering tumult. At last a long jutting promontory of rock started
the current on a new slant, and she was swept staggering across to the
other shore. Here, for nearly two miles, she slipped with astonishing
good luck down a narrow, sluice-like lane of almost smooth water. As if
to compensate for this fortune, however, she was suddenly caught by a
violent cross-current, snatched out of the clearway, and swept heavily
over a ledge. At the foot of this ledge she was fairly smothered for
some seconds. The man clung obstinately to the gunwales; and the colt,
by sheer good luck, fell in the scow instead of over the side. By the
time he had struggled to his feet again the scow had righted herself,
and darted into a wild chaos of rocks and sluices close by the shore.
Here she caught on a boulder, tipped up till she was nearly on her
gunwale, and pitched the little animal clear overboard.
As the clumsy craft swung loose the very next instant, the colt was
dragged along in her wake, and would have ended his adventures then and
there but for the readiness of the man. Forgetting for an instant his
own terrible plight, he drew his knife and slashed the rope. Thus
released, the colt got his head above water and made a valiant struggle
toward the shore, which was now not five yards away.
All that he could do in the grip of that mad flood was, needless to say,
very little, but it chanced to be enough, for it brought him within the
grasp of a strong eddy. A moment later he was dashed violently into
shoal water. As he fought to a footing he saw the scow wallowing away
down the torrent. Then he found himself, he knew not how, on dry land.
The falls roared behind him. They might, it seemed, rush up at any
instant and clutch him again. Blind and sick with panic, he dashed into
the woods, and went galloping and stumbling straight inland. At last he
sank trembling in the deep grass of a little brookside meadow.
Being of sturdy stock, the brown colt soon recovered his wind. Then,
feeling nervous in the loneliness of the woods and the deepening
shadows, he snatched a few mouthfuls of grass and started to try and
find his way home. Obeying some deep-seated instinct, he set his face
aright, and pushed forward through the thick growths.
His progress, however, was slow. Among the trees the twilight was now
gathering, and the dark places filled his young heart with vague but
dreadful apprehensions, so that at every few steps he would stop and
stare backward over his shoulder. Presently he came out upon another
open glade, and cheered by the light, he followed this glade as long as
it seemed to lead in the right direction. Once a wide-winged, noiseless
shadow sailed over his head, and he shied with a loud snort of terror.
He had never before seen an owl. And once he jumped back wildly, as a
foraging mink rustled through the herbage just before him. But for all
the alarms that kept his baby heart quivering, he pressed resolutely
forward, longing for the comfort of his mother's flank, and the familiar
stall in the barn above the ferry.
As he reached the end of the glade his apprehensive ears caught a
curious sound, a sort of dry rustling, which came from the fringe of the
undergrowth. He halted, staring anxiously at the place the strange sound
came from. Immediately before him was the prostrate and rotting trunk of
an elm-tree, its roots hidden in the brushwood, its upper end projecting
into the grass and weeds of the glade. As the colt stood wondering, a
thickset, short-legged, grayish coloured animal, covered with long,
bristling quills, emerged from the leafage and came crawling down the
trunk toward him. It looked no larger than the black-and-white dog which
the colt was accustomed to seeing about the farmyard, but its fierce
little eyes and its formidable quills made him extremely nervous.
[Illustration: "HIS APPREHENSIVE EARS CAUGHT A CURIOUS SOUND."]
The porcupine came directly at him, with an ill-natured squeaking grunt.
The colt backed away a foot or two, snorting, then held his ground. He
had never yielded ground to the black-and-white dog. Why should he be
afraid of this clumsy little creature? But when, at last, the porcupine
drew so near that he could have touched it with his outstretched nose,
instead of making any such great mistake as that he flung his head high
in air, wheeled about, and lashed out furiously with his hinder hoofs.
One hoof caught the porcupine fairly on the snout and sent it whirling
end over end into the thicket, where it lay stretched out lifeless, as a
feast for the first hungry prowler that might chance by. Not greatly
elated by his victory, the magnitude of which he in no way realized, the
colt plunged again into the woods and continued his journey.
By this time the sun had dropped completely behind the wooded hills, and
here in the deep forest the dark seemed to come on all at once. The
colt's fears now crowded upon him so thickly that he could hardly make
any progress at all. He was kept busy staring this way and that, and
particularly over his shoulders. A mass of shadow, denser than the
rest,--a stump, a moss-grown boulder,--would seem to his frightened eyes
a moving shape, just about to spring upon him. He would jump to one
side, his baby heart pounding between his ribs, only to see another and
huger shadow on the other side, and jump back again. The sudden
scurrying of a wood-mouse over the dry spruce-needles made his knees
tremble beneath him. At last, coming to two tall, straight-trunked
saplings growing close together just before the perpendicular face of a
great rock, he was vaguely reminded of the cow-stanchions near his
mother's stall in the barn. To his quivering heart this was in some way
a refuge, as compared with the terrible spaciousness of the forest. He
could not make himself go any farther, but crowded up as close as
possible against the friendly trees and waited.
