Into the Primitive Part 10

"Good Lord! you haven't been fool enough to overstrain that ankle-- Yes, you have. Dammit! why couldn't you tell me before?"

"It did not feel so painful in the water."

"I helped the best I could," interposed Miss Leslie. "I think if you could get Mr. Winthrope a crutch--"

"Crutch!" growled Blake. "How long do you think it would take me to wade through the mud? And look at that cloud! We're in for a squall.

Here!"

He handed the girl the smaller string of cocoanuts, flung the other up the beach, and stooped for Winthrope to mount his back. He then started off along the beach at a sharp trot. Miss Leslie followed as best she could, the heavy cocoanuts swinging about with every step and bruising her tender body.

The wind was coming faster than Blake had calculated. Before they had run two hundred paces, they heard the roar of rain-lashed water, and the squall struck them with a force that almost overthrew the girl. With the wind came torrents of rain that drove through their thickest garments and drenched them to the skin within the first half-minute.

Blake slackened his pace to a walk, and plodded sullenly along beneath the driving down-pour. He kept to the lower edge of the beach, where the sand was firmest, for the force of the falling deluge beat down the waves and held in check the breakers which the wind sought to roll up the beach.

The rain storm was at its height when they reached the foot of the cliffs. The gray rock towered above them, thirty or forty feet high.

Blake deposited Winthrope upon a wet ledge, and straightened up to scan the headland. Here and there ledges ran more than half-way up the rocky wall; in other places the crest was notched by deep clefts; but nowhere within sight did either offer a continuous path to the summit. Blake grunted with disgust.

"It'd take a fire ladder to get up this side," he said. "We'll have to try the other, if we can get around the point. I'm going on ahead. You can follow, after Pat has rested his ankle. Keep a sharp eye out for anything in the flint line--quartz or agate. That means fire. Another thing, when this rain blows over, don't let your clothes dry on you. I've got my hands full enough, without having to nurse you through malarial fever. Don't forget the cocoanuts, and if I don't show up by noon, save me some."

He stooped to drink from a pool in the rock which was overflowing with the cool, pure rainwater, and started off at his sharpest pace. Winthrope and Miss Leslie, seated side by side in dripping misery, watched him swing away through the rain, without energy enough to call out a parting word.

Beneath the cliff the sand beach was succeeded by a talus of rocky debris which in places sloped up from the water ten or fifteen feet. The lower part of the slope consisted of boulders and water-worn stones, over which the surf, reinforced by the rising tide, was beginning to break with an angry roar.

Blake picked his way quickly over the smaller stones near the top of the slope, now and then bending to s.n.a.t.c.h up a fragment that seemed to differ from the others. Finding nothing but limestone, he soon turned his attention solely to the pa.s.sage around the headland. Here he had expected to find the surf much heavier. But the sh.o.r.e was protected by a double line of reefs, so close in that the channel between did not show a whitecap. This was fortunate, since in places the talus here sank down almost to the level of low tide. Even a moderate surf would have rendered farther progress impracticable.

Another hundred paces brought Blake to the second corner of the cliff, which jutted out in a little point. He clambered around it, and stopped to survey the coast beyond. Within the last few minutes the squall had blown over, and the rain began to moderate its down-pour. The sun, bursting through the clouds, told that the storm was almost past, and its flood of direct light cleared the view.

Along the south side of the cliff the sea extended in twice as far as on the north. From the end of the talus the coast trended off four or five miles to the south-southwest in a shallow bight, whose southern extremity was bounded by a second limestone headland. This ridge ran inland parallel to the first, and from a point some little distance back from the sh.o.r.e was covered with a growth of leafless trees.

Between the two ridges lay a plain, open along the sh.o.r.e, but a short distance inland covered with a jungle of tall yellow gra.s.s, above which, here and there, rose the tops of scrubby, leafless trees and the graceful crests of slender-shafted palms. Blake's attention was drawn to the latter by that feeling of artificiality which their exotic appearance so often wakens in the mind of the Northern-bred man even after long residence in the tropics. But in a moment he turned away, with a growl. "More of those darned feather-dusters!" He was not looking for palms.

The last ragged bit of cloud, with its showery accompaniment, drifted past before the breeze which followed the squall, and the end of the storm was proclaimed by a deafening chorus of squawks and screams along the higher ledges of the cliff. Staring upward, Blake for the first time observed that the face of the cliff swarmed with seafowl.

"That's luck!" he muttered. "Guess I haven't forgot how to rob nests. Bet our fine lady'll shy at sucking them raw! All the same, she'll have to, if I don't run across other rock than this, poor girl!"

