The Burning Bridge by Philip Verrill Mighels (the best novels to read TXT) 📕

The more he reflected, the more certain he felt that some one of the names suggested to his mind might also have occurred to those of others. Considerably aroused in his centers of curiosity, and convinced that even by the dull cherry glow of his firebrand he might be enabled to confirm or confute his theory, he moved sufficiently to draw from his pocket the closely folded documents, and held them up to his torch.

The one with the inexplicable signs he promptly returned as of no immediate avail. At that instant his attention was arrested, by a sound below him on the earth.

Something, he thought, was lapping at the water!

He leaned far forward, tense and rigid on the limb, shielding his spark in one of his hands, while he peered about the pool.

There was nothing he could possibly discern—no form of a head projected out to obliterate his stars. Yet the sounds at the edge of the silent basin rose distinctly to his ears.

All but ready to bend to the end of his fuse, and touch his fire upon it, he paused, looked closer, saw ripples move to disturb his mirrored planets—and then beheld some form darkly limned on the waters.

For a moment he was certain his insolent tiger was there. Some huge blunt muzzle seemed inkily contrasted with the dull gray surface of the spring. Then the muzzle suddenly detached itself from the imagined form behind. The entire figure of some little beast was seen as it waded the pool.

Once more, disgustedly, Grenville reclined and relaxed the strain on his nerves. It was some time, then, before he thought to return to his quest of the cipher. He remembered, finally, he had meant to count the characters in some of the words to see if the number of signs thus used might not correspond with the number employed in "Island," "Three," "Haunted," "Wall," or "Tower."

A dull red glow, of most unsatisfactory dimensions and illuminative capacity, was the most he could procure from his brand. It barely sufficed to present the "writing" to his vision. For a moment, indeed, he despaired of discriminating clearly between the ending of one word and the beginning of the next. Fortunately, however, the writer had used large periods between his every word.

Considerably to Grenville's satisfaction, the third word thus denoted he was almost convinced was "Three." Not only had it the proper number of letters, or signs, but the two final characters were exactly alike, and both were the crosses he had previously selected as probably representing E.

The next word along, he was equally certain, was either "Wall" or "Hill." Its two final characters were the same particular sign repeated, while its meaning, in conjunction with the preceding word "Three," fulfilled his logical deduction.

A word of two characters followed this, and then, to Grenville's intense delight, occurred a word of seven letters, which not only met the numerical requirements of "Haunted," but, also, in proper sequence, employed the various letter-signs already somewhat proved by the word he felt certain was "Three."

This was more than sufficient evidence on which to base a test of the message's sense, if it were not, indeed, enough of a key with which to decipher the entire inscription.

Eagerly fumbling in his pocket for his pencil, with the intention of attempting a bit of substitution of letters for the signs contained upon the sheet, Grenville shifted his position—and the paper fell from his fingers, fluttering obliquely from his sight.

He leaned quickly forward, as if to follow the flight of the missive through the darkness so densely spread beneath him. But it disappeared almost instantly—with its mystery still unsolved.

On the point of descending, at whatever cost, to recover the important bit of foolscap, Sidney was halted in movement and impulse by some new arrival at the spring.

As a matter of fact, two animals were there, as he presently discovered. That neither was his tiger he was presently persuaded, but that one or both were fairly large seemed equally assured.

It was certainly not a time to leave the tree. And while the reflection that, perhaps, the silent visitors were leopards was presented to Grenville's mind, and a momentary thought of slaying the pair by igniting his fuse became a strong temptation, he contented himself by staring more or less blindly down upon the place where they seemed to be, and bided his time as before.

At nine o'clock it seemed, to the cramped and impatient hunter in the tree, that ages had passed since he bade good-night to Elaine and came to this lonely vigil. There were sounds in abundance about him now, arising from time to time. Some were the cries of the lesser beasts, in the clutches or jaws of their captors; some were sounds of munching. All of them indicated rather grimly the tiger's absence from the scene. There would be no petty murderers thereabout when the arch brute came for his drink.

Leaning back once more, and long since weary of his fruitless adventure, Grenville stared at the glowing cone of fire slowly eating away his brand. It was lasting far longer than he had believed would be possible—yet certainly less than one hour more could the consuming substance serve to give him a spark.

He could almost fancy he saw a face, in the film of ash upon its surface. He was sure the face was developing a likeness to Elaine. Even the soft clear radiance of her cheek—— How eagerly she had asked concerning his coming "home"—but how far it seemed away.... He could hear her saying "You'll come home ... come home ... come back...."

