CHAPTER XVI

TREACHERY AND A BATTLE

The labour at the lake-shore, day after day, somewhat reduced the party-feeling brewing between the chief and our respective followers. He was with us often, but quite as frequently went hunting in the jungle at the head of a dozen fighters.

Our practice with the bows had proceeded so well that we bagged a good deal of our game with the weapons, squirrels, various birds and hogs proving to be the most abundant and easy victims. Of the skin of one of the hogs so secured, I made myself a clumsy sort of quiver, which held my arrows to perfection. Of another I fashioned some thick but serviceable leggings, which afforded me a much-needed protection.

What with sundry interruptions, for needed labours about the camp, it was more than a week before we finally completed the burning and hacking off of the log by the lake. Then we began to roll it and push it toward the water, a task requiring more patience than ingenuity, for we had an abundance of muscle although I found it not always easy to direct this crude force to the best advantage. I set my fellows to work getting out rollers, so that if necessary, later on, I could use a lever and get the log in the water alone.

Having brought it near the edge, I was tempted to proceed with my original plan of digging it out to form a canoe, trusting that the trouble which threatened between our divided forces would merely smoulder, at the worst, for a time and that before it broke out dangerously I might be better prepared to make my explorations and my attempt to escape. Deciding to try this plan, I had the log lifted up on two rocks, one under each end, after which I had my Links dig me a quantity of stiff red clay, which we worked up with water and plastered thickly over the sides and ends of the log, leaving a wide place uncovered on the under side. We then made fire all along underneath, and by constantly digging away the portions that were charred, and then by burning and digging again, we made considerable progress with the work. The clay, of course, protected the parts of the boat so covered from being consumed. By plastering more of the clay inside of the sides and ends, as soon as the boat began to be hollowed out, we protected them also, and thereby directed the flames in such a manner that they burned deeper into the wood all the time, without endangering the portions which I desired to leave stout and thick.

It was hot work and hard, to get in under that boat and dig out ash and charcoal, but several of my loyal workers conceived a tireless enthusiasm for the task, although none could have guessed what I was fashioning, to save his life. Their industry and tractability reminded me always of the faithful work which dogs will perform for a master. While the burning-out was being done, I hacked and worked away to make the bow and stern of the craft a bit more shapely than they were after our crude log-cutting process. Also I formed a clumsy keel, of straight, slender saplings, which we fastened firmly in place by boring several holes straight through them and then hammering plugs into these and into corresponding holes made, at the cost of infinite pains, along what would be the bottom of the boat when we turned her over for launching.

This keel was finally finished, and by that time all along underneath we had burned and dug away a foot in depth of the wood, which meant that after the log—which was about three feet in diameter—was squared off to form the open top of the hull, the inside hollowing-out was only three or four inches deep, and we had still to dig it out fully eighteen inches more. Altogether I began to feel no little amount of pride in the general appearance and promise of the craft, hence I worked at it with feverish impetuosity.

My affairs were still at this stage when, one afternoon, I headed a large party of the Links on a hunt in the jungle to the east of the camp. It was a sultry day, peculiarly still, for we nearly always had a cooling breeze. Doubtless our usual quarry had crawled away to various places of concealment. Certainly we found nothing stirring, and after we had tramped unavailingly for more than an hour, I fancied I detected signs of uneasiness among our fellows.

The chief was along, closely followed by Grin, whose malicious face seemed particularly wicked in the shadows of the forest. When a cloud rolled sullenly across the face of the sun, the Links came to a halt, as if undecided what to do. The chief gave a sign and uttered a word conveying his intention of returning to the camp. At that moment we started a hog from his wallow near a small marsh, and calling out eagerly to all to follow and surround the animal, I darted ahead, bow in hand, excited by the prospect of a shot. My enthusiasm carried the main body of the Links, who joined me readily enough.

I noted as I went that the chief brought up the rear, in a sulky mood, while the fawning Grin pointed a finger at myself and laughed in a manner fit to make a fiend of a saint, such ridicule did he heap upon all who would suffer themselves to be led by this power-usurping stranger.

The hog eluded our vigilance completely. We arrived at the base of a mass of rock which towered up like a heap of ruined masonry. Thinking I could command a wider view from its top, while my fellows thrashed the undergrowth about its neighbourhood, to drive the hog from cover, I climbed laboriously up, intent on having a shot if possible.

No sooner was I fairly on the peak and moving about to get in sight of all the Links below, than I noted Grin come dashing out of a jungle, making a noise for all the world like the trumpeting of an elephant. Undoubtedly this sound must have been their name for the huge pachyderm, and it was equally certain that the cry was a warning which inspired the greatest terror, for without delaying a second for anything, the whole force ran madly away from the place, back along the way we had come.

I bawled out lustily, to halt them, and then to try to make them wait, but again Grin sounded the startling trumpet and not a Link—not even Fatty—turned or paused for all my shouting. I scrambled along the rocks to descend as rapidly as possible. It was not an easy task to regain the lower level; I was occupied several minutes by the task. I fell the last five feet and the vines wherein I landed held me back a time which became exasperatingly long.

At length I started away in pursuit of my friends, but not a sign of one could I see, not a sound of one could I hear. Soon I began to doubt if I were on their trail. However, I felt that I knew my way as well without as with them, and therefore made what speed I could to overtake the band.

Presently I paused to see if they had gone through the vines in the path I was attempting to follow. A low sound came from the distance; with amazing suddenness the forest began to grow dark and oppressive. I fancied for a second the sound was made by the elephant. This theory was abandoned a moment later, for an echo of the rumble proclaimed the noise as thunder. Like a flash, the thought came in my brain that there was no elephant—that Grin had purposely given his cry, knowing well what a terror and consequent flight would ensue, with the deliberate purpose of leaving me abandoned in the jungle. I remembered the uneasy feeling which had been manifested by all the Links; they had doubtless been aware that a storm was approaching.

Intent upon defeating this scheme of treachery, and reviling the whole Link nation for cowards of the most consummate type, I stumbled on, through the gathering gloom and through the vines that tripped my feet, growing a trifle anxious about the approaching shower.

Almost before I had gone a hundred yards, the sky was a sea of tempest and driving clouds of the blackest hue. Gusts of heavy, hot wind shook the tops of the trees and crashed through the creepers, swaying them roughly where they hung. The darkness of night descended like a mist of ink. I floundered forward and fell. A flash of lightning and a crash of thunder seemed to rip the very firmament in twain. I was blinded and utterly confused. I ran ahead, only to find myself confronted by an impenetrable fabric of vines and creepers. This I strove to go around, but it seemed to hedge me nearly all about. In desperation I hastened through the only opening I could find. This appeared to lead me into a trail, along which I ran.

Again a brain-scorching glare of lightning threw everything into weird relief, the trees like living creatures which struggled in the mesh of creepers, writhing like snakes, in the bluster of wind. Then a lesser illumination, when I had torn my way along for some distance, cut out of the ebon depths the great mass of rock I had climbed such a short time before. I reeled backward—it seemed preposterous—some enormity of fate—it could not mean that I was lost—no, no—I would turn about—I knew the way—I should reach the camp in an hour. What a child I was to be so confused and alarmed by a storm!

Again I started. The flashes and the deafening peals of thunder increased. In five more minutes I stood still, confused, for the fearsome play of lightning illuminated the jungle clearly and it looked all wrong—all unfamiliar about me—and all deadly thick. I must hasten back to the pile of rocks, I thought, in a sort of despair. I could wait there—wait till the storm had passed, and then, when the sky became clear again of clouds, I could easily find my way to the camp.

For fifteen minutes I fought my way through the vines and plants. The flashes were more intense, and nearer than before, but of rocks or of anything familiar I saw not so much as a shadow.

“I’m lost!” I cried at last, “I’m lost!”

The confession burst from my lips as if to mock me. The stupendous meaning of the truth burst in upon me ruthlessly. I was lost—alone in this terrible jungle and night coming on apace! Every horror of my night in the tree, above that ghastly banquet of the tiger, came vividly back. Every thought of the snakes and the prowling beasts, in search of blood and meat, seemed to burn deeper into my brain with the blinding shimmer of lightning. I fled in one direction, then in another—then anywhere, at random.

It was foolish and weak to race hither and yon as I did in my semi-madness, but the dark jungle created an unspeakable dread in my brain; its terrors were magnified by my contemplation of one danger after another. I foresaw nothing but a dreadful death, which might come soon or late. To find the camp of my Links I felt would be quite impossible, for I knew absolutely nothing, by this, of one direction from another.

Wildly and thoughtlessly I kept on going. A crash of thunder now split open the clouds and let down a deluge of rain. It made no difference to me, any more than did the darkness. But while I was pushing senselessly ahead, I slipped on a patch of wetted clay and slid to an unseen edge, over which I shot, going down below like a sack of bolts. I struck on my feet, landing on something half soft. Instantly a furious growl of pain and rage made me leap away forward. A brilliant dance of lightning made the spot as bright as day—and I beheld two hideous ourang-outangs, which had just been in the act of crawling into a cave, and on the legs of one of which I had landed. They came quickly toward me, in a frenzy of anger.