He advanced again along the talus, and did not stop until he reached the sand beach. There he halted to make a careful examination, not only of the loose debris, but of the solid rock above. Finding no sign of flint or quartz, he growled out a curse, and backed off along the beach, to get a view of the cliff top. From a point a little beyond him, outward to the extremity of the headland, he could see that the upper ledges and the crest of the cliff, as well, were fairly crowded with seafowl and their nests. His smile of satisfaction broadened when he glanced inland and saw, less than half a mile distant, a wooded cleft which apparently ran up to the summit of the ridge. From a point near the top a gigantic baobab tree towered up against the skyline like a Brobdingnagian cabbage.

"Say, we may have a run for our money, after all," he murmured.

"Shade, and no end of grub, and, by the green of those trees, a spring--limestone water at that. Next thing, I'll find a flint!"

He slapped his leg, and both sound and feeling reminded him that his clothes were drenched.

"Guess we'll wait about that flint," he said, and he made for a clump of thorn scrub a little way inland.

As the tall gra.s.s did not grow here within a mile of the sh.o.r.e, there was nothing to obstruct him. The creeping plants which during the rainy season had matted over the sandy soil were now leafless and withered by the heat of the dry season. Even the thorn scrub was half bare of leaves.

Blake walked around the clump to the shadiest side, and began to strip.

In quick succession, one garment after another was flung across a branch where the sun would strike it. Last of all, the shoes were emptied of rainwater and set out to dry. Without a pause, he then gave himself a quick, light rub-down, just sufficient to invigorate the skin without starting the perspiration.

Physically the man was magnificent. His muscles were wiry and compact, rather than bulky, and as he moved, they played beneath his white skin with the smoothness and ease of a tiger's.

After the rub-down, he squatted on his heels, and spent some time trying to bend his palm-leaf hat back into shape. When he had placed this also out in the sun, he found himself beginning to yawn. The dry, sultry air had made him drowsy. A touch with his bare foot showed him that the sand beneath the thorn bush had already absorbed the rain and offered a dry surface. He glanced around, drew his club nearer, and stretched himself out for a nap.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CLUB AGE

It was past two o'clock when the sun, striking in where Blake lay outstretched, began to scorch one of his legs. He stirred uneasily, and sat upright. Like a sailor, he was wide awake the moment he opened his eyes. He stood up, and peered around through the half leafless branches.

Over the water thousands of gulls and terns, b.o.o.bies and cormorants were skimming and diving, while above them a number of graceful frigate birds--those swart, scarlet-throated pirates of the air,--hung poised, ready to swoop down and rob the weaker birds of their fish. All about the headland and the surrounding water was life in fullest action. Even from where he stood Blake could hear the harsh clamor of the seafowl.

In marked contrast to this scene, the plain was apparently lifeless.

When Blake rose, a small brown lizard darted away across the sand.

Otherwise there was neither sight nor sound of a living creature. Blake pondered this as he gathered his clothes into the shade and began to dress.

"Looks like the siesta is the all-round style in this G.o.d-forsaken hole," he grumbled. "Haven't seen so much as a rabbit, nor even one land bird. May be a drought--no; must be the dry season-- Whee, these things are hot! I'm thirsty as a shark. Now, where's that softy and her Ladyship? 'Fraid she's in for a tough time!"

He drew on his shoes with a jerk, growled at their stiffness, and club in hand, stepped clear of the brush to look for his companions. The first glance along the foot of the cliff showed him Winthrope lying under the shade of the overhanging ledges, a few yards beyond the sand beach. Of Miss Leslie there was no sign. Half alarmed by this, Blake started for the beach with his swinging stride. Winthrope was awake, and on Blake's approach, sat up to greet him.

"h.e.l.lo!" he called. "Where have you been all this time?"

"'Sleep. Where's Miss Leslie?"

"She's around the point."

Blake grinned mockingly. "Indeed! But I fawncy she won't be for long."

He would have pa.s.sed on, but Winthrope stepped before him.

"Don't go out there, Blake," he protested. "I--ah--think it would be better if I went."

"Why?" demanded Blake.

Winthrope hesitated; but an impatient movement by Blake forced an answer: "Well, you remember, this morning, telling us to dry our clothes."

"Yes; I remember," said Blake. "So you want to serve as lady's valet?"

Winthrope's plump face turned a sickly yellow.

"I--ah--valet?--What do you mean, sir? I protest--I do not understand you!" he stammered. But in the midst, catching sight of Blake's bewildered stare, he suddenly flushed crimson, and burst out in unrestrained anger: "You--you bounder--you beastly cad! Any man with an ounce of decency--"

Blake uttered a jeering laugh-- "Wow! Hark, how the British lion r-r-ro-ars when his tail's twisted!"

"You beastly cad!" repeated the Englishman, now purple with rage.