THE WILD MEN
Nadara did not regain consciousness until Stark had reached shore
and was dragging her out upon the beach above the surf. For several
minutes after she had opened her eyes she had difficulty in recalling
the events that had immediately preceded Stark's attack upon her. She
felt the life belt still about her, and as Stark stooped above her to
remove it she knew that it was he though she could not distinguish his
features.
What had happened? Slowly a realization of the man's bold act forced
itself upon her--he had leaped overboard from the _Priscilla_ and swam
ashore with her rather than face the consequences of his brutal conduct
toward her.
To a girl reared within the protective influences of civilization
Nadara's position would have seemed hopeless; but Nadara knew naught
of other protection than that afforded by her own quick wits and
the agility of her swift young muscles. To her it would have seemed
infinitely more appalling to have been confined within the narrow
limits of the yacht with this man, for there all was strange and new.
She still had half feared and mistrusted all aboard the _Priscilla_
except Thandar's father and Captain Burlinghame; but would they have
protected her from Stark? She did not know. Among her own people only
a father, brother, or mate protected a woman from one who sought her
against her will, and of these she had none upon the little vessel.
But now it was different. Intuitively she knew that upon a savage
shore, however strange and unfamiliar it might be, she would have
every advantage over the first officer of the _Priscilla_. His life
had been spent close to the haunts of civilization; he knew nothing
of the woodcraft that was second nature to her; he might perish in
a land of plenty through ignorance of where to search for food, and
of what was edible and what was not. This much her early experience
with Waldo Emerson had taught her. When their paths first had crossed
Waldo had been as ignorant as a new-born babe in the craft of life
primeval--Nadara had had to teach him everything.
Behind them Nadara heard the gentle soughing of trees--the myriad
noises of the teeming jungle night--and she smiled. It was inky black
about them. Stark had removed the life belt and placed it beneath the
girl's head. He thought her still unconscious--perhaps dead. Now he was
wringing the water from his clothes; his back toward her.
Nadara rose to her feet--noiseless as Nagoola. Like a shadow she melted
into the blackness of the jungle that fringed the shore. Careful and
alert, she picked her way within the tangled mass for a few yards. At
the hole of a large tree she halted, listening. Then she made a low,
weird sound with her lips, listening again for a moment after. This
she repeated thrice, and then, seemingly satisfied that no danger
lurked above she swung herself into the low-hanging branches, quickly
ascending until she found a comfortable seat where she might rest in
ease.
Down upon the beach Stark, having wrung the surplus water from his
garments, turned to examine and revive the girl, if she still lived.
Even in the darkness her form had been plainly visible against the
yellow sand, but now she was not there. Stark was dumfounded. His
eyes leaped quickly from one point to another, yet nowhere could they
discover the girl. There was the beach, the sea and the jungle. Which
had she chosen for her flight? It did not take Stark long to guess, and
immediately he turned his steps toward the shapeless, gloomy mass that
marked the forest's fringe.
As he approached he went more slowly. The thought of entering that
forbidding wood sent cold shivers creeping through him. Could a mere
girl have dared its nameless horrors? She must have, and with the
decision came new resolution. What a girl had dared certainly he might
dare. Again he strode briskly toward the jungle.
Just at its verge he heard a low, weird sound not a dozen paces
within the black, hideous tangle. It was Nadara voicing the two notes
which some ancient forbear of her tribe had discovered would wring
an answering growl from Nagoola, and an uneasy hiss from that other
arch enemy of man--the great, slimy serpent whose sinuous coils twined
threateningly above them in the branches of the trees. Only these
Nadara feared--these and man. So, before entering a tree at night it
was her custom to assure herself that neither Nagoola nor Coovra lurked
in the branches of the tree she had chosen for sanctuary. Stark beat
a hasty retreat, nor did he again venture from the beach during the
balance of the long, dismal night.
When dawn broke it found Nadara much refreshed by the sleep she had
enjoyed within the comparative safety of the great tree, and Stark
haggard and exhausted by a sleepless night of terror and regret. He
cursed himself, the girl and his bestial passion, and then as his
thoughts conjured her lovely face and perfect figure before his mind's
eye, he leaped to his feet and swung briskly toward the jungle. He
would find her. All that he had sacrificed should not be in vain. He
would find her and keep her. Together they would make a home upon this
tropical shore. He would get everything out of life that there was to
get.
He had taken but a few steps before he discovered, plain in the damp
sand before him, the prints of Nadara's naked feet in a well defined
trail leading toward the wood. With a smile of satisfaction and victory
the man followed it into the maze of vegetation, dank and gloomy even
beneath the warm light of the morning sun.
By chance he stumbled directly upon Nadara. She had descended from her
tree to search for water. They saw each other simultaneously. The girl
turned and fled farther into the forest. Close behind her came the man.
