CHAPTER XXXVI

SURPRISE AND SUSPENSE

I held my breath, I shivered with sudden excitement.

The figure, slight, beautifully erect, clothed in a skirt-like garment of skins, came nearer and nearer. I was so thoroughly intent on seeing why the arms were moved in those singular gestures that I clean forgot to scan the face.

The stranger came closer, followed now by scores of the Blacks, who adored and worshipped in the tracks which were left by the feet. I could see the heavy coils of some ornament about the neck and over the slender shoulders of this human. Suddenly I knew what the hands were doing; suddenly the most astounding intelligence broke on my brain.

The figure was that of a woman, young, beautiful, clad like Diana, and the coils about her maidenly form were those of a monster serpent, the head of which she held in her hand while with the other she gently unwound the wrappings of the tail.

I whistled again, more softly, my excitement growing at every second.

On she came, uncertainly, down along the edge of that open cage in the jungle, her head held finely in a listening poise, her face white, set and smileless. She moved like a goddess in a dream. In her eyes burned a half-wild light of anxiety; on her lips there was a tense look of suppressed emotion. Her beautiful arms seemed marble-white, as they moved in those snake-soothing gestures; her whole deportment was that of one who questions, yearns eagerly for a sign on which to build a hope, but dares not believe that a cruel fate could possibly relent.

She was almost opposite where I was lying. I knew I should speak to her—do something instantly, before the moment should be gone, but my tongue now cleaved fast to its sheath in my mouth, my teeth clenched hard together and my muscles were all but paralysed at that fateful moment.

She was just before me—passing me by—in reach of the slightest sound.

“Who is it?” she said aloud, in a voice that trembled.

“It’s me—a man,” I whispered with ungrammatical suddenness, “Don’t stop—you’ll betray me—Come to-night!”

Half prepared as she was, she still started violently. She loosened her hold on the head of the snake. The horrible thing wrapped itself about her arm and tightened all its coils. Hastily clutching the serpent by the neck again, she twisted and choked it into submission. Her eyes were ablaze with fear and a wild, unbelieving hope! How luminous they were, even in the meagre light! What a wondering, beseeching face she revealed, as she turned for a second in her instinctive effort to see where I was!

As she had mastered the snake, so she mastered the womanly instinct to cry out and dash to the spot where I lay. I saw her weave slightly, as she recovered her poise, after which she resumed her singular march toward the river.

The Blacks came to where she had paused, adoring the trail so near me that I could hear them breathing. What hideous brutes they were, now that I had seen a beautiful human being! They passed, and I longed to leap upon their backs and strike them all to death.

All about that clearing the goddess-like prisoner led the creatures who had made her captive. She was almost lost to sight in the darkness which was now enveloping the wood. She was only the faint suggestion of a form when at last I saw her pass again inside her shelter.

I loosened a thousand tense muscles the second she disappeared, and lay limber and all unstrung on the earth. I had not been seen by any Links. It had perhaps been foolish and a waste of time to kill the bear and adopt his hide after all. But it had given me the courage to come—and great Heavens! what a find I had made!

A woman!—among these monsters! No wonder there were no new houses, no ovens, no weapons of war of her making. I had been profoundly stupid. I should have been able to guess it was not a man—that soft, clear voice, the absence of mannish contrivances, and then that suggestive little line of her washing—these should have been enough to tell me the story. A woman—a helpless, beautiful woman—and I had almost thought of giving up the effort to rescue this friend!—this fellow human!

“Gee whizz!” said I to myself, for the thing was tremendous.

Then I wondered what would happen next. Would she come—return to the place where she had heard my voice? Would she wait till all the Links were safely asleep and then place her trust in a stranger? At what time were these black beasts likely to retire? Would they wake and catch her in the act? Could we find my boat in the dark? But everything else was as nothing compared to the question, which I repeated over and over, would she come?

I believed she would. I intended to wait, whatever might occur, and to wait until morning, if she did not sooner appear. A thousand times I wished we were already in my boat and away on the lake.

“All these days gone to waste for a bear-skin,” I muttered, “and all the time it was easy to sneak into their place under their very noses.”

I was glad now, however, of the warmth of the skin, for the ground was moist. In the clearing the night had descended like a curtain, but five or six fires somewhat illumined the place. The scene presented was strange. About the centres of ruddy light were groups of these weird, semi-human creatures, standing and squatting, eating like so many apes. Their long, thin arms made their appearance most grotesque, silhouetted as they were against the light. Here and there the red glow lighted up a negro-gorilla countenance, flat-nosed, big-jawed and large-eared, till it seemed like a region where the imps of darkness breed. And back of all this, the play of the flames threw monster shadows, on the background of trees and creepers, till it all had a strange appearance of life, as if incredible snakes and incongruous animals weaved an endless woof of mystery into the warp of night.

An hour passed and I had hardly moved. By groups the creatures slunk away to their huddling places. The groans of many wounded, unnoted before in the chatter, arose to chorus with the distant sounds of the jungle. Regularly, like a marker of time, came the rumble and grumble from the cauldron of gold.

Around the largest fire, a grim old warrior hovered for an interminable time, after all the others had departed. I had no patience with his pretence of cogitating over all the problems of the universe; I wished him safely abed and snoring. He pothered about for an age, and finally stretched himself near the embers and went to sleep.

I waited and waited, expecting every moment to be rewarded by a vision of the prisoner, gliding toward me. The moon arose above the trees behind me and made the place altogether too bright for any good. To allay my impatience I watched the matchless orb sailing above the jungle. Turning at last from the brilliant picture, my heart leaped wildly. The goddess was almost there!

Slipping quickly, but noiselessly forth, I emerged from the vines on hands and knees and started to arise.

The girl gave a scream and fled like a startled doe.

“Don’t be scared,” I half shouted, guardedly, “it’s only a skin,” but my assurance was then too late.

On the instant the Blacks bounded up, alert and alarmed. Club in hand, the grim old fighter near the fire came running toward me. The shadows were with us, by great good fortune. The girl, moreover, had the presence of mind to disappear in the trees and emerge further up toward her shelter.

Realising that now or never I must act my part, I fell on all fours like a plummet. Browsing about unconcernedly, I moved a little in the grass at the edge of the growth, and then, having made myself sure that I had been seen by the Links who came dashing excitedly up, I slowly rooted back into the thicket and disappeared.

It worked like magic. Chattering a lot of drivel which was plainly eulogistic of all the bear family and congratulatory to all the black Links in existence—who had thus been honoured in the night—the savages kow-towed on the ground and otherwise wrote themselves down as unmitigated asses for a longer period by far than they need have done for my satisfaction. Indeed it began to look as if they had taken a notion to spend the remainder of the night in adoration of the ground I had condescended to spurn with my hands and knees. When at last I heard them go, I crept silently back to the edge of the growth and watched them stir up the fire and blunder off to bed.

“Confound the skin!” I muttered to myself. “Why didn’t I tell her what a beastly old bear I am?”

Such a time now went by that I began to fear the girl had missed my hurried explanation, in her natural fright, when she ran. However, it did not seem possible she would give up so easily and be afraid to come. Yet I knew it all depended upon her condition of mind. She had doubtless become more than usually timid while subjected to all that she must have undergone here among the Links, all alone, and no human being could entirely eliminate a feeling of dread for the jungle in the dark.

Trusting that in all the medley of night-sounds, a whistle would not awaken the Links, I set up my piping on the bar of our Yankee acquaintance again, repeating it, as before, as often as I deemed it prudent. More of the endless waiting, in my far from enviable position, ensued. If the moon got another half hour in which to sail before the prisoner came, she would drive every friendly shadow squarely back to the forest.

I watched till my neck was stiff and my body cramped. “If the goddess doesn’t hurry,” I muttered, “the game will be up for the night.” Still she lingered in her shelter. I began to grow cross; I vowed she must be crimping her hair and putting on a new pair of gloves.

Suddenly she appeared again, coming out of the trees, not far away. This time I whistled, ever so softly. She paused, came silently on a rod, and halted as before. Another little whistle brought her almost before me.

“Now please don’t yell again,” I whispered ungallantly. “Slip into the woods as quietly as you can—we’ve got to hurry.”

“Who is it?” she stopped to answer, below her breath, as I rose to my feet.

“It’s just John Nevers, a common, ordinary man—American. If we’re going to get away, I wish you wouldn’t fool around another minute.”