He had no idea, of course, what he was waiting for, unless he had some
dim expectation that his dead mother, or his owner, or the man on the
ferryboat would come and lead him home. His instinct taught him that the
dark of the wilderness held unknown perils for him, though his guarded
babyhood had afforded him no chance to learn by experience. Young as he
was, he took up the position which gave his peculiar weapons opportunity
for exercise. Instead of backing up against the trees and the rock, and
facing such foes as the dread dark might send upon him, he stood with
his back toward the danger and his formidable heels in readiness, while
over first one shoulder, then the other, his eyes and ears kept guard.
The situation was one that might well have cowed him completely; but the
blood in his baby veins was that of mettled ancestors, and terrified
though he was, and trembling, his fear did not conquer his spirit.
[Illustration: "THE BIG OWL HAD BEEN DISTURBED AT ITS BANQUET."]
Soon after he had taken his stand in this strange and desolate stabling,
from a little way back in the underbrush there came a pounce, a scuffle,
and a squeal, more scuffle, and then silence. He could not even guess
what was happening, but whatever it was, it was terrible to him. For
some moments there came, from the same spot, little, soft, ugly,
thickish sounds. These stopped abruptly. Immediately afterwards there
was a hurried beating of wings, and something floated over him. The big
owl had been disturbed at its banquet. A few seconds more and the
watcher's ears caught a patter of light footsteps approaching. Next he
saw a faint gleam of eyes, which seemed to scrutinize him steadily,
fearlessly, indifferently, for perhaps the greater part of a minute.
Then they vanished, with more patter of light footsteps; and as they
disappeared a wandering puff of night air brought to the colt's nostrils
a musky scent which he knew. It was the smell of a red fox, such as he
had seen once prowling around his owner's barn-yard. This smell, from
its associations, was comforting rather than otherwise, and he would
have been glad if the fox had stayed near.
For some time now there was stillness all about the big rock, the owl's
kill and the passing of the fox having put all the small wild creatures
on their guard. Little by little the colt was beginning to get used to
the situation. He was even beginning to relax the tense vigilance of his
watching, when suddenly his heart gave a leap and seemed to stand still.
Just about ten paces behind him he saw a pair of pale, green-gleaming
eyes, round, and set wider apart than those of the fox, slowly floating
toward him. At the same time his nostrils caught a scent which was
absolutely unknown to him, and peculiarly terrifying.
[Illustration: "WHICH SEEMED TO SCRUTINIZE HIM STEADILY."]
As these two dreadful eyes drew near, the colt's muscles grew tense.
Then he distinguished a shadowy, crouching form behind the eyes; and he
gathered his haunches under him for a desperate defense. But the big
lynx was wary. This long-legged creature who stood thus with his back
to him and eyed him with watchful, sidelong glances was something he did
not understand. Before he came within range of the colt's heels he
swerved to one side and stole around at a safe distance, investigating.
He was astonished, and at first discomfited, to find that, whichever way
he circled, the unknown animal under the rock persisted in keeping his
back to him. For perhaps half an hour, with occasional intervals of
motionless crouching, he kept up this slow circling, unable to allay his
suspicions. Then, apparently making up his mind that the unknown was not
a dangerous adversary, or perhaps in some subtle way detecting his
youth, he crept closer. He crept so close, indeed, that he felt
emboldened to spring; and he was just about to do so.
Just at this moment, luckily just the right moment, the colt let loose
the catapult of his strong haunches. His hoofs struck the lynx fairly in
the face, and hurled him backwards against a neighbouring tree.
Half-stunned, and his wind knocked out, the big cat picked himself up
with a sharp spitting and snarling, and slunk behind the tree. Then he
turned tail and ran away, thoroughly beaten. The strange animal had a
fashion in fighting which he did not know how to cope with; and he had
no spirit left for further lessons.