For several hundred yards the chase led through the thick jungle which
terminated abruptly at the edge of a narrow, rock-covered clearing
beyond which loomed sheer, precipitous cliffs, raising their lofty
heads three hundred feet above the forest.
A half smile touched Stark's lips as he saw the barrier that nature
had placed in the path of his quarry; but almost instantly it froze
into an expression of horror as a slight noise to his right attracted
his attention from the girl fleeing before him. For an instant he
stood bewildered, then a quick glance toward the girl revealed her
scaling the steep cliff with the agility of a monkey, and with a cry
to attract her attention he leaped after her once more, but this time
himself the quarry--the hunter become the hunted, for after him raced a
score of painted savages, brandishing long, slim spears, or waving keen
edged parangs.
Nadara had not needed Stark's warning cry to apprise her of the
proximity of the wild men. She had seen them the instant that she
cleared the jungle, and with the sight of them she knew that she need
no longer harbor fear of the white man. In them, though, she saw a
graver danger for herself, since they, doubtless, would have little
difficulty in overhauling her in their own haunts, while she had not
had much cause for worry as to her ability to elude the white man
indefinitely.
Part way up the cliffs she paused to look back. Stark had reached the
foot of the lowering escarpment a short distance ahead of his pursuers.
He had chosen this route because of the ease with which the girl had
clambered up the rocky barrier, but he had reckoned without taking
into consideration the lifetime of practice which lay back of Nadara's
agility. From earliest infancy she had lived upon the face and within
the caves of steep cliffs. Her first toddling, baby footsteps had been
along the edge of narrow shelving ledges.
When the man reached the cliff, however, he found confronting him an
apparently unscalable wall. He cast a frightened, appealing glance
at the girl far above him. Twice he essayed to scramble out of reach
of the advancing savages, whose tattooed faces, pendulous slit ears,
and sharp filed, blackened teeth lent to them a more horrid aspect
than even that imparted by their murderous weapons or warlike whoops
and actions. Each time he slipped back, clutching frantically at
rocky projections and such hardy vegetation as had found foothold in
the crevices of the granite. His hands were torn and bleeding, his
face scratched and his clothing rent. And now the savages were upon
him. They had seen that he was unarmed. No need as yet for spear or
parang--they would take him alive.
And the girl. They had watched her in amazement as she clambered
swiftly up the steep ascent. With all their primitive accomplishments
this was beyond even them. They were a forest people and a river
people. They dwelt in thatched houses raised high upon long piles. They
knew little or nothing of the arts of the cliff dwellers. To them the
feat of this strange, white girl was little short of miraculous.
Nadara saw them seize roughly upon the terror-stricken Stark. She saw
them bind his hands behind his back, and then she saw them turn their
attention once more toward herself.
Three of the warriors attempted to scale the cliff after her.
Slowly they ascended. She smiled at their manifest fear and their
awkwardness--she need have no fear of these, they never could reach
her. She permitted them to approach within a dozen feet of her and
then, loosening a bit of the crumbling granite, she hurled it full at
the head of the foremost. With a yell of pain and terror he toppled
backward upon those below him, the three tumbling, screaming and pawing
to the rocks at the base of the cliff.
None of them was killed, though all were badly bruised, and he who had
received her missile bled profusely from a wound upon his forehead.
Their fellows laughed at them--it was scant comfort they received
for being bested by a girl. Then they withdrew a short distance, and
squatting in a circle commenced a lengthy palaver. Their repeated
gestures in her direction convinced Nadara that she was the subject of
their debate.
Presently one of their number arose and approached the foot of the
cliff. There he harangued the girl for several minutes. When he was
done he awaited, evidently for a reply from her; but as Nadara had not
been able to understand a word of the fellow's language she could but
shake her head.
The spokesman returned to his fellows and once again a lengthy council
was held. During it Nadara climbed farther aloft, that she might be
out of range of the slender spears. Upon a narrow ledge she halted,
gathering about her such loose bits of rock as she could dislodge from
the face of the cliff--she would be prepared for a sudden onslaught,
nor for a moment did she doubt the outcome of the battle. She felt
that but for the lack of food and water she could hold this cliff face
forever against innumerable savages--could they climb no better than
these.
But the wild men did not again attempt to storm her citadel. Instead
they leaped suddenly from their council, and without a glance toward
her disappeared in the forest, taking their prisoner with them. Out of
sight of the girl, they stationed two of their number just within the
screening verdure to capture the girl should she descend. The others
hastened parallel with the cliff until a sudden turn inland took them
to a point from which they could again emerge into the clearing out of
the sight of Nadara.
Here they took immediately to a well-worn path that led back and forth
upward across the face of the cliff. Stark was dragged and prodded
forward with them in their ascent. Sharp spears and the points of keen
parangs, urged him to haste. By the time the party reached the summit
the white man was bleeding from a score of superficial wounds.
Now the party turned back along the top of the bluff in the direction
from which they had come.
