As It Was in the Beginning Part 5

"Well--doubtless some Simian, in any case," he answered, having fancied one movement half seen in the trees beyond was made by an ape or a monkey. "I'd suggest you recall your fondness for fruit for breakfast."

She comprehended his meaning with amazing promptness. Her face took on its serious expression.

"You don't believe we shall find the island inhabited? We shall have only fruit this morning?"

"I am sure we shall find some fruit," he said, "and we must certainly look for water."

A sense of helplessness and despair attacked Elaine momentarily. She began to wonder, with alarm, how long they might be stranded on the place--and what att.i.tude Grenville might a.s.sume. She had thoroughly comprehended the pa.s.sion of his nature in the outburst she had seen. A sense of distrust she dared not show came creeping to her mind.

"We must make the best of it, of course," she said, as calmly as possible. "We can't even light a fire, I suppose."

"I certainly have no matches," he answered, cheerfully. "All I had were in my coat. Suppose we explore the island first and leave despair till after breakfast."

She met his gaze with fearless eyes that set his heart to pounding.

"I shall never despair," she answered, more bravely than she felt,--"at least, I shall try to do my part, till we are taken off."

He understood the challenge in her att.i.tude.

"I felt that from the first," he answered, easily. "Perhaps we'd better begin by climbing up to the headland."

He caught up a short, heavy stick and turned about to force a way up through the rocks and tangled growth between the sh.o.r.e and summit.

And what a figure he presented--even to the frightened girl, whose anger still lingered in her veins--stripped, as he was, to his shirtsleeves, a powerful, active being, masterful and unafraid. With a strange, dreadful sense of isolation and the primitive, aye, even primal, conditions in which they had been cast, she followed helplessly at his heels for their first real look at the island.

CHAPTER V

THE ISLAND

The ascent was steep and difficult, so unbroken was the undergrowth, except where jagged and pitted rocks rose grayly on the slope.

Bananas, nut palms, and mangoes Grenville promptly noted. Indeed, every tropical tree, shrub, and fruit of which he had ever learned was represented in the thicket, together with long, snake-like creepers, huge ferns, and many plants with which he had no acquaintance.

There was abundant life in all directions. Here, with a grunt, and beyond with a bound of startled surprise, some animal scuttled to cover in alarm at their approach. A small flock of parrots abruptly arose, flashing their brilliant plumage in the sunlight and screaming raucously. Half a dozen leeches, clinging firmly to the fat, green leaves next the ground, where all was moist and shaded, attracted Grenville's notice as they lifted their heads and groped about for flesh upon which to fasten.

Here and there in the tree tops a monkey obscured a patch of sky for a moment and chattered or squeaked a warning to his kind. Grenville, almost wholly convinced that man seldom or never visited the place, and puzzled to account for a fact so extraordinary, now emerged at the edge of a natural clearing and promptly discovered a small patch of sugar cane, reared above the gra.s.s and vines. He was certain that man had brought it to the island.

A half minute later he underwent a decidedly complex set of emotions.

He was barely five feet ahead of Elaine, who was following blindly in his trail, a prey to new dreads of all the sounds about them, when he halted in a tense and rigid att.i.tude of alertness. Elaine glanced quickly ahead.

Apparently a patch of orange sunlight was lifting from the gra.s.s. Then Elaine, too, saw the black, irregular stripes, the huge, topaz eyes, and the lazy movement of a mighty shoulder muscle, as the beast before them arose and blocked their path.

It was not the fact that he had rarely if ever seen a tiger so large that most impressed the man, thus unexpectedly confronted by this unfrightened monarch of the island--_the brute bore a collar about his neck, gleaming with gold and the facets of some sort of jewels_!

He had obviously once been a captive! He knew the form of man, if not his nature!

For a moment or more there was absolute stillness in that gra.s.sy arena, where two world-old enemies stood face to face in their first, preliminary contest of courage. A certain arrogance, a contempt of all possible adversaries, here in his undisputed realm, shone unmistakably in the eyes of the motionless brute. His paunch was rounded significantly. He had recently dined.

Grenville could think of but one thing to do, unarmed as he was, and unwilling to compromise an encounter so vitally important.

He let out a shout such as a demon might have uttered, and, rushing madly forward, with his club upraised, yelled again and again, his aspect one to strike terror to the heart of a giant. He was almost upon the astonished tiger when the brute abruptly fled. The roar the great beast delivered, as he bounded from sight in the jungle, was the sullen note of a creature that obeys, reluctantly, the command of one superior to himself.

"Now, then, a little discretionary haste," said Grenville, quickly returning to Elaine. "I prefer the top of the rocks."

But she did not move, so helpless was her will and so rigid all her being. Once more, with his arm about her waist, Sidney firmly urged her forward, on a beaten trail he took no time to study.

It led in a tortuous manner up the last steep acclivity, where, with every rod, the growth became less luxuriant, and the rocks more thickly strewn. Thus they presently came upon a second natural clearing, a sort of uneven terrace, some fifty feet lower than the dominating headland crowned by the solitary tree.

The trail to this final eminence was plainly scored along a narrow, crumbling ledge, where the volcanic tufa, comprising the ancient upheaval, had for years disintegrated in a honeycomb fashion that left all the bowlders and even the walls deeply pitted.

