Into the Primitive Part 21

CHAPTER XIII

THE MARK OF THE BEAST

Morning found Winthrope more irritable and peevish than ever. Though he had not been called on watch by Blake until long after midnight, he had soon fallen asleep at his post and permitted the fire to die out.

Shortly before dawn, Blake was roused by a pack of jackals, snarling and quarrelling over the half-dried seafowl. To charge upon the thieves and put them to flight with a few blows of his club took but a moment.

Yet daylight showed more than half the drying frames empty.

Blake was staring glumly at them, with his broad back to Winthrope, when Miss Leslie appeared. The sudden cessation of Winthrope's complaints brought his companion around on the instant. The girl stood before him, clad from neck to foot in her leopard-skin dress.

"Well, I'll be--dashed!" he exclaimed, and he stood staring at her open-mouthed.

"I fear it will be warm. Do you think it becoming?" she asked, flushing, and turning as though to show the fit of the costume.

"Do I?" he echoed. "Miss Jenny, you're a peach!"

"Thank you," she said. "And here is the skirt. I have ripped it open.

You see, it will make a fine flag."

"If it's put up. Seems a pity, though, to do that, when we're getting on so fine. What do you say to leaving it down, and starting a little colony of our own?"

Miss Leslie raised the skirt in her outstretched hands. Behind it her face became white as the cloth.

"Well?" demanded Blake soberly, though his eyes were twinkling.

"You forget the fever," she retorted mockingly, and Blake failed to catch the quaver beneath the light remark.

"Say, you've got me there!" he admitted. "Just pa.s.s over your flag, and sc.r.a.pe up some grub. I'll be breaking out a big bamboo. There are plenty of holes and loose stones on the cliff. We'll have the signal up before noon."

Miss Leslie murmured her thanks, and immediately set about the preparation of breakfast.

When Blake had the bamboo ready, with one edge of the broad piece of white duck lashed to it with catgut as high up as the tapering staff would bear, he called upon Winthrope to accompany him.

"You can go, too, Miss Jenny," he added. "You haven't been on the cliff yet, and you ought to celebrate the occasion."

"No, thank you," replied the girl. "I'm still unprepared to climb precipices, even though my costume is that of a savage."

"Savage? Great Scott! that leopard dress would win out against any set of Russian furs a-going, and I've heard they're considered all kinds of dog. Come on. I can swing you into the branches, and it's easy from there up."

"You will excuse me, please."

"Yes, you can go alone," interposed Winthrope. "I am indisposed this morning, and, what is more, I have had enough of your dictation."

"You have, have you?" growled Blake, his patience suddenly come to an end. "Well, let me tell you, Miss Leslie is a lady, and if she don't want to go, that settles it. But as for you, you'll go, if I have to kick you every step."

Winthrope cringed back, and broke into a childish whine. "Don't--don't do it, Blake--Oh, I say, Miss Genevieve, how can you stand by and see him abuse me like this?"

Blake was grinning as he turned to Miss Leslie. Her face was flushed and downcast with humiliation for her friend. It seemed incredible that a man of his breeding should betray such weakness. A quick change came over Blake's face.

"Look here," he muttered, "I guess I'm enough of a sport to know something about fair play. Win's coming down with the fever, and's no more to blame for doing the baby act than he'll be when he gets the delirium, and gabbles."

"I will thank you to attend to your own affairs," said Winthrope.

"You're entirely welcome. It's what I'm doing.-- Do you understand, Miss Jenny?"

"Indeed, yes; and I wish to thank you. I have noticed how patient you have been--"

"Pardon me, Miss Leslie," rasped Winthrope. "Can you not see that for a fellow of this cla.s.s to talk of fair play and patience is the height of impertinence? In England, now, such insufferable impudence--"

"That'll do," broke in Blake. "It's time for us to trot along."

"But, Mr. Blake, if he is ill--"

"Just the reason why he should keep moving. No more of your gab, Win!

Give your jaw a lay-off, and try wiggling your legs instead."

Winthrope turned away, crimson with indignation. Blake paused only for a parting word with Miss Leslie. "If you want something to do, Miss Jenny, try making yourself a pair of moccasins out of the sc.r.a.ps of skin.

You can't stay in this gully all the time. You've got to tramp around some, and those slippers must be about done for."

"They are still serviceable. Yet if you think--"

"You'll need good tough moccasins soon enough. Singe off the hair, and make soles of the thicker pieces. If you do a fair job, maybe I'll employ you as my cobbler, soon as I get the hide off one of those skittish antelope."

Miss Leslie nodded and smiled in response to his jesting tone. But as he swung away after Winthrope, she stood for some time wondering at herself. A few days since she knew she would have taken Blake's remark as an insult. Now she was puzzled to find herself rather pleased that he should so note her ability to be of service.

When she roused herself, and began singeing the hair from the odds and ends of leopard skin, she discovered a new sensation to add to her list of unpleasant experiences. But she did not pause until the last patch of hair crisped close to the half-cured surface of the hide.

Fetching the penknife and her thorn and catgut from the baobab, she gathered the pieces of skin together, and walked along the cleft to the ladder-tree. There had been time enough for Blake and Winthrope to set up the signal, and she was curious to see how it looked.

She paused at the foot of the tree, and gazed up to where the withered crown lay crushed against the edge of the cliff. The height of the rocky wall made her hesitate; yet the men, in pa.s.sing up and down, had so cleared away the twigs and leaves and broken the branches on the upper side of the trunk, that it offered a means of ascent far from difficult even for a young lady.

The one difficulty was to reach the lower branches. She could hardly touch them with her finger-tips. But her barbaric costume must have inspired her. She listened for a moment, and hearing no sound to indicate the return of the men, clasped the upper side of the trunk with her hands and knees, and made an energetic attempt to climb. The posture was far from dignified, but the girl's eyes sparkled with satisfaction as she found herself slowly mounting.

When, flushed and breathless, she gained a foothold among the branches, she looked down at the ground, and permitted herself a merry little giggle such as she had not indulged in since leaving boarding-school.

She had actually climbed a tree! She would show Mr. Blake that she was not so helpless as he fancied.

At the thought, she clambered on up, finding that the branches made convenient steps. She did not look back, and the screen of tree-tops beneath saved her from any sense of giddiness. As her head came above the level of the cliff, she peered through the foliage, and saw the signal-flag far over near the end of the headland. The big piece of white duck stood out bravely against the blue sky, all the more conspicuous for the flocks of frightened seafowl which wheeled above and around it.

Surprised that she did not see the men, Miss Leslie started to draw herself up over the cliff edge. She heard Winthrope's voice a few yards away on her left. A sudden realization that the Englishman might consider her exploit ill-bred caused her to sink back out of sight.

She was hesitating whether to descend or to climb on up, when Winthrope's peevish whine was cut short by a loud and angry retort from Blake. Every word came to the girl's ears with the force of a blow.

"You do, do you? Well, I'd like to know where in h.e.l.l you come in.

She's not your sister, nor your mother, nor your aunt, and if she's your sweetheart, you've both been d.a.m.ned close-mouthed over it."

There was an irritable, rasping murmur from Winthrope, and again came Blake's loud retort.