Nadara, unable to fathom their reason for having abandoned the attempt
to capture her, was, however, not lulled into any feeling of false
security. She knew the cliff was the safest place for her, and yet the
pangs of thirst and hunger warned her that she must soon leave it to
seek sustenance. She was about to descend to the jungle below in search
of food and water, when the faintest of movements of the earth sweeping
creepers depending from a giant buttress tree below her and just within
the verge of the forest arrested her acute attention. She knew that the
movement had been caused by some animal beneath the tree, and finally,
as she watched intently for a moment or two, she descried through an
opening in the wall of verdure the long feathers of an Argus pheasant
with which the war caps of the savages had been adorned.
Though she knew now that she was watched, she also knew that she could
reach the top of the cliff and possibly find both food and drink, if
it chanced to be near, before the savages could overtake her. Then she
must depend upon her wits and her speed to regain the safety of the
cliff ahead of them. That they would attempt to scale the barrier at
the same point at which she had climbed it she doubted, for she had
seen that they were comparatively unaccustomed to this sort of going,
and so she guessed that if they followed her upward at all it would be
by means of some beaten trail of which they had knowledge.
And so Nadara scaled the heights, passing over and around obstacles
that would have blanched the cheek of the hardiest mountain climber,
with the ease and speed of the chamois. At the summit she found an
open, park-like forest, and into this she plunged, running forward in
quest of food and drink. A few familiar fruits and nuts assuaged the
keenest pangs of hunger, but nowhere could she find water or signs of
water.
She had traveled for almost a mile, directly inland from the coast,
when she stumbled, purely by chance, upon a little spring hidden in
a leafy bower. The cool, clear water refreshed her, imparting to her
new life and energy. After drinking her fill she sought some means of
carrying a little supply of the priceless liquid back to her cliff
side refuge, but though she searched diligently she could discover no
growing thing which might be transformed into a vessel.
There was nothing for it then other than to return without the water,
trusting to her wits to find the means of eluding the savages from time
to time as it became necessary for her to quench her thirst. Later,
she was sure, she should discover some form of gourd, or the bladder of
an animal in which she could hoard a few precious drops.
Her woodcraft, combined with her almost uncanny sense of direction,
led her directly back to the spot at which she had topped the cliff.
There was no sign of the savages. She breathed a sigh of relief as she
stepped to the edge of the forest, and then, all about her, from behind
trees and bushes, rose the main body of the wild men. With shouts of
savage glee they leaped upon her. There was no chance for flight--in
every direction brutal faces and murderous weapons barred her way.
With greater consideration than she had looked forward to they signaled
her to accompany them. Stark was with them. To him slight humanity was
shown. If he lagged, a spear point, already red with his blood, urged
him to greater speed; but to the girl no cruelty nor indignity was
shown.
In single file, the prisoners in the center of the column, the party
made its way inland. All day they marched, until Stark, unused to this
form of exertion, staggered and fell a dozen times in each mile.
Nadara could almost have found it in her heart to be sorry for him, had
it not been for the fact that she realized all too keenly that but for
his own bestial brutality neither of them need have been there to be
subjected to the present torture, and to be tortured by anticipation of
the horrors to come.
To the girl it seemed that her fate must be a thousand fold more
terrible than the mere death the man was to suffer, for that these
degraded savages would let him live seemed beyond the pale of reason.
She prayed to the God of which her Thandar had taught her for a quick
and merciful death, yet while she prayed she well knew that no such
boon could be expected.
She compared her captors with Korth and Flatfoot, with Big Fist and
Thurg, nor did she look for greater compassion in them than in the men
she had known best.
Late in the afternoon it became evident that Stark could proceed no
farther unless the savages carried him. That they had any intention of
so doing was soon disproved. The first officer of the _Priscilla_ had
fallen for the twentieth time. A dozen vicious spear thrusts had failed
to bring him, staggering and tottering, to his feet as in the past.
The chief of the party approached the fallen white, kicking him in the
sides and face, and at last pricking him with the sharp point of his
parang. Stark but lay an inert mass of suffering flesh, and groaned.
The chief grew angry. He grasped the white man around the body and
raised him to his feet, but the moment that he released him Stark fell
to earth once more.
At last the warrior could evidently control his rage no further. With
a savage whoop he swung his parang aloft, bringing it down full upon
the neck of the prostrate white. The head, grinning horribly, rolled to
Nadara's feet. She looked at it, lying there staring up at her out of
its blank and sightless eyes, without the slightest trace of emotion.
Nadara, the cave girl, was accustomed to death in all its most horrible
and sudden forms. She saw before her but the head of an enemy. It was
nothing to her--Stark had only himself to thank.
The chief gathered the severed head into a bit of bark cloth, and
fastening it to the end of his spear, signaled his followers to resume
the journey.
On and on they went, farther into the interior, and with them went
Nadara, borne to what nameless fate she could but guess.