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

hold her breath and await a further sound. It was wholly absurd, she told herself, for her heart to pound so madly. Just there to the brink, past those few large stones and shadows, and she would probably hear some slopping of the waves that would quiet her liveliest suspicion.

Despite her utmost efforts, however, she could not stand upright as she went, and she could not continue quite to the edge without one or two more pauses to catch her breath that would not come calmly to her lips. But she forced herself all the way—save just the final cautious edging to the scarp, where she suddenly knelt and leaned a little forward.

She was still a bit short of the brink, but remained where she was to calm her heart and listen. She could hear the water plainly. She felt entitled to arise and hasten back to Sidney—since of course there was nothing further to be heard.

But, before she could gather the strength to rise, a series of short, percussive sounds all but froze the core of her heart—so much did it seem like someone heavily panting.

Then, as she sat there staring helplessly at the jagged edge, four dark things—four fingers—crept actively over the lip of the wall—and a face abruptly followed, with a knife between its teeth!

"Sidney!" she cried, and, madly thrusting the stick she had brought against the dark and hideous countenance, she arose and fled wildly from the place.

CHAPTER XXXI THE SILENT VISITORS

Grenville came running across the rock-strewn terrace as if guided by superinstinct. He fancied a sound like a heavy splash arose from the base of the shadowy wall, and momentarily sickened to the bottom of his soul with the thought that Elaine had fallen over.

He saw her darting towards him a moment later, however, and caught her protectingly in his arms as she stumbled on a rock and plunged headlong against his breast.

She instantly regained her foothold and clung to his arm, brokenly stammering her story and facing back the way she had come to show where the loathsome apparition had appeared above the brink.

Sidney hastened there at once, armed only with a stone. Elaine, in a violent tremble, stood a few feet only away, having followed in unabated dread.

Not another sound could Grenville detect as he leaned above the precipitous plunge attempting to pierce through the shadows and gloom, as he watched for some movement below. Whether the man had fallen backward from the lip, to go hurtling down through the darkness, or whether he had accomplished some swift and silent retreat, Sidney had no means of ascertaining. Only the ceaseless lap of the tide made a whisper in the air.

He arose and returned to Elaine.

"I had no idea the cliff was scalable," he told her, quietly. "I doubt if that means of spying will be attempted again—— It was a beastly way of showing their intentions towards us, but I'm glad to know what to expect."

"Where has he gone?" Elaine faintly chattered. "If he should only be waiting to come again—— Such a horrible fright—— I don't know why I didn't faint, or what I did. I'm so weak I can hardly walk."

"Oh, you're as right a trivet!" said Grenville, with a ready comprehension of the need of keeping up her courage. "You can now retire with a comforting sense of having saved the night."

But Elaine's sense of comfort was a woefully negative quantity. She was shaken to the center of her nerves. She dreaded to be left for a moment.

Grenville, however, sent her off to bed in the most peremptory manner. A realizing sense that their trials had only well begun was his one deeply settled conviction.

"Cheer up!" he said to her, finally, "the worst is still to come."

"I'll try," she answered, courageously. "But please don't let it come to-night."

For more than two hours she did not sleep, or even close her eyes. Then she dragged her couch to a space outside her door. Every movement made by Grenville, as he watchfully policed the edge of the terrace, she thus followed for a time, half rising beneath her tiger-skin rug in her dread to hear him go.

When she finally slept she dreamed once more of the murderous eyes, the clenched white teeth, and the flame-shaped blade she had seen at the brink of the cliff. Grenville heard her laboredly call his name as in her dreams she once more underwent her disturbing ordeal, but he did not move from his seat.

At dawn she was slumbering more peacefully, a smile on her lips as she lay there facing his position. What a royal little princess of the island she appeared with her colorful robe lying out upon the rocks, her hair so much more golden than the tawny hide, and the warm, healthy glow restored once more to her cheeks!

Grenville was sure he had never half appreciated the wonder and abundance of her hair, the darker penciling of her arching brows, the delicate beauty of her features.

He presently once more bent his attention on the island that rendered up never a sign.

Neither the jungle, the summits of the further hills, nor the sea that stretched interminably about them enlightened his searching eyes. Save for that night experience, it might have seemed preposterous that enemies existed in the miniature world by which they were surrounded.

He crept in his cautious manner to the crumbling edge where Elaine had seen the face. There was nothing below in the water. He could readily follow the bits of shelf and succession of pits in the wall, however, whereby a daring, barefooted native might grope his way to the summit, even in the dark. It would doubtless be possible here, he reflected, to explode a bomb against the pitted surface and break away so large a cavity as to render all future ascents impossible. But this was a task to be deferred for a time, since he had no wish to acquaint the visitors oversoon with the fact that he possessed an explosive.

