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

Dyaks beyond. One of them called out sharply. To Grenville's complete astonishment and dismay another man, barely a few yards off, replied with a species of grunt. The fellow had come there, either to visit or to set a snare, and must have believed he had frightened the animal himself.

Sidney could hear him working now, as he leaned a bit closer to the foliage, incapable of moving further while the hunter delayed in the thicket. The fellow presently arose, as if to go. Instead, however, he approached even closer to Grenville's place of concealment, and Sidney oozed cold perspiration, helplessly occupied, as he was, with a jug in either hand, and his cleaver still swung at his waist.

To have moved, or attempted to place either jug in the water at his feet, must have been fatal to his mission. Yet he felt convinced the Dyak must fairly run against him, unless he could move to the side. One of his shoes, moreover, was sinking deeply in slimy mire.

That his balance must be overcome seemed well-nigh inevitable. A branch from one of the larger trees that grew above him on the bank now swept so forcibly against the other foliage as the Dyak hauled it downward, to sever a twig for his trap, that Grenville's face was lightly brushed. When the limb sprang upward a moment later, he pulled his foot from the hole.

It seemed to the man a quarter of an hour at least that the trapper remained there, a few feet away, making one more sound, from time to time, when it seemed at last he must have departed. When he finally went, there could be no assurance he would not return again. Notwithstanding this possibility, Grenville slipped furtively along once more, disturbed to find how far towards the spring this narrowing, sea-level neck of the inlet continued through the growth.

When he came at length to a rise of the island, down which the trickle from the spring had made its course, he found himself at the edge of a small, grass-grown clearing, that could hardly be more than a stone's toss away from the Dyaks' temporary camp. A small, deep basin, filled with the precious water he sought, reflected a star at the zenith of the heavens. It some way gave him hope. Of courage he had no lack.

Noiselessly, but without hesitation, he crept forward to the place and bent to drink, then to fill his bottle and jugs. At a snap that came from the shadows beyond he looked up alertly, beholding through the leaves a bright bit of fire upon the earth, with two of the Dyaks at its side. Every accent of their halting conversation came clearly to his ears.

With his three receptacles filled at last, he began his retreat from the place. He had barely vanished from the clearing, and come to the cover of the growth once more, when the man who was laying the snare in some pathway of the small jungle animals came back to complete his work.

Grenville thought his arms must relinquish the holds in their sockets before the unsuspecting hunter was content to leave the neighborhood. The jugs, so long and silently held, were rested a moment on the bank, when, at last, the moment did arrive when Sidney could dare retreat. Then down through the stubborn tangle, once more, he moved like a silent shade. With every yard thus placed between himself and the natives by the spring, the hope in his breast increased.

He came once more to the deeper estuary pool and, lifting his jugs to his shoulders, waded cautiously forward, nearly up to his throat in the tepid brine that smelled too rank for anything but swamp. He paused by his raft, for a moment undecided as to whether he should place his jugs in the braces lashed upon it, before he pushed it past the bar, or after it should float on the tides.

While he stood there, with a sense of exultation daring to warm in his soul—an exultation centered on Elaine and the joy it must presently be to see her thirst allayed—he suddenly stiffened at the sound of Dyak voices, alarmingly near at hand.

Retreating instantly, under the shadow of the foliage and against the end of his raft, he placed one jug upon it, noiselessly, and put out his hand to grasp at a branch to draw himself further from sight.

But the branch on which he laid his grip was suddenly alive. It writhed and lashed sharply at his knuckles until, with a shudder of comprehension that he had clutched the tail of a snake, he flung it off and knew it had glided away.

He had no choice but to try again, and this time met with better fortune. Out through the foliage, arranged thus hurriedly about him, he peered towards the low bit of beach. There was no one in sight, but beyond, on the sea, suddenly looming before him, and coming about to face the protected inlet, a third of the Dyak sailing-boats, a new arrival, manned by an additional group of head-hunters, nosed gracefully up against the tide.

Her anchor was cast, and there she rode, not twenty yards out from the shore.

Like shadowy demons from some world beyond, arrived on some mission mysterious and tragic—some service of the foulest fiend in Hades—four half-seen figures moved along the railing of the craft, destroying the hope in Grenville's bosom.

CHAPTER XXXIX ADDITIONAL HEAD-HUNTERS

The boatmen thus newly arrived off the estuary's mouth were proceeding in a leisurely and confident manner to make themselves and their vessel snug for the night, and Grenville had placed his second jug upon his raft when, without a sound having come to announce their movements, two or three Dyaks from the camp in the growth called some greeting or challenge from the shore.

