CHAPTER XXXV

A FELLOW HUMAN

Greatly relieved to have something to do—something which might be about to furnish a turning point in all this unnatural existence of mine in the wilds, I set off for the boat at an early hour of the afternoon. Once started on the expedition, I was in a fever of haste to be about it and to try my new conclusions with fortune.

The skull of the bear had been boiled free of everything suggesting meat. When a mile away, down the lake I replaced this heavy thing in the skin and sewed the hide roughly about it to give the head a natural appearance. Then along the edges where I had been obliged to cut the pelt to get it off, I made a series of holes, into which I laced the cords, provided for the purpose, intending to draw them tight when the costume was properly adjusted about me.

Having nothing more to prepare, I rowed leisurely for two hours, when I went ashore, near the mouth of the outlet, and tried my disguise. This business discouraged me greatly. I was able to get the neck portion fastened about my head, in such a manner that I could see easily, and the body of the skin about my chest and waist, but my arms and legs were too long for the paws and legs of the bear, while the body part was longer than my trunk. Altogether I was about the most extraordinary looking freak to be found in the jungle, when I had done my utmost to make the costume fit.

I should quite have appreciated the use of several mirrors at this stage of my make-up, in order to see if sundry portions were on straight, but was denied this pleasure, having failed to provide myself with various articles of the toilet. It was only by crawling and lolling about on the ground, on knees and elbows that I was enabled to convince myself that I looked the slightest bit like the creature whose part I had essayed to perform.

I have never felt more warm in my life than I did in that skin. The day was hot, the hide was heavy, and I had laboured hard to get it on. The perspiration threatened to make the pelt insupportable. But now that I had myself fastened inside it, I dreaded the task of taking it off and putting it on again later. As an outcome of much agitated mental debate, I decided to be a bear until my work as a spy was concluded. I therefore sat me down, in the shade, near my boat, and waited for sunset.

The sun becomes very deliberate, I found, when it catches a man in a tight, hot place. It seemed as if the fiery ball intended to hang in the western sky for several centuries, for my particular delectation. At last it got weary of the game and departed.

A bear can perform several feats with comfort and ease to himself and with grace, perhaps, but rowing a boat is not among the number. I grew hotter, in several ways, directly. I think I wished fervently that my unknown friend, the prisoner, had never committed the indiscretion of being captured by the Blacks. It being necessary to proceed with caution, my torture was much prolonged. At length, however, I noted a snug retreat in which my boat could remain, undetected, and which I hoped would be readily accessible from the camp I was searching in the jungle.

Already the shadows had begun to be deep, so that I walked erect, in what I thought to be the right direction, moving with the greatest care, and alert every second for the smallest sound. I had made my way for a considerable distance in this manner, without being able to detect any disturbance in the forest, when presently a low rumble, as of something rolling over stones, beneath a muffling canopy, broke on the air. This sound increased. It seemed to come from a source not far away, and yet it was most uncertain and elusive. I was quite at a loss to determine whence it proceeded. Growing stronger it made a great ado of grumbling, reaching a sort of climax in less than a minute, after which it slowly subsided and was gone.

Standing where I was, I listened attentively, for the noise had puzzled me much. Then through the silence came another sound, which anyone could have understood, anywhere on earth. It was a moan. A second later I heard the rustle of leaves and saw a prowling form—one of the ebon Links.

Falling upon my hands and knees, noiselessly, I waited for the fellow to pass from sight and hearing, after which I crawled laboriously forward, nearing the sound where something was voicing its pain. My heart was beating so tumultuously that I felt obliged to halt frequently, in order to calm myself as much as the perilous situation would permit. Moving thus and keeping constantly in the cover of the vines and grasses, I glanced about me keenly.

When I came upon the clearing in which the Blacks abided, it happened so abruptly that I started, to find myself so near. Lying out full length, I endeavoured to quiet the thumping of my heart and to moisten my mouth, which had become dry and gluey. Then I looked about, through the friendly screen of creepers.

The shadows lay thick enough for all purposes, yet there was light enough to reveal several incongruous things. First I noted a dozen or more of the black Links, some of them moving about, some squatting on the ground, monkey-fashion, eating mangoes and melons, one lying flat on his back in the agony of death. He it was that moaned; he had received his mortal wounds in the great explosion. I saw that his arm was gone, and then I knew him—Grin.

At the back of the clearing was a wall of rock. In front of this stood a natural pillar of stone, and fastened up at the top was something which for a time presented the greatest mystery. It looked like portions of a skeleton, disconnected, but it gleamed, even in the twilight. I studied it closely for the thing compelled my undivided attention. Then I saw the skull and knew it had all been, upon a time, the frame work of a living creature, but astonishing fact of all things weird—it was plated all over with something precisely resembling gold!

I forgot the Links; I forgot my mission to their village. That skeleton centered my every thought. I studied it, patched it together mentally, and attempted to picture it properly straightened out. This process convinced me at once that the arms were shorter than those of any Link, while the skull was finely formed on the human pattern. I observed that the whole thing, if properly articulated would be taller than I. The Links, I told myself, cared nothing for the bones of their kind, and less for those of their foes. It must be—it had to be the skeleton of a man!