I saw that she stood undecided a second, with that evil-looking snake about her shoulders; its eyes gleamed like beads in a ray of moonlight which touched on its hateful head. For that brief space of time I felt such a disgust for the serpent and such a growing impatience, that I had a half impulse to trudge away alone. But she moved toward me; the light which had fallen on the head of the snake silvered her pale, beautiful face. The appeal which was there in her eyes, the trust which was born on the moment, and the helplessness of a maiden, all combined to shame me and to make me her champion against the terrors of all the world.

“Come through here,” I whispered, bending back a branch, and she stepped toward me, confident and strong in the hope newly kindled in her breast.

The branch slipped from my fingers and swished noisily back. I heard a snort; the light-sleeping old devil of a Link was up on his feet in a second. He ran toward us again, this time unaccompanied by any of the others. We stood there as silent as statues. My knife was out, for I had instantly determined to slay this watch-dog of the tribe, if he came a foot into the brush.

He merely whined about, uneasily, a time, and then returned to his post. Without waiting to let him lose himself in sleep, I led and cleared the way, moving as slowly as a frozen tortoise, for a considerable time, while the goddess followed, as silently as my shadow.

Past the clearing, where the gilded skeleton hung in the moonlight we glided. Here I saw the stiffened form of Grin, lying stark on the earth. The deep, mysterious rumble of the gold-cauldron began anew.

“Now hurry, while this racket drowns out all the noise we can make,” I whispered.

We made no mean bit of progress while the noise continued, after which I felt there was no more need of particular care. The jungle thickets were fearfully dark, as soon as we got away from the clearings, and I was obliged to forge ahead as best I could, guided only by my sense of direction.

Half an hour went by and although we should have been at the river, where the boat was on the bank, there was no immediate prospect of our coming to the proper place. In the midst of my efforts, mental and physical, to extricate myself and the girl from the maze, a peculiar shriek went up in the distance behind us. I paused, inquiringly.

“Oh—that is the voice of the horrid old woman,” said the goddess anxiously. “I think she has found I have gone.”

“The deuce!” said I. “She has alarmed the whole works, the old villain!”

Judging by the noise which was raised one would have thought she had awakened the whole world. I was certain every Link in the camp was up and dancing about that clearing in the wildest confusion.

“Come ahead,” said I, calmly enough, “they are all afraid of the woods at night; they will never catch us now—unless the morning overtakes us before we reach the river.”

I knew she shuddered, but like a brave, good girl she made no fuss. As for the racket, it furnished me with a bearing, as it were. Knowing where their settlement was, I knew the approximate direction in which the boat should be found. Indeed before we had travelled another fifty yards I caught a gleam of reflected moonlight from Outlet river and knew my way directly.

“It’s lucky that beastly old woman didn’t make her discovery sooner,” said I.

“Yes,” replied the trembling voice of the goddess, “that was why I kept you waiting so long; she wouldn’t go to sleep.”

“Um,” was all I muttered. I was thinking about that crimping of her hair, poor girl, and the putting on of tight, new gloves.

We reached the boat, to my intense relief. “Please get in and make yourself as comfortable as possible,” said I, and ripping off the bear-skin, I flung it down to make her a seat.

Out into the limpid stream I shoved my clumsy but beloved craft, and manning the oars I swung her about, headed her toward the lake and made the liquid silver shiver from the prow.

The moonlight fell on the sweet, womanly face. The goddess looked at me dumbly—almost with the divine expression I had seen on the face of little Tike. Her eyes were eloquent of gratitude, relief and things too great to be expressed. Slowly her head came forward on her breast, away from which she held that ugly serpent, and she sobbed and sobbed like a child.

Ah what a night it was! I felt a throb of triumph all through my veins. Rowing steadily and stoutly I said nothing, but let her have her cry. At last she looked upon my face again.

“Where—are we—going?” she faltered.

“Home,” said I, “to the camp on top of the hill.”

“Home?” she echoed softly. “To your—people, do you—mean?”

“Yep,” I agreed. “For a while, at least. But they’re not exactly my people. They’re a lot of Missing Links.”

“Oh—what? Missing Links? You don’t mean things like the horrible creatures we have just escaped?”

“Same species,” I assured her cheerfully, “but mine are red.”

“Oh—oh,” she moaned with a shudder, “but I’d rather not! Oh I hate them so; they are all so horrid; they frighten me terribly, and I know they will act exactly like the others—”

“No they won’t,” I interrupted, with a grin, “they’ll get off the earth, if I say the word, for they know that I am the King!”