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

With pounds of the trinkets in his hands, he returned to the broken heap of stones he had lately overthrown. Out of the ringing silence of the larger cave came a distant wisp of sound——

He knew that Elaine was calling from somewhere in the passage.

It was only the work of a moment to catch up his basket and place in its hold the small stone sarcophagi of jewels. Carelessly then, on top of these, he swept in the ornaments of gold. They fell, dully ringing, from the shelves, where perhaps they had lain for above a century—a heterogeneous collection which he was sorry to disturb till the various positions in which they had been disposed could be noted and remembered.

He was certain no less than a hundredweight of the treasure taxed his strength when he presently lifted his burden from the place and bore it across the larger chamber.

Elaine was calling again. Her voice was clearer in the passage. Grenville came there, panting from his effort, with his dusty and useless riches. He answered at once on entering the gallery, where he paused to close and secure his concealing door.

"Please come!" was the cry, in response to his shout, like an unreal voice from the blackness of a tomb. "They're here! They're close to the island!"

With a short but inarticulate ejaculation, Grenville once more took up his basket, blundered forward with it a few feet only, and set it down against the wall. Why he had paused to bother with it, for a moment he did not understand. With his torch flaring back, in his greater speed, he plunged along and up the passage.

Around the first of the sharper angles he came upon Elaine. She had brought no torch, in her hurry to sound the alarm, but had groped her way downward through the Stygian blackness of the gallery, calling time after time as the gloom rendered up no reply.

Her eyes were dilated wildly, from her efforts to see in the dark. Her face seemed intensely white against the impenetrable ebon.

"Oh, I thought you'd never come!" she said, as Sidney approached with his light. "They were almost up to the island before I dreamed such a thing could be! The tree must have hidden the sail!"

Grenville placed the torch in her hand and urged her upward before him. They presently emerged on the ledge.

He had no more than crept to the terrace-edge and studied the craft below on the sea than he came once more to Elaine.

"No use in striking our flag," he said. "They've seen it. We'll fly it till the end."

The native ship, that had sailed unobserved within almost hailing distance of the headland, was not the one that had come to the island before. It was larger. Six men at least comprised its crew, a villainous-looking collection.

Grenville had seen them close at hand, as they passed by the entrance to the cave. That they contemplated an immediate landing seemed probable, making as they were towards the crescent indentation along by the estuary's mouth.

Sidney had lost little time in vain regrets for the hour spent uselessly below. He had gone at once to the gallery and hidden its entrance with the door. He had caught up Elaine's well-finished nets and the pole for a yoke she had been working to complete when the visitors' sail was discovered and, only pausing to make certain he could not be seen, went at once to the spring for extra jugs of water.

The sun was already dipping redly in its bath when he brought his first burden to the terrace. He paused to observe the maneuvers of the ship, now coming about in the sunset breeze, just off the tiny inlet where his catamaran was moored.

The queer sharp sail was reefed while he was watching. He saw three men heave overboard an anchor, which promptly sounded the shallow depths where the strange craft presently swung.

Considerably to Elaine's discomfort of mind, he hastened once more down the trail. She was certain the Dyaks would go to the spring before Sidney could got away. However, he brought another pair of jugs, an armful of fuel, and a basket of fruit with the greatest possible expedition.

The boatmen made no movement to come ashore as long as the twilight revealed them. The highest notes of their voices floated indistinctly to the terrace, towards which the men were frequently seen to gesture, but even these sounds were finally lost as darkness enwrapped the island.

Despite the fact that four of his water-jugs still remained in the thicket near the spring, Grenville made no more trips for water that evening, since Elaine was obviously distressed by the thought of the risk he might incur.

He was awake all night, maintaining the life of their smoldering fire, and alert for any signs or sounds of movement in the clearing by the trail. In one of the darkest hours before the dawn he heard the familiar wails and moans of the headland cave rise briefly on the wind.

From the anchored ship the cry was returned, as on the former occasion. After that a droning chant came fitfully up from the darkness of the waters, to die at last in the silence. Later he heard a shout, and then vague accents of speech. But, when daylight arrived, the craft had disappeared.

Elaine had not yet risen. Grenville quietly moved from one extremity of the headland to the other, searching the sea in all directions. He was soon convinced the visitor had not decamped, but had moved the vessel to one or another of the island's hidden inlets, that its movements, as well as those of its crew, should be no longer observed.

One lingering hope, which he had fostered in his breast, that the natives might not prove a bloodthirsty lot of head-hunters after all, he felt he must definitely abandon. This furtive move under cover of the dark was not the sort of maneuver to excite one's trust or confidence.