I dashed away, along a well-beaten path that was made through the growth, the two brutes hotly pursuing. The darkness that followed the glare of light was of only a second’s duration, so continuous had the electric display in the heavens become. The beasts were gaining upon me. Across a leaf-hidden log I pitched headlong. The ourangs were nearly upon me when I sprang again to my feet and raced away. Still they gained; and the noises they made chilled the blood in my veins, so diabolical was the sound. My breath grew short, my bow, which I had continued to hold in my hand, got caught for a second, yet I dared not let it drop, though it caused me the greatest of trouble.

Behind me now I could almost feel my infuriated foes. I dared to dart a glance across my shoulder. What a snap-shot picture it was, of awful forms—half erect and fearfully active,—a picture of monsters, suggestive of most inhuman humans, with fiery eyes, with hideous muzzles, massive, prognathous jaws,—with terrible open mouths which were filled with drooling fangs, and with black, leather-and-iron hands, now on the ground, now up and reaching, as if to clutch and drag me down!

I knew they would certainly overtake me unless I could do something desperate at once. I jerked out my knife—recently whetted on a stone. By the continuously fluttering lightning-shimmer, I chose a spot, ahead, which was comparatively clear. Then while my flesh fairly crept for my dread of being reached, I slacked off my speed a trifle and let the nearest ourang gain a yard.

Suddenly leaping aside, when I bounded to the selected clearing, I swung around with my arm extended, the knife gripped hard, and quickly aiming at the monster’s throat, stabbed him with all my might. So great was the impact of the blow, increased by the brute’s momentum, that his head was nearly slashed from his body. I saw it lop limberly over on his shoulder. Then the larger brute behind struck the falling body and both were toppled together in a heap.

Again like a madman I darted away. In a few seconds on came the now doubly raging creature, behind. My breathing had become so painful that it seemed as if I could taste my own blood in my mouth. I dared not stop and I dared not attempt my trick a second time. A fearful note of wrath was in the sound which the gaining monster now began to utter. I knew he was sure he should catch me soon. Before me, abruptly, the growth was as thick as a hedge. I saw that I must change my course. Baffled, not knowing what else I could do, I pulled an arrow from my quiver and notched it on my bow-string as I ran. Then stopping I turned, drew it quickly and let it drive point blank at my on-rushing foe. It flew too low, for the string was wet and in no fit condition, and struck the beast in the fleshy part of the thigh.

Emitting a scream of agony, the brute snapped the shaft short off in the wound, with his hand. I took advantage of the opportunity, nearly winded as I was, and plunged desperately through a maze of vines. It caught me, but I tore away a long wire-like creeper that dragged behind for twenty feet. And the gnashing ourang, limping on an almost useless leg, came after me, relentlessly. It seemed like a nightmare—endless, although, like a terrible dream, it had not been of more than a few minutes duration from the start.

My bow-string had apparently stretched, and this effect I had increased when I shot; the weapon was therefore temporarily useless. Had I now been fresh, I believe I could have beaten the wounded brute in the race, but I was ready to sink from exhaustion. He got nearer and nearer. What to do next was more than I could tell.

Panting and fetching my breath by the most painful of efforts, I blundered heavily through a net-work of branches—and got my second sudden fall over a bank. This time I struck sitting down—in a stream of water which, swollen by the rain, was a roaring torrent. It swept me downward, gasping and battling to keep my head above the surface.

Then with a splash the ourang-outang landed headlong in the flood. He also came rolling and tumbling along with the turbulent volume of water. But he clutched an overhanging limb and hauled himself out and up on the bank, as if he found the plunge exceedingly hateful. Whether he lost the scent, or whether he was convinced that I also had scrambled out of the stream, would be hard to determine. Busy as I was to keep from being drowned, or dashed to death on the rocks, I yet had a flash of relief and thankfulness to find myself freed of the terrible pursuer.

My bow, to which I had clung with such a desperation, was lost from my hand when I fell into the torrent. As I righted myself, a trifle, on my downward sweep, and tried to mark out a branch or a creeper to clutch, a terrific bolt of lightning struck a tree not a hundred feet below. As if a thousand cannon had burst, the din and crash of thunder fairly stunned me for a second where I was. I got a mental photograph of the tree flying apart in monster splinters, as if a charge of dynamite had rended it asunder; and then followed a total annihilation of all light and a downpour of rain which was simply overwhelming.

I was bowled downward helplessly, tossed through a drag of vines that were growing over the bed of the stream, and then, before I had half collected my senses—scattered as they were by the stroke of lightning,—I was shot through an agitated run-way and plunged below my depth in what I thought to be a large pool of water.

Almost immediately, as I began to swim, on arising to the surface, I pushed against a great piece of timber on the top of which I climbed without a moment’s hesitation. Then came a flicker of lightning a mile away, illuminating all the scene, when I discovered that I was crouching on a large section of the very tree which the fearful lightning blast had shattered, and which was floating on the surface of the sheet of water which I had previously dubbed “My Lake.”