When he returned to the shelter again, Elaine had waked and carried her couch to the cave. Despite the fact the hour was early and the sun only well above the ocean's rim, she declared she had rested much longer than was either wise or essential.

Yet there was nothing to do for either, now that the day was begun. Their breakfast of fruits was soon concluded, then of occupation there was none. Grenville felt it inadvisable to move about too freely on the terrace, and thereby risk betraying the fact they were only two in number. A watcher stationed on the second hill could not, as a matter of fact, examine the entire top of the terrace, or even discern its principal features, but he might ascertain decidedly too much, should they carelessly expose themselves to view.

The morning proved for Grenville another exasperation. He thought of nothing by way of labor he could advantageously perform. Their defense, though crude, was fairly complete, and could scarcely be improved. To watch the edge of the jungle, hour after hour, where never a sign was vouchsafed his vigilance, was a dulling inactivity, yet a highly essential precaution that was not to be neglected.

By noon he was fairly in a mood to seek out the island's invaders alone, to hasten some definite action. That the natives intended to starve them into a visit to the spring seemed all too obvious. Grenville felt assured, however, the water down in the cavern would suffice for their needs, if no better could be relied upon, when once their jars were empty, while gathering fruit would not be wholly impossible under cover of the night.

With the thought in mind that only the trail would be kept under watch by the Dyaks, he made up his mind he could readily contrive a ladder-like platform to extend from the brink, whereby the distance to the nearest tree might be conveniently bridged to permit easy access to the jungle. Of creepers and extra bamboo poles he had laid in ample stock. For the lack of better employment, he began the construction of his bridge when their meager luncheon had been finished.

His mind, as he worked, spun schemes innumerable for the daily defeat of the natives. Aware that as long as the terrace could be held starvation and thirst would be their only unconquerable enemies, he entertained no end of plans for catching fish without bait and even trapping or fishing up small animals that might rove at night below the cliff. From these reflections he returned to the men who prowled about them after dark.

To secure his cord across the trail and thereby provide an alarm, or notice of the enemy's approach, from that direction, was a very simple matter. When he finally invented, in his mind, a singular "rattle" to guard the approach by the cliff, he dropped all employment on the bridge at once and began forthwith on the other.

What he made was a series of bamboo buckets, or cuplike sections of the hollow tube, with stones suspended inside to knock against the walls when the things were lightly shaken. These he intended to hang, one beside another, in a line from the brink of the wall, where a climber must strike them unawares and sound a resonant warning.

But he found, on hanging a pair some ten feet down along the face, where the man had climbed in the night, that the wind would sway them to and fro against the rock and constantly ring their hollow tones.

This defect he presently remedied by forming a frame, some ten feet long and one foot wide, in which all his cups were suspended, or moored, both top and bottom. They were thus so lightly hung that the smallest jar against the frame would joggle them all to musical utterance, while the wind could have no effect on any single one.

The entire frame was lowered down till it rested a bit unevenly on two projecting shelves of rock, where it leaned a trifle outward like a picture on a wall, as the creepers that held it from falling were finally made secure. When Grenville, by way of a trial, nudged it once with a pole thrust down against it for the purpose, it rattled out a decisive alarm that one could have heard from the trail.

Grenville thereupon brought out a bomb from his store and lowered it down below the frame, and six or eight feet to the side. This was secured not only by the fuse, but likewise by more of the creeper.

Elaine, who during his absence had maintained the watch of the trail, now ran to the place, at Grenville's signal, for a moment's inspection of the whole arrangement and instruction concerning its use.

It was while they were there that the haunting wail arose for a gasping spasm. It had practically failed. Sidney doubted if its loudest note could have been heard as far as the spring. But still the end of the tiresome day developed no attack.

Grenville was completely puzzled by the tactics the boatmen had adopted. That they knew Elaine was present on the terrace there could be not a shadow of doubt. Even if the man she had thrust away from the cliff-edge fell to the sea and was dashed to pieces, or drowned, his friends who had brought him around to the place must have heard her voice and recognized its feminine quality.

They would likewise know she could hardly be alone, and would guess her companions were not numerous or likely to be armed. No plundered wreckage lay about the shore from which castaways could have drawn ammunition or rifles. It was utterly impossible for any ignorant natives to imagine the loading of a cannon or the making of bombs from materials on the place.

What, then, was the reason of their long delay? They could scarcely be waiting for reinforcements. They would hardly be dreading the island's "spirit" now,