When they turned about together on this dominating mount, the island lay mapped irregularly beneath them in the purple sea, revealed well-nigh in its entirety.

In all its expanse there was not a sign of a human habitation.

They knew, without a word of argument, they were absolutely alone on this tropic crumb of empire, sole survivors of the frightful wreck, completely ignorant of their whereabouts, and surrounded not only by savage and inimical jungle brutes, but also by some mystery that was not to be understood.

"Well," said Grenville, presently, "such as it is, it's ours."

"Ours," said Elaine. A cold little shiver ran along her nerves, at thoughts of her plight between the man she had called a brute, and the still more savage creatures of the jungle. "Where are you going?" she added, as Grenville moved away.

"To look about for a moment," he replied, "and then I must pick some breakfast."

The examination of the hilltop was promptly concluded. It proved to be a flat, uneven plateau of small dimensions, with precipitous walls on every side, except where the trail led downward. Much loose rock was scattered on its surface. Three-quarters of its boundary rose perpendicularly out of the sea. The remainder plunged down into jungle greenery, and the natural clearing that lay between two dense, rank growths on either side. Not far from the center of the table-rock a fair-sized cave, that bore unmistakable signs of former occupancy and fires once ignited on its floor, afforded a highly acceptable shelter, both from the sun and the elements. It occupied, of course, a position that could be readily and easily defended.

There were other, smaller caverns close at hand, but none with a whole or unpierced roof. Fragments of broken clay utensils lay scattered about, together with the whitening bones of small-sized animals that had one time served some denizens for food. There was nothing in or about the princ.i.p.al cave of which Grenville could make the slightest use.

The view of the island from this point of vantage was not particularly encouraging. Midway of its rugged bulk, that jutted from the azure tides, and on the side directly opposite the estuary, another wall of rock loomed, gray and barren, above the tops of the trees. Behind this, at the island's farthest, left-hand extremity, a third "intrusion" of volcanic stuff rose to a height only barely lower than this whereon the raftmates stood. It was not, however, flat.

A portion only of the estuary was visible--the outer bay, where the raft was plainly floating. Save for areas covered with rock and brush together, the remaining surface of the island appeared to be thickly grown to jungle, the forest comprising foliage of infinite variety.

With Elaine walking silently at his side, afraid to be with him, yet more afraid to be alone, Grenville pa.s.sed from this hasty examination of the island's general topography to a closer inspection of the perpendicular scarp of the terrace. On the seaward side it rose about one hundred feet above the mark of high water. Its right front appeared to overhang its base, a rea.s.suring distance above the highest tree. Across its entire bulk at this place the cliff had once been cracked, and a "slip" had formed a ragged shelf. Then came the slope where the trail was worn, beyond which forty feet or more of unscalable tufa was reared above a section of the jungle once devastated by fire.

In the midst of this section, being rapidly reclaimed by vines and creepers, stood the sh.e.l.l of a huge old tree, the heart of which had been consumed, from the roots to its blackened top, leaving walls still thick and solid.

"Well," said Sidney, returning again to the princ.i.p.al cave, which he reinspected critically, "it doesn't take long to overlook our possessions. You'd better begin to make yourself at home, while I go below for fodder," and, taking up his club from a ledge where he had let it fall, he went at once down the long-abandoned trail and out across the clearing.

Elaine had followed to the scarp, where she watched till he disappeared. How helpless she was in the hands of this man, whose declaration and deeds had so aroused her indignation and hatred, she thoroughly understood. A sickening conviction that days might elapse before she could hope to escape, increased her sense, not only of alarm, but also of distrust in Grenville. His action in taking up his stick had not escaped her attention. Strangely enough, a horrible pang went straight to her breast as she suddenly thought of that tiger again--and of what it might mean if Grenville never returned. Whatever else might happen, nothing could be so terrible as to perish here alone. She tried to a.s.sure herself, however, that Grenville was thoroughly competent to cope with the dangers of the place.

Yet the silence of the jungle where she had seen him disappear, oppressed her unendurably. Not even a tree was shaken, to indicate where he had gone. Summoning all her resolution, she returned to the cavern, alone.

A slab of rock, once doubtless employed for a table, lay with one end resting on the earth, while the other leaned upon a second rock, against the wall of the cave. She lifted this slab to a second prop, then blew the last fragment of dust and sand from its surface, by way of preparing it for breakfast. She looked about, longing for further employment, but, inasmuch as two rude fragments of the rock already reposed beside her table for seats, there was absolutely nothing more she could add, either by way of utensils or furnishings, from the boulders scattered loosely on the terrace.

When she thought of leaves, whereon to serve what fruits the jungle might surrender, she started briskly for the trail--but halted at its summit. A horror of unknown things that might be lurking at the thicket's edge impressed itself upon her. Nevertheless, she shook it off, and, descending rapidly, soon filled her arms with large, clean "platters" from a rankly growing plant of the "elephant's ear" variety, then clambered back to her aerie.

Two of the leaves she dropped at the bend of the trail and left them there in the sun. Twice after that she returned to the edge, to search all the greenery for Grenville. Her uneasiness respecting his long absence was rapidly increasing when she turned once more toward the cave. He emerged at that moment from the farther thicket of the clearing, came un.o.bserved to the winding trail, and discovered the leaves she had abandoned.