CHAPTER XLI

FAREWELL TO THE CAMP

The strength which had risen in my desperation, even against the shock to my system which had been given by the bite of the female monster, departed before I was out of the river. I trembled from head to foot; I was ill all over and nearly as limp as a string.

How serious the bite might be I had no means of ascertaining. To my hand, when I felt of the place, there seemed to be only a raw, smarting wound, on the top of a great hot swelling. I felt sure that no thews had been actually severed by the terrible teeth, for had any been, I should not have been able to row the boat nor to use my arm in any manner whatsoever. Nevertheless I knew I was wounded badly, and I all but cried with the pain it cost me to move the craft.

Until I had reached the lake, the fear of the Blacks made me work, despite my physical anguish. When I knew I was comparatively safe, I sank forward and, I confess, fainted like a girl.

It was probably as much as an hour before I recovered my senses fully. For the last fifteen minutes or so of this time I was semi-conscious, but incapable of motion, while my brain merely whirled in a vortex with that female Link, the boat and the nuggets of gold. When at last I again acquired the power of moving, I filled my hand with water from the lake repeatedly and dashed it on my face and on my bitten shoulder. But I could not row; I needed further rest.

My head was beginning to ache. My brain insisted on revolving the story of my greed for gold. Again I fought the battle of silence with the watch-dog of the tribe; again I worked like a gnome in that steaming, hot cauldron; again I staggered away with my plunder. Then I saw that female Link, who, searching in the thicket, must have found the body of the watch-dog, lying in his gore. He might have been her mate. Crazed, she followed on the trail that led from the spot, with the tribe at her heels. She reached the cauldron and then got again on the tracks I was making to the river. At that I screamed and thought I was crazy myself.

Aroused by this repeated nightmare, I struggled with the oars again. It seemed as if I could not budge the boat; this made me work like a fury. The heat of the sun grew intolerable; I could feel it baking the blood in my head; it was all on the side of the Blacks. The lake was a sheen of blinding light and heat; it mocked me and held me back. Again and again came the lurid panorama of events. I could see through everything, jungle, thicket and bag made of skin—see those pieces of gold—mine! mine!—shining like the blazing sun, hot and baking. All that gold on the ground was mine, but it mocked me and cooked my brain with its heat and steam.

I lost all reckoning; I rowed to escape the nightmare and the lake that held me back. The sun got up in mid-heaven, and still I was on that shimmering water. I knew nothing, absolutely, of what I did, except that I rowed to get away from that female Link, who seemed to bite me times without number, and always in that same burning spot. I must have fainted half a dozen times; I rowed toward home between these spells by instinct only. The distance which I could ordinarily compass in a little more than an hour, required no less than seven hours, this fateful day. When I think of the heat, the weight of the boat and my physical condition, I wonder I did not die, and drift to the shore.

As it was, I have not the slightest recollection of having reached the bank. I thought that for years and years I strove to get away from that last terrible encounter. When at length my brain was clear and I opened my eyes, in the slow, weak manner of one who has all but passed to the further side of the dark river, I saw a beautiful, worried face above my own—the face of the goddess.

“Thank God!” she whispered fervently, when she saw that I was mad no longer, and the poor girl cried as she bathed my head and bade me go to sleep.

I had nearly pegged out, and that is the truth. When I was strong enough to hear my own story, I learned of things which will never cease to fill me with wonder, and with many emotions too soft to parade. It was good old Fatty who had seen me coming; and he it was that finally carried me bodily up the hill. Then for a nurse I had never lacked for a moment. The goddess and Fatty, he her slave, she my guardian angel, had done the all that could be done, with the poor facilities at hand, for a man in such desperate straits that he raves night and day for a week. But the goddess really saved me, when all is said, for she knew the properties of certain tropical plants and with the crushed leaves of one she drew the poison from the bite, reduced the swelling and made it possible for proper healing to commence. I had done the worst possible thing, in rowing home through the heat and with such a wound, but if I had not done exactly what I did, and when I did, my doctor and nurse would never have had the opportunity of proving their skill.

They were strange days that followed—strange for me, who had never been down on my back with illness before since childhood, for the fever left me thin, weak, and feeling so helpless that I had no desire to move as much as one of my feet. My first poignant thought was about the Blacks, and the danger of their swooping down upon us again. When I knew that for a week there had been no sign of any foe, I thought they had probably undergone too great a fright on the last occasion to require any more for some considerable time.