Elaine was standing in her shelter door when at length he came once more to his place by the top of the trail. She, too, had discovered the absence of the native vessel.

"I think another one came in the night," she said, when Sidney explained his belief that the boat was in hiding behind the farther walls. "I am sure I heard another voice."

Grenville recalled the shout that had followed the chanting and felt that this accounted for Elaine's conviction that more of the Dyaks had arrived.

"We have not been actually seen as yet," he assured her. "Our flag of distress is not a positive sign of anyone's presence on the island. We shall soon determine by their movements whether these chaps intend to be friendly or not."

"Would they hide if they meant to be friendly?"

"It isn't a friendly sign—— You see, I'm still of opinion the island's wail is a sound they rather dread. Have you noticed it's rapidly failing?"

"I've been ever so glad it seems so short and growing fainter."

"Yes," he drawled. "I'm afraid it will soon cease altogether, when our friends may buck up their courage and—show us their state of mind."

"What can we do in the meantime?"

"Sit tight and watch for developments."

But all that day there was never so much as a sound or a sign of the crew they had seen arrive. At one time, just before noon, Grenville fancied some movement occurred in the rocks that crowned the second hill. But he detected no further indication that someone might have scaled the cliff to spy on himself and Elaine.

He had never in his island rambles discovered a place by which that hill could be surmounted. That easy access might be obtained on the seaward side he readily understood. He fretted under the long suspense—the uncertainty brooding over the island. He much preferred that the visitors exhibit a downright hostile intent than to feel that beneath the sinister calm of thicket and jungle might lurk insidious death.

He felt that Elaine and himself would lack for nothing, except fresh meat, for at least a couple of days, yet he knew that even their fruit supply was wholly inadequate for a siege, should the new arrivals make up their minds to starve them on the terrace. Rather than weakly submit to any such abominable tactics, he was fully determined to bring about an attack. But how was an open question.

When once again the night drew on the man was impatient and weary. He had taken no rest after all his long previous day of toil, yet to sleep and invite disaster up the trail was quite impossible.

"We shall have to divide the night," said Elaine, with her customary practical courage. "We have simply got to be sensible to preserve our strength in case we have to fight."

Grenville consented to give her the watch till midnight. The island's wail in the late afternoon had seemed no fainter than that of the previous day. He was quite convinced there would be no night attack. Yet he stretched a cord across the trail that must pull at his arm and so give an alarm should anyone enter at his gate.

Doubtless in this confidence he fell asleep with more than usual promptness. He was far more weary than he knew, and Nature demanded her dues.

Elaine was glad he could slumber so profoundly. The night was barely cool; she was not in the least uncomfortable as she sat at Grenville's side. She knew he would waken at the slightest tug on the cord so quickly contrived to warn of an enemy's approach, and therefore felt a decided sense of security, despite the living silence of the night.

Long before midnight she was tense with nervous apprehension. Sounds from the jungle arose from time to time where some animal prowled for its prey. A whisper came up from the waves that lapped the cliff, and haunted the air as if with spirits. She had steeled her heart, however, and would not weaken by a jot. The hours would wear away somehow, and meantime—Sidney was resting.

She did not arise to walk about as Grenville would have done. Instead she sat there, stiffly alert, turning her head from side to side, as the minutes dragged heavily by, listening, staring through the darkness, fancying shapes had begun to move in the shadows of the rocks.

It was finally late in the dead of night when a sound of unusual heaviness arose from the brink of the cliff. Had someone dropped a rock in the sea, the disturbance could scarcely have been clearer.

It had come, she thought, from over beyond the great black tree that loomed against the sky. She wondered if perhaps she ought to speak to Sidney. She put out her hand to touch him lightly on the shoulder, but withdrew it again with a smile. He was sleeping so like a tired boy!

The sound had doubtless been nothing to rouse the slightest alarm. If it came again——

It did come again, less loud and distinct, but none the less unmistakable. Her heart responded immediately with a quicker, heavier beat. Perhaps she should try to ascertain the source or the cause of the noise. She should feel so ashamed, so weak and burdensome, to Grenville if she woke him for nothing at all. To look about was assuredly part of her duty while on guard. It was only a step to the edge of the terrace, across familiar ground.

Chiding herself for unwarranted timidity and lack of courage, she silently left her seat at last and stepped from Grenville's side. One of his sticks was lying near. She took it in her hand. Then over through the shadows she glided as noiselessly as a spirit, goading herself to the ordeal with thoughts of the bold and fearless manner the man would show were he in her place on this safe and childish excursion.

She had heard nothing more, though she frequently paused to