After this the night wore on without great event, though with frequent
alarms which kept the colt's nerves ceaselessly on the rack. Now it was
the faint, almost imperceptible sound of a hunting weasel; now it was
the erratic scurrying of the wood-mice; now it was the loud but muffled
thumping of a hare, astonished at this long-limbed intruder upon the
wilderness domains. The colt was accustomed to sleeping well through the
night, and this protracted vigil upon his feet (for he was afraid to lie
down) exhausted him. When the first spectral gray of dawn began to work
its magic through the forest, his legs were trembling so that he could
hardly stand. When the first pink rays crept in beneath the rock, he
sank down and lay for half an hour, not sleeping, but resting. Then he
got up and resumed his homeward journey, very hungry, but too desperate
with chill and homesickness to stop and eat.
He had travelled perhaps a mile, when he caught the sound of heavy,
careless footsteps, and stopped. Staring anxiously through the trees, he
saw a woodsman striding along the trail, with an axe over his shoulder.
At sight of one of those beings that stood to him for protection, and
kindly guidance, and shelter, his terror and loneliness all slipped
away. He gave a shrill, loud whinny of delight, galloped forward with
much crashing of underbrush, and snuggled a coaxing muzzle under the arm
of the astonished woodsman.
The Terror of the Sea Caves
I
It was in Singapore that big Jan Laurvik, the diver, heard about the
lost pearls.
As he was passing the head of a mean-looking alley near the waterside,
late one sweltering afternoon, he was halted by a sudden uproar of cries
and curses. The noise came from a courtyard about twenty paces up the
alley. It was a fight, evidently, and Jan's blood responded with a
sympathetic thrill. But the curses which he caught were all in Malay or
Chinese, and he curbed his natural desire to rush in and help somebody.
Though he knew both languages very well, he knew that he did not know,
and never could know, the people who spoke those languages. Interference
on the part of a stranger might be resented by both parties to the
quarrel. He shrugged his great shoulders, and walked on reluctantly.
Hardly three steps had he taken, however, when above the shrill cries a
great voice shouted.
"Take that, you damned--" it began, in English. And at that it ended,
with a kind of choking.
Jan Laurvik wheeled round in a flash and ran furiously for the door of
the courtyard, which stood half-open. He was a Norwegian, but English
was as a native tongue to him; and amid the jumble of races in the East
he counted all of European speech his brothers. An Englishman was being
killed in there. The quarrel was clearly his.
Six feet two in height, swift, and of huge strength, with yellow hair,
so light as to be almost white, waving thickly over a face that was
sunburnt to a high red, his blue eyes flaming with the delight of
battle, Jan burst in upon the mob of fighters. Several bodies lay on the
floor. One dark-faced, low-browed fellow, a Lascar apparently, with his
back to the wall and a bloody kreese in his hand, was putting up a
savage fight against five or six assailants, who seemed to be Chinamen
and Malays. The body of the Englishman whose voice Jan had heard lay in
an ugly heap against the wall, its head far back and almost severed.
Jan's practised eye took in everything at a glance. The heavy stick he
carried was, for a melee like this, a better weapon than knife or gun.
With a great bellowing roar he sprang upon the knot of fighters.
The result was almost instantaneous. The two nearest rascals went down
at his first two strokes. At the sound of that huge roar of his all had
turned their eyes; and the man at bay, seizing his opportunity, had cut
down two more of his foes with lightning slashes of his blade. The
remaining two, scattering and ducking, had leaped for the door like
rabbits. Jan wheeled, and sprang after them. But they were too quick for
him. As he reached the head of the alley they darted into a narrow
doorway across the street which led into a regular warren of low
structures. Knowing it would be madness to follow, Jan turned back to
the courtyard, curious to find out what it had all been about.
The silence was now startling. As he entered, there was no sound but the
painful breathing of the Lascar, whom he found sitting with his back
against the wall, close beside the body of the Englishman. He was
desperately slashed. His eyes were half-closed; and Jan saw that there
was little chance of his recovery. Besides that of the Englishman, there
were six bodies lying on the floor, all apparently quite lifeless. Jan
saw that the place was a kind of drinking den. The proprietor, a
brutal-looking Chinaman, lay dead beside his jugs and bottles. Jan
reached for a jug of familiar appearance, poured out a cup of arrack,
and held it to the lips of the dying Lascar. At the first gulp of the
potent spirit his eyes opened again. He swallowed it all, eagerly, then
straightened himself up, held out his hand in European fashion to Jan,
and thanked him in Malayan.
"Who's that?" inquired Jan in the same tongue, pointing to the dead
white man.
Grief and rage convulsed the fierce face of the wounded Lascar.
"He was my friend," he answered. "The sons of filthy mothers, they
killed him!"
"Too bad!" said Jan sympathetically. "But you gave a pretty good account
of yourselves, you two. I like a man that can fight like you were
fighting when I came in. What can I do for you?"
"I'm dead, pretty soon now!" said the fellow indifferently. And from the
blood that was soaking down his shirt and spreading on the floor about
him, Jan saw that the words were true. Anxious, however, to do something
to show his good will, he pulled out his big red handkerchief, and
knelt to bandage a gaping slash straight across the man's left forearm,
from which the bright arterial blood was jumping hotly. As he bent, the
fellow's eyes lifted and looked over his shoulder.
"Look out!" he screamed. Before the words were fairly out of his mouth
Jan had thrown himself violently to one side and sprung to his feet. He
was just in time. The knife of one of the Chinamen whom he had supposed
to be dead was sticking in the wall beside the Lascar's arm.
Jan stared at the bodies--all, apparently, lifeless.
"That's the one did it," cried the Lascar excitedly, pointing to the one
whom Jan had struck on the head with his stick. "Put your knife into the
son of a dog!"
But that was not the big Norseman's way. He wanted to assure himself. He
went and bent over the limp-looking, sprawling shape, to examine it. As
he did so the slant eyes opened upon his with a flash of such maniacal
hate that he started back. He was just in time to save his eyes, for the
Chinaman had clutched at them like lightning with his long nails.
Startled and furious at this novel attack, Jan reached for his knife.
But before he could get his hand on it the Chinaman had leaped into the
air like a wildcat, wound arms and legs about his body, and was
struggling like a mad beast to set teeth into his throat. The attack was
so miraculously swift, so disconcerting in its beast-like ferocity, that
Jan felt a strange qualm that was almost akin to panic. Then a black
rage swelled his muscles; and tearing the creature from him he dashed
him down upon the floor, on the back of his neck, with a violence which
left no need of pursuing the question further. Not till he had examined
each of the bodies carefully, and tried them with his knife, did he turn
again to the wounded Lascar leaning against the wall.
"Thank you, my friend!" he said simply.
"You're a good fighting man. You're--like him," answered the Lascar
feebly, nodding toward the dead Englishman. "Give me more arrack. I will
tell you something. Hurry, for I go soon."
Jan brought him the liquor, and he gulped it. Then from a pouch within
his knotted silk waistband he hurriedly produced a bit of paper which he
unfolded with trembling fingers, Jan saw that it was a rough map
sketched with India ink and marked with Malayan characters. The Lascar
peered about him with fierce eyes already growing dim.
"Are you sure they are all gone?" he demanded.
"Certain!" answered Jan, highly interested.
"They'll try their best to kill you," went on the dying man. "Don't let
them. If you let them get the pearls, I'll come back and haunt you."
"I won't let them kill me, and I won't let them get the pearls, if
that's what it is that's made all the trouble. Don't worry about that,"
responded Jan confidently, reaching out his great hand for the paper,
which was evidently so precious that men were giving up their lives for
it.
The man handed it over with a groping gesture, though his savage black
eyes were wide open.
"That'll show you where the wreck of the junk lies, in seven or eight
fathom of water, close inshore. The pearls are in the deck-house. _He_
kept them. The steamer was on a reef, going to pieces, and we came up
just as the boats were putting off. We sunk them all, and got the
pearls. And next night, in a storm, the junk was carried on to the rocks
by a current we didn't know about. Only five of us got ashore--for the
sharks were around, and the 'killers,' that night. _Him_ and me, we
were the only ones knew enough to make that map."
Here the dying pirate--for such he had declared himself--sank forward
with his face upon his knees. But with a mighty effort he sat up again
and fixed Jan Laurvik with terrible eyes.
"Don't let the sons of a dog get them, or I will come back and choke you
in your sleep," he gasped, suddenly pointing a lean finger straight at
the Norseman's face. Then his black eyes opened wide, a strange red
light blazed up in them for an instant and faded. With a sigh he toppled
over, dead, his head resting on the dead Englishman's feet.
II
Jan Laurvik looked down upon the slack form with a sort of grim
indulgence. "He was game, and he loved his comrade, though he _was_ but
a bloody-hearted pirate!" he muttered to himself.
With the paper folded small and hidden in his great palm, he glanced
again from the door to see if any of the routed scoundrels were coming
back. Satisfied on this point, he once more investigated the dead bodies
on the floor, to assure himself that all were as dead as they appeared.
Then he set himself to examine the precious paper, which held out to his
imagination all sorts of fascinating possibilities. He knew that the
swift boats carrying the proceeds of the pearl-fisheries were always
eagerly watched by the piratical junks infesting those waters, but
carried an armament which secured them from all interference. In case of
wreck, however, the pirates' opportunity would come. Jan knew that the
story he had just heard was no improbable one.