For another week I lay like a baby, in the shelter, eating fruits and bits of meat which the goddess prepared as best she could. How I yearned to see her face, whenever she left me for a moment! Then came the time when I began to mend, and desired to have back my strength and my title of king.

When I stood up and wobbled about on my pins one day, I made a discovery which did much to hasten a return to my old condition. The crystal club, presented to me by the ex-chief, in token of my exalted station and regal attainments, had been stolen. I learned that the ex-chief had dared to carry this sceptre of power into the jungle; I learned from Fatty that the jealous Madame Albino had been the one to rob me of my trophy. She feared the goddess—who in truth was more of a queen of the tribe than I had even been a king,—but the creature had not feared a man who was crazy and likely to die.

So wroth did I wax over this outrage to my dignity that I became unmanageable at once. Thin as a rail, but able to stagger about, next day, I dug up one of my lesser bombs from the magazine, and waving it wildly above my head, marched up to the guilty ex-chief, while he had the club underneath him, as he sat on the ground, and scared him half to death. He knew the bomb,—no trouble about that. I therefore took the crystal club away from him, rudely, and slapped his face. He fell down instantly and began to adore my tracks in the proper spirit of humiliation, followed without delay by all the tribe. Madame Albino fled to the woods, though what manner of personal violence the lady expected I have never been able to guess. This fine, large bluff, of a man as white as paper and thin as a hair-pin, had a most salutary effect. It made all the fellows love me more than before, even the chief, for all were much like dogs in disposition, and a dog is the better for it when he learns that man is the master. I was more of a monarch every day.

Yet I was slow in regaining my old weight, for the heat was increasing steadily, and my system had been much depressed by the fever. In consequence of this, I did more at playing than at work. With my fellows I practiced archery in the cooler parts of the days, coaxing back the strength to my arms, body and legs, but I made my excursions to the jungle brief.

During this period of convalescence, the goddess reassumed the company of her snake. But the dear girl followed me about with her gaze, which I frequently felt drawing my own. When I would glance toward her, I always saw her glorious eyes filled with longing and sympathy and a tenderness which went straight to my heart. But she would blush and look away, nearly always at the hideous snake.

With my returning strength came the recurrent desire to depart from the place forever. Also, in spite of all I could do, the thought of my gold—lying in the thicket, the treasure for which I had laboured so hard—would persist in returning. I tried to banish the dream of avarice, but it is a fearsome clutch which riches maintain on the imagination of poor, weak man. I felt quite convinced that great as my longing was for the world outside, that of the goddess was ten-fold greater. Of this I spoke, one day, when my restored condition gave promise that I should not fail for lack of strength in what I might undertake. Into the eyes of that faithful girl came a burning light, which would have made the heart of any man bound with feeling. She spoke, however, with her usual control.

“I should like to leave this place,” she said, “but I prefer to wait until you are strong and masterful, as you were when I saw you first.”

At this it was on my tongue to speak of the future, and of certain hopes which had grown in my thoughts, of a home to be and of happiness, but I curbed this desire as being untimely while she depended so entirely upon myself for deliverance.

Having dwelt no little on the prospect of the future in this camp, in which—unless we escaped—I could see my own skeleton hung up on a stump, and with no fine plating of gold upon it, either, I had small desire to remain in the land another day. Strangely enough, however, I had no sooner begun to make our preparations for leaving, than memory dragged in every happy day I had spent with my Links, every thrill of triumph in my puny successes, every faithful or affectionate deed which these simple, half-animal creatures had ever performed toward myself. I own I was foolishly attached to a number of the poor forest-children, who watched me always with such a dumb look of regard, and wonder as to what I was.

It is not a boast to say that I had wrought an ineradicable effect upon these less than merely primitive people. In turn they had been my willing slaves, my companions—my everything of life. I thought of Little Tike, and blessed his memory for the days of real enjoyment he had given me when I was mending from a serious injury once before. But after all—there was that gilded skeleton to think about and to dread. What profit was it to a skeleton that sundry Missing Links still adored the ground before it? I preferred to be a man of meat, unadored for the rest of my life, rather than to be a gold-plated pile of bones, worshipped madly throughout the centuries to come.

Thus, taking matters quietly, I made myself and the boat ready for the long, uncertain cruise. I was quite aware that we might be leaving a place of comparative safety, for waters and lands of which the dangers might be innumerable and the chances for escape absolutely nil; I agreed, mentally, that we might be making a terrible mistake which we would recognise when too late for any retreat, but these were the risks we were obliged to assume. I believed I could win, in this game with fates unknown, and virtually I wagered both our lives on the outcome of the play.