But the gold—or whatever it was,—the plating, how came it on the skull and on those ribs, those bones of the arms and thighs and all the rest? Why was it here? Immediately my brain jumped to the preposterous conclusion that my “friend,” the man I had come to save, had been killed since my former visit, his skeleton plated with something and strung up here on the rock to please some strange whims of these incomprehensible creatures. I knew, a second later, that this was absurd. My mental process as quickly formed a saner theory. This man had lived among the Blacks before; they had learned of him—which accounted for many things,—like their superiority over my Reds,—they had killed him, later, and by some singular accident this appearance of plating had come to pass on the bones.

In the midst of my conjectures, that weird, low rumble commenced again, nearer at hand, but still in some locality invisible from where I was. Crouching, while its mighty tones increased, several Blacks glanced upward at the skeleton and then put their heads upon the ground in adoration before the pillar of stone.

I nearly cried out as I suddenly grasped at a wonderful thought. That rumbling—it was certainly a sound I had heard before that day—it certainly must be that marvellous cauldron of gold, where the geyser shot upward and boiled in its cavern. The plated skeleton had received its plating there; the nugget of gold at the end of the club which a Black had wielded in war, had come from there; the cavern which I and old Fatty had seen, on the day we fled in the subterranean passage, was there; and these creatures owned it and evidently knew of an opening leading to its wondrous interior from the outside world!

What was I about to discover? What was here, in and about this remarkable camp? Would I see it all?—would I get a chance to investigate the wonderful cave? Could I rob that cauldron of its treasure? I was wild with excitement. I wished that I had an overwhelming army behind me—a force sufficient to drive these creatures anywhere, away in the jungle. I looked about, as if to see my army. Great Scott! I had utterly forgotten how alone I was! The wretches might discover me, know me and beat me to jelly in a second. My breath came hard; I remembered my business in a manner painfully vivid.

I must go ahead, for obviously there was nothing here for me, nothing of that partner I had come to steal. He must be off, where a pair of Blacks were walking as I looked. Still keeping in the cover, I edged about the clearing and pushed ahead. A tangled isthmus of greenery divided the small open space from another which was considerably larger. In a brief time I came in sight of this and beheld another remarkable sight.

At the foot of a towering cliff of rocks, surrounded by fruit trees on the left, the river down in front, and the isthmus of trees and vines in which I was lying on the right, was a fine flat space, commodious, strategically situated and now alive with black Missing Links. Our explosion had killed the fighters by the score, but the females and children were exceedingly numerous, while of males there were still almost as many as we had in all our tribe.

That once the creatures had been directed by a man was plain, for here were a score of dugouts, such as we possessed, but the roofs were gone from many, while those of the others showed every sign of neglect and the rapid deterioration into which it seemed as if the creatures must fall, and let everything fall, when abandoned to themselves. Of any weapons which they might have possessed in the “age” of that man, there was not the slightest sign. Looking carefully about, I saw but one shelter on which the roof appeared to be intact. This one was near the base of the cliff, on the left-hand side of the clearing, from me; that is to say, the same side on which I was now concealed.

The light was growing dim. I peered about, in a vain endeavour to see “my man.” How I wished I might raise my voice and cry out a greeting—a something which would tell this other human being of my nearness! It is unbelievable how strong was the impulse to commit this indiscretion. I curbed the desire, however, and waited to see if anything would happen.

Here and there, on the campus, the evening fires of the Links were being kindled, from a “mother” fire smouldering in a natural hollow beneath the wall of rock. I could see what I thought were the ruins of a more convenient fireplace, near the central fire. It looked as if that former man had provided a means for a better culinary output, but that the creatures had soon gone back to their own original methods, when he was dead. Then I thought that things were peculiar, for why were there no material evidences of the presence of the man I had come to seek, about the camp? What was the matter with this unseen individual? He must be weak indeed to do absolutely nothing!

I remembered his spouting of poetry, and I fear my estimation of a man who would give himself over to such effeminate employment as that was of precious little account. Poetry indeed! He was evidently a lady’s man for his voice had sounded soft and here was proof that he either could not, or was not willing to, manufacture the very first thing, either for cooking, living or fighting. Perhaps such a fellow was hardly worth the risk; perhaps I should be wise to retreat, in good order, and let him work out his own salvation.

My attention was caught, as I scanned the place in this critical frame of mind, by a flutter of something, near the only decent shelter.

“Upon my word,” I muttered in huge contempt, “I believe the fellow has got out his washing on a line!”

About that moment a bird in the tree above me made a sound like a boy whistling. This was my cue. If any man were anywhere about, he would hear a whistle—and the Links would have no suspicion. I piped up on the opening bar of “Yankee Doodle.” This I repeated time after time. It appeared as if the scheme would turn out worthless, as it produced no apparent effect. Growing more bold, I started to whistle my lay a trifle louder, but I chopped it off short in the middle, for I beheld a figure emerge from the decent dug-out and start slowly toward me, walking and performing some singular weaving motions with the arms.

The dusk had gathered over the scene, yet I saw that this was a white human being!