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

fine beginning. It was certainly not the time for him to weaken her now by misplaced tenderness, vastly as he wished to spare her shock and trial.

The crawling objects he had seen from above had vanished beyond the solid wall he had built to shut out the tiger. All the way down to this barrier he made his way, Elaine meanwhile watching from the cliff. There were dark, irregular blotches here and there along the rocks, and on these he scraped a hiding film of dust. How much of the contents of the gun had been expended uselessly against the wall could not be determined in the dark. He felt assured a heavy toll had been collected on the trail, if not in killed, at least in wounded and, doubtless, disabled men.

The cord arranged to sound his alarm had been broken in the charge. He found the ends, repaired the damage, crept further along to scan the silent and deserted clearing, then promptly returned to secure a basket, and boldly went down to gather extra fruit.

"I wish I knew where to get some meat," he told Elaine, as he came with his plunder to the terrace. "I don't know when I shall have another hour so absolutely safe."

But beyond removing his ladder and bridge, he performed no more labor that night. It was not yet late. Elaine was too excited to retire. She sat with him, nervously listening to all the far sounds of the jungle, as he kindled their fire to a blaze.

"I wonder how long we can keep it up—go on as we are going now," she reflected aloud at last. "Mustn't they get us in the end?"

"Well—not till we've made it a fair exchange, at least."

"There must be a dozen of them about us, six or more to our one."

"There were, perhaps, an hour ago, but hardly so many now. One shot himself, down in the jungle, gunning for me, while the cannon—— But your intuition was accurate—a second boatload did arrive to join the first." He added a brief recital of what he had seen and what had taken place at the rotted barque, sparing the details which, he felt, would more alarm than assure her, respecting "Buli" and the drama played at the clearing.

"Two boatloads!" she repeated. "What reason could they possibly have for coming at last to this island? They couldn't have known we were here—at least not the first who came."

"No," said Grenville, slowly, reflecting that the time for his revelation was, perhaps, a trifle overdue, "they came, I believe, to secure the treasure in the cave."

Elaine glanced up at him quickly.

"The treasure you have joked about before?"

"It was not altogether a joke. The treasure is there—or, at least, it was, before I removed it to the passage."

"Not something actually valuable? What sort of things do you mean?"

"Gold and precious stones—a lot of heavy plunder—enough of the jewels alone to fill a hat."

Elaine slightly gasped. "And they came for that? And you have taken it out—have hidden it, rather—and you think, perhaps, they have missed it?"

"No, I hardly believe they have been to the cave as yet. It isn't theirs, the beggars! Not that it's of any account to us, but I don't feel sure if I gave it up they'd depart and leave us in peace. At any rate, I don't propose they shall have it."

Elaine was silent for a moment, and filled with wonder.

"How did you manage to find it?"

"Entirely by accident. I pulled down a stone that concealed a secret chamber, where someone had walled it in. It has doubtless been there for many generations—as these fellows have probably known."

"And suppose they find the chamber looted—may they not be all the more savage and eager to tear us to pieces?"

"Well—I should say their ambition in that respect has already about reached its limit."

Elaine could still feel her heart pounding heavily in her bosom. She returned to her original query.

"If we go on like this for a week, what then? Is there anything in the world to prevent them from waiting and waiting and waiting, till——" She did not finish her sentence, but the slightest shudder shook her frame.

"They were goaded to action to-night," said Grenville, hopefully. "They may feel sufficiently aggrieved to return for more. If not—they must be invited."

"But surely you'll not attempt such a venture as this again?"

Grenville rubbed at his jaw. "I wish it might be duplicated! No such luck is likely. But I feel very certain we'd both rather cash in fighting than to starve like rats in a trap."

"Yes," Elaine faltered, in her quiet way of courage, "but—if it has to come—let's try to—receive it here together."

CHAPTER XXXIV DYAK DARTS AND METHODS

Long-distance fighting began an hour after sunrise in the morning. It was rather a long-distance attack, since Grenville, armed only with the cannon, was powerless to retaliate, except at great expense of ammunition, and with questionable results.

One of the Dyaks had stationed himself on the central hill of the island with some sort of ancient rifle. He took a deliberate shot at Sidney the moment that unsuspecting thorn in their sides chanced to make an appearance on the western section of the terrace. The bullet went wide, having struck among the rocks some fifteen feet away, arousing Grenville's contempt.

Not even Elaine was greatly frightened by this overture from the enemy, whose marksman could have but a limited view of that unused section of the headland.

But the first small dart that sped lightly up from the jungle, to drop almost at Grenville's feet, was another affair altogether. He knew the thing was not only sharp, but literally soaked with poison. It had only to prick through the skin of one's hand, or even, perhaps, through the thinness of their garments, to perform its deadly function. The merest chance shot was thus extremely likely to achieve what the rifleman could not.