One of my chief concerns, in stocking the boat, was that of providing water. As long as we floated on the river we should have this in plenty, but if we did reach the sea, matters might be altered. The best I could do was to take my tortoise shell, to hold a fair supply. It was an easy matter to provision ourselves with meat, for strips which I cut from various kinds of game, dried in the sun in a manner most satisfactory, furnishing a palatable supply, which, with salt, was not at all bad to chew upon by the hour.

For weapons I depended on the bow and arrows, a club and a number of good flint hatchets, in addition to four small bombs, with complement of fuse. In order to provide an ever-ready brand of fire for these, should occasion to use them arise, I selected a goodly quantity of the wood which retained the glow so long, after which I lined all the bow-end of the boat with clay, so that I could build my blaze on the bottom and yet do no harm to the hull by burning. I meant to carry my fire along, for I had experienced all the “pic-nics” I wanted for the lack of this useful thing. Among sundry other materials, I provided myself with several coils of good, stout line, made by braiding together the small, pliable creepers. At this work the goddess assisted splendidly.

All the skins which had formed my gold bag, had been left behind, in my flight from the Blacks, of course, but my Links having learned the process of curing pelts in the brine, had worked up some very good pieces. On these I levied a tax—the only one I imposed during my reign—thereby fitting the craft out in some degree of comfort, for the goddess had dressed herself in all the hides I had left in my shelter. This seemed to be the concluding ceremony, except that I made sure my oars and thole-pins were staunch, and I cut a long slender pole, to be used for any purpose which might develope later on.

My decision was made to leave in the late afternoon, in order to pass the camp of the Blacks after night had rendered them cowards. At the very thought of their village, that bag of gold clamoured for another fling at fortune. I was a poor man, in my own country, howsoever wealthy I might consider myself in Linkland; the temptation was great. But I shook my head decisively. I had an undoubted right to risk my own neck, but I had not the slightest right to risk the personal safety of a helpless woman. No, I must shut my eyes to the glitter, and pass the treasure by—like a man!

Although I had made frequent excursions in my boat, many of which had required preparation, the Links seemed to comprehend that on this occasion the matter was one of much more importance and gravity for all concerned. When all was ready and the hour drawing near, I attempted to convey to the assembled tribe my intention of going, with the goddess, so far that I should never return. That they understood, I am positive; the poor fellows were greatly affected. They regretted the arrival of that day as plainly as if they had said so in a most solemn chorus. Even the albino female, weak, inconsequent creature that she was, and like a woman, would have forgiven everything and promised to be good all the rest of her days, to have changed my decision. She wept on the ground, sincerely. I felt saddened myself; I admit it freely. These rude creatures had all seemed like my very own; they were more than faithful animals, and yet they commanded a strange sympathy, being less than men.

When ready to go, I carried the great rock-crystal club to the ex-chief and placed it again in his hand, as he stood there and wondered.

“Take it back,” I said, as if he could understand every word, “you are man enough to wield it well. Boys,” I added to the others, “don’t go backward again; stick to the bows, and make new ones for yourselves, to shoot the pigs. Try to be good, manly fellows. And—and I hope you won’t entirely forget me, when I’m gone.”

Turning quickly away, I shouldered the gold-nugget club and started for the boat, to which the goddess also repaired. Old Fatty was whining, as he followed at my heels, and after him trooped every creature in the tribe, till all stood together on the shore.

In the boat was everything we needed, so far as I could plan and provide, including a lot of the freshest fruit to be obtained. The goddess took her seat in the stern. Seized with an impulse, I turned to my loyal fellows and held out my hand to the chief. He was wholly at a loss to know what I meant, yet so natural is the gesture that he placed his hand in mine without even knowing that this shake was the symbol of friendship, greeting and farewell. The others followed his example, in wonder, and with awkward motions, so that I bade good-bye to all the “men.”

Fatty, who was eyeing the boat and whining and giving little jumps of indecision, knew not what to do. I stepped in the craft and pushed her gently off.

“Come on then, Fatty,” I said to my good, old fellow, and bounding through the tepid water, he did actually leap into the boat and sit there, shivering with awe and delight.

“Good-bye, old camp; good-bye, my friends,” I said, as we drifted slowly away. “God keep you, poor children of the jungle.”

The chief and all the others got down on the ground, along the bank, and paid me such a tribute of genuine esteem as I shall never know again. This was their long farewell; this was their voluntary expression of love and regret. At that moment, more than any other in my life, I was a king.