That their words were interpreted in a friendly spirit by the shadowy natives on the anchored boat seemed to Grenville entirely obvious. There was something akin to cheer in the voices that replied across the water. Every man was seen to halt at his work and come to the shoreward side of the craft, to peer through the darkness towards the beach.

Three of the fiends with whom he had waged unequal battle now appeared on the sand strip a rod from where Sidney was standing. Their backs were presented as they called and gestured to the men beyond, and Grenville identified the chief once more by the fellow's unusual height.

Apparently an argument ensued, conducted, as to the shoreward end, by the tall and dominant leader. He waved quick, eloquent gestures, frequently towards the headland whence Grenville had come. That some report of recent proceedings was being thus delivered there could be no reasonable doubt. Expressions of astonishment, satisfaction, and a diabolical glee came back in guttural staccatos from the blood-loving creatures on the vessel.

Grenville almost forgot where he was, and why, such indignation burned in his breast as he grasped at the substance of the conference thus held across the tide. Four more head-hunters, come to swell the already heavily outnumbering forces of the island, was too much for Heaven to permit! Against such odds and such diabolism, what possible chance——

He smiled in a grim, sardonic manner at the thought that a fight between himself and the now augmented Dyaks would ever again be likely, with this boat anchored here before him, Dyaks camping in the jungle, and no trail left by which he could reach the terrace and Elaine, even could he creep away in the shadows and silence of the thicket.

It appeared to him now that the chief on shore was becoming impatient, or angry. He shouted orders and waved his hand down the length of the island in a style growing rapidly more and more imperative, while the new arrivals answered back in a stubborn and sullen dissatisfaction that Sidney began to hope might lead to open rupture. Should one of the factions war against the other, he would think these four boatmen a Godsend.

Even then, he reflected, the situation, as bearing on himself, might present no altered aspect till all was decidedly too late. Should he fail to return to Elaine with water to-night—she would doubtless never see his face again. Should morning still find him hiding here—their fates would have a sudden termination. And now, with this craft at anchor in the current, so close inshore, there could be no chance to escape around it unobserved, what possible alternative was offered but to stand here, nearly to his waist in the water, aware that the deadliest sort of snakes might be coiled within a foot of his hand?

One of the Dyaks a rod away now sat upon the sand. The colloquy continued. The domineering leader, waxing more and more imperious, made gestures now in both directions. That what he imparted and declared was again concerned with himself and Elaine, Grenville could not fail to understand. He was puzzled, however, to determine the reason for this lengthy contest of words.

It occurred to his mind the dispute might have sprung from rival claims as to sharing the trophies, when, at last, the defenders of the terrace should no longer require their heads. The ghastliness of the suggestion did not greatly disturb him; he was too far dulled and wearied by things already undergone.

When it seemed at last as if the verbal combat might result in a deadlier feud, the matter between the land and water factions was suddenly adjusted with accents amazingly mild from either side. Considerably to Grenville's astonishment, the boatmen heaved up their anchor, eased off their sail, and put about towards the farther end of the island.

The three men ashore called out additional instructions, presumably, and followed for a distance down the shore. The boat was presently gone from Sidney's view. He did not stir, though he ached in every bone and muscle, from his long, hard session of suffering and toil, and this cramp and strain of hiding. He was well aware that even the Dyaks would soon be obliged, either to retrace their steps and return as they had come, or force a way up through the jungle to cross to the island's farther side.

That the vessel would join the others, already at anchor behind the second hill, he had finally comprehended with a wildness of hope his heart could scarcely contain. The chief had undoubtedly ordered the craft away from this particular anchorage lest it be too readily seen.

With barely a grunt or two of conversation between them, the trio seen before him on the sand now presently returned. They stood about the estuary inlet for a moment, as if debating some second affair of importance, then finally glided away.

Even then Grenville stirred with silent caution, waiting with heartbeats once more quickened lest he move too soon, and be discovered after all. The place, however, was deserted. Stiffly, but none the less eagerly, and alert for the slightest alarm, he coaxed his raft from the overhanging shrubbery, urged it gently out across the bar, and, hurriedly lashing his jugs to the braces provided, pushed away and headed far out in the tide.

The current had turned. It was flowing strongly towards the cliff, in a certain impetuous manner that was far from being assuring. For while, in a measure, it assisted Grenville's float, it swirled and battled with other counter currents, into which he was helplessly carried. His frail, narrow raft was not infrequently threatened with disaster.

Twice, for a second, he well-nigh despaired of righting before he should sink or plunge end downward, capsizing himself and his jugs. He was shot far outward from his course by one of the treacherous torrents of tide, then rocketed straight for the rocks of the cliff by another. His paddles were wholly inadequate for such a struggle; his arms refused the demands that his will insistently made upon them. It seemed as if he must break at some