These hideous little messengers of agony and death were rained all morning on the terrace. They fell near the furnace for keeping fire; they dropped by the door of the shelter. A few even sped as far as the powder magazine, where Grenville found them on the rock and gravel roof.

Ample protection was afforded by remaining under cover, but this was not altogether wise or safe, except, perhaps, for Elaine. Grenville felt he must constantly watch the clearing. In the light of day his alarm could be discovered and removed, to permit an attack too sudden to be opposed.

He, therefore, constructed a bamboo shield, with which to protect his head and a part of his body, as he moved about among the rocks, or concealed himself near the cannon.

Not more than twice in all the morning did he see so much as one of the tubes—the long, slender blowguns of the hidden foe—while this silent bombardment continued. It was useless to think of slewing about his little brass piece for a shot at mere motionless jungle. It was equally impossible, he confessed, to excite the Dyaks to another charge until they should finally make up their minds a sudden assault would succeed.

He was rather surprised they had made no attempt to rush him at earliest dawn. The ledge was, however, very narrow. It afforded the one and only approach, and the dire disaster of the night before had rendered far more cowardly the set of treacherous and utterly craven murderers these boatmen undoubtedly were.

All afternoon the darts continued falling, intermittently—and Grenville made no response. His silence, indeed, was a mystery which the Dyaks not only failed to understand, but, likewise, a little dreaded. That he had no rifle they were thoroughly convinced. But that roar of his cannon they had understood, and to hear it again they had no appetite. Moreover, its deadly hail and detonation had come so unexpectedly, from the erstwhile silent terrace, that they knew not what to expect concerning the future.

Not without hopes of actually slaying some of the unknown forces on the crest of the hill, they shot an exceptional number of their darts from the nearby thicket as the sun at last declined. Grenville, having at length established what he thought to be a line of the little missiles' flight, hastily made and bound up a bomb of no more than two pounds' weight.

This, with a fuse too short for ordinary safety, he finally carried to the westward brink with one of his glowing coals of fire.

The patient rifleman, waiting on his hill, immediately blazed away, as before—and missed the entire bulk of rock. Grenville paid not even the tribute of a glance at the opposite summit, as he thrust his fuse down upon his coal.

The hiss of the powder gave him a start, so swiftly did it travel towards the bomb. With all his might he threw the thing outward at the shadowed spot whence he thought the darts were flying.

The quick, sharp bark and the patch of flame behind the design of a palm leaf, came like a clap of thunder, just before the second when the bomb would have struck on the earth.

A yell of dismay, or anguish, or both, and a scattering shower of shredded greenery supplied the only report of results that Grenville was destined to receive. The flight of darts was ended. A few hurried movements in the thicket, and a groan that Sidney felt was smothered, were the only signs vouchsafed him that the powder had not been cheaply wasted.

"It's a poor way to fight the hidden devils," he told Elaine, as he came once more to the shelter, "but it may possibly serve to keep them further away, and force them to different tactics."

It certainly had this latter effect, but not immediately.

There was no attack that night, and no disturbance in the jungle, though Sidney descended to the thicket and returned, not only with more fresh fruit he had located during the day, but also with a small wild hog he had captured in one of the older traps which the Dyaks had failed to discover.

The morning developed nothing aggressive, save the presence of the marksman on hill number two with the rifle that Grenville said would only be deadly around a corner. Some plan of patient waiting appeared to have been matured in the Dyaks' mind, since one of their boats issued forth at last from its place, to circle about the headland like a vulture atilt for prey, while down in the cover of the greenery other natives undoubtedly lurked.

They affrighted a flock of parrots here and there, from time to time, or set the timid monkeys to chattering and leaping through the upper foliage, apprising Grenville thus that the thickets were haunted below. No darts sped upward from the jungle edge, however, which, Sidney argued, might signify that the men with the deadly blow-guns possibly hoped to excite over-confidence in the keepers of the terrace, who might finally expose themselves to fewer, but more accurate, shots.

In his forced inactivity, Grenville once more waxed impatient. He felt the heat of the blazing sun, which was daily growing more intense. He chafed at the thought of doing nothing while their water supply was steadily diminishing, and the Dyaks apparently planned to subdue him by thirst or famine. He dared not risk an exposure of the door to the secret passage by going for water to the cave below, especially as all his jugs were porous and permitted the water's escape by percolation, whereas the supply in the basins below might be better preserved where it was.

A hundred useless plans for taking the war to the enemy's camp were presented to his mind, always to be promptly abandoned. He could only utilize his artillery for defense, and could not even hasten an attack. He could devise no means of ascertaining how many of the natives had either been killed or disabled. That fully ten survived, however, he felt was probable. One or two at the most was all