He awoke with a start, for something had burned him on the wrist.

The firebrand, all but consumed in his relaxing fingers, had dropped and deposited a blister. In his sudden move to rid himself of the torture to his flesh, he threw off the red-hot candle of wood, and it fell straight downward, sizzling once where it struck in a trickle of the water.

Reviling himself for a stupid blunderer, and arousing vividly to a sense of where he was, and why, he began to question the expediency of returning at once to the terrace. He was still debating the wisdom of the move, when the question was decided by the tiger.

That belated midnight reveler—the old roué of the jungle—was ushered in with questionable pomp—the panic of lesser brutes in flight. And when he drank, beside the useless bomb, there was no mistaking his presence. He presently paused, half satisfied, and lifted his head, against the shudder of the water, to sniff at the jungle breeze.

The wind had betrayed the presence of the man, and the great brute voiced his satisfaction.

That was a long, weird night in the jungle.

What hour it was the tiger finally departed was more than Grenville could have told. And whether the daylight, finally approaching, or a royal disgust, or some easily captured morsel, had served to urge the brute upon his way, was equally unknown.

Grenville descended from his perch at last, when the palms and ferns had darkly emerged from the velvety blackness of the thicket. He took up his club, left the bomb in its place, and, searching about, recovered the sheet of parchment dropped in the darkness. Aware that the silently moving enemy might still be lurking by the pathway, he made his way no less boldly from the shadows, and came duly to the hill.

His chagrin was complete when he told Elaine that his night had been spent in vain. She had scarcely slept, as he could see, for her face was still pale with worry, while her eyes showed her lack of rest.

"I shall try again to-night," he said, but from that he was dissuaded.

The strain was too great upon Elaine, if not upon himself. He presently promised to wait a day, and see what might develop. He could not subject his companion to another such session of agonizing worry as Elaine had undergone until he felt more certain of results.

But to wait a day in idleness, while he felt that every hour that passed might bring new dangers upon them, could scarcely accord with his intentions.

He declared the tiger an arrant coward, who dared not confront him in the day.

"We have faced far greater perils than this," he told her, as they ate their simple breakfast, "and we may be called upon to face the like again. We're enormously fortunate to have nothing more than this striped beast to limit our freedom on the island."

Elaine could have thought of countless other animals, including snakes, that would amply curtail her roaming inclinations, but she was not in the least in the habit of rehearsing her many dreads.

Grenville went promptly to work, after breakfast, fetching clay in the basket from the pit. It was not brought up to the terrace, but dumped in a heap beside the hollow tree, in the burned space under the walls. This tree, he at last explained to Elaine, he intended to use as a smelter.

"It's a natural chimney I've annexed," was the way he presented the problem. "If I built a fire in it now, however, it would burn, and be destroyed. I intend to line it with clay—plaster it on, inside, some eight or ten feet high. Then when this fire-resisting substance dries, I can smelt my metal and run it in the molds. The draught will make a prodigious heat—far more than brass requires."

"I see," said Elaine. "Meantime I am utterly idle."

"I'll cut you those needles. You can knit," he said, "unless you prefer to go fishing."

He had come to the camp for one of the jugs in which to carry water for the clay. This task was temporarily abandoned while he sat in the shade, beside Elaine, and carved out the promised tools. These were made of wood, instead of bone, since the latter material was far too hard for his fragment of a blade, and one of the woods provided by the jungle was so straightly grained and elastic, that even a slender splinter would bend like steel before it broke.

For a short time after they were finished, he sat there to watch the craft displayed by Elaine's nimble fingers, as a slender bit of the fiber stuff began to accumulate in stitches.

"You were made for a home-builder's mate," he said, and arose and left her to her thoughts, and to certain inflammable emotions.

He carried his jug down the trail and to the spring, resuming the business in hand. The sight of the pool not only served to arouse his disgust anew, but he was likewise reminded of the documents, reposing still unread in his pocket. The bomb, he knew, should be carried back to camp, lest the fuse become dampened in the thicket. With this and his jug full of water, he hastened back to the foot of the trail—and forgot them both forthwith.

The half sheet of paper, readable at last, had enslaved him then and there.

He sat on a rock, with the paper on his knee, and was lost to all things else.

For a moment he thought, perhaps, he had dreamed of obtaining the key to the hidden message. But one hurried glance at the words he had read convinced him the trick had been done.

On the back of the sheet he began at once to jot down the signs of which he felt most certain. The results, as he made them, were these: