Into the Primitive Part 24

There was a pause; then, backed by three others, the leader approached Winthrope. He was still lying in the death-like torpor, and he lacked the protection which, in all likelihood, the leopard skin had given Miss Leslie. The cowardly brutes took him for dead or dying. They sniffed at him from head to foot, and then, with a ferocious outburst of snarls and yells, flung themselves upon him.

Had it not chanced that Winthrope was lying upon his side, with one arm thrown up, he would have been fatally wounded by the first slashing bites of his a.s.sailants. The two which sought to tear him were baffled by the thick folds of Blake's coat, while their leader's slash at the victim's throat was barred by the upraised arm. With a savage snap, the beast's jaws closed on the arm, biting through to the bone. At the same instant the fourth jackal tore ravenously at one of the outstretched legs.

With a shriek of agony, Winthrope started up from his torpor, and struck out frantically in a fury of pain and terror. Startled by the violence of this unexpected resistance, the jackals leaped back--only to spring in again as the remainder of the pack made a rush to forestall them.

Winthrope was staggering to his feet, when the foremost brute leaped upon him. He fell heavily against one of the main supports of his bamboo canopy, and the entire structure came down with a crash. Two of the jackals, caught beneath the roof, howled with fear as they sought to free themselves. The others, with brute dread of an unknown danger, drew away, snarling and gnashing their teeth.

Wakened by the first ferocious yelps of Winthrope's a.s.sailants, Miss Leslie had started up and stared about in the darkness. On all sides she could see pairs of fiery eyes and dim forms like the phantom creatures of a nightmare. Winthrope's shriek, instead of spurring her to action, only confused her the more and benumbed her faculties. She thought it was his death cry, and stood trembling, transfixed with horror.

Then came the fall of the canopy. His cries as he sought to throw it off showed that he was still alive. In a flash her bewilderment vanished. The stagnant blood surged again through her arteries in a fiery, stimulating torrent. With a cry, to which primeval instinct lent a menacing note, she groped her way to the fallen canopy, and stooped to lift up one side.

"Quick!--into the tree!" she called.

Still frantic with terror, Winthrope struggled to his feet. She thrust him towards the baobab, and followed, dragging the ma.s.s of interwoven bamboos. Emboldened by the retreat of their quarry, the snarling pack instantly began to close in. Fortunately they were too cowardly to rush at once, and fear spurred their intended victims to the utmost haste.

Groping and stumbling, the two felt their way to the baobab, and Miss Leslie pushed Winthrope headlong through the entrance. As he fell, she turned to face the pack.

The foremost beasts were at the rear edge of the bamboo framework, their eyes close to the ground. Instinct told her that they were crouching to leap. With desperate strength she caught up the canopy before her like a great shield, and drew it in after her until the ends of the cross-bars were wedged fast against the sides of the opening. Though it seemed so firm, she clung to it with a convulsive grasp as she felt the pack leaders fling themselves against the outer side.

But Blake had lashed the bamboos securely together, and none of the beasts was heavy enough to snap the supple bars. Finding that they could not break down the barrier, they began to scratch and tear at the thatch which covered the frame. Soon a pair of lean jaws thrust in and snapped at the girl's skirt. She sprang back, with a cry: "Help! Quick, Mr.

Winthrope! They're breaking through!"

Winthrope made no response. She stooped, and found him lying inert where he had fallen. She had only herself to depend upon. A screen of sharp sticks which she had made for the entrance was leaning against the inner wall, within easy reach. To grasp it and thrust it against the other framework was the work of an instant.

Still she trembled, for the eager beasts had ripped the thatch from the canopy, and their inthrust jaws made short work of the few leaves on her screen. Unaware that even a lion or a tiger is quickly discouraged by the knife-like splinters of broken bamboo, she expected every moment that the jackals would bite their way through her frail barrier.

She remembered the stakes given her by Winthrope, hidden under the leaves and gra.s.s of her bed. She groped her way across the hollow, and uncovered one of the stakes. In her haste she cut her hand on its razor-like edge.

All unheeding, she sprang back towards the entrance. She was none too soon. One of the smaller jackals had forced its head and one leg between the bars, and was struggling to enlarge the opening.

Fearful that the whole pack was about to burst in upon her, the girl grasped the bamboo stake in both hands, and began stabbing and lunging at the beast with all her strength. The jackal squirmed and snarled and snapped viciously. But the girl was now frantic. She pressed nearer, and though the white teeth grazed her wrist, she drove home a thrust that changed the beast's snarls into a howl of pain. Before she could strike again, it had struggled back out of the hole, beyond reach.

Tense and panting with excitement, she leaned forward, ready to stab at the next beast. None appeared, and presently she became aware that the pack had been daunted by the experience of their unlucky fellow. Their snarls and yells had subsided to whines, which seemed to be coming from a greater distance. Still she waited, with the bamboo stake upraised ready to strike, every nerve and muscle of her body tense with the strain.

So great was the stress of her fear and excitement that she had not heeded the first gray lessening of the night. But now the glorious tropical dawn came streaming out of the east in all its red effulgence.

Above and through the bamboo barrier glowed a light such as might have come from a great fire on the cliff top. Still tense and immovable, the girl stared out up the cleft. There was not a jackal in sight. She leaned forward and peered around, unable to believe such good fortune.

But the night prowlers had slunk off in the first gray dawn.

The girl drew in a deep, shuddering sigh, and sank back. Her hand struck against Winthrope's foot. She turned about quickly and looked at him. He was lying upon his face. She hastened to turn him upon his side, and to feel his forehead. It was cool and moist. He was fast asleep and drenched with sweat. The great shock of his pain and fear and excitement had broken his fever.

With the relief and joy of this discovery, the girl completely relaxed.

Not observing Winthrope's wounds, which had bled little, she sought to force a way out through the entrance. It was by no means an easy task to free the wedged framework, and when, after much pulling and pushing, she at last tore the ma.s.s loose, she found herself perspiring no less freely than Winthrope.

She was far too preoccupied, however, to consider what this might mean.

Her first thought was of the fire. She ran to her rude stone fireplace and raked over the ashes. They were still warm, but there was not a live ember among them. Yet she realized that Winthrope must have hot food when he wakened, and Blake had carried with him the magnifying gla.s.s.

For a little she stood hesitating. But the defeat of the jackals had given her courage and resolution such as she had never before known. She returned into the cave, and chose the sharpest of her stakes. Having made certain that Winthrope was still asleep, she set off boldly down the cleft.

At the first turn she came upon Blake's thorn barricade. It stretched across the narrowest part of the cleft in an impenetrable wall, twelve feet high. Only in the centre was a gap, which could have been filled by Blake in less than two hours' work. The girl's eyes brightened. She herself could gather the thorn-brush and fill the gap before night. They no longer need fear the jackals or even the larger beasts of prey. None the less, they must have fire.

Spurred on by the thought, she was about to spring through the barricade when she heard the tread of feet on the path beyond. She crouched down, and peered through the tangle of brush in the edge of the gap. Less than ten paces away Blake was plodding heavily up the trail. She stepped out before him.

"You--you! Are you alive?" she gasped.

"'Live? You bet your boots!" came back the grim response. "You bet I'm alive--though I had to go Jonah one better to do it. The whale heaved him up; I heaved up the whale--and it took about a barrel of sea-water to do it."

"Sea-water?"

"Sure . . . . I tumbled over twice on the way. But I made the beach.

Lord! how I pumped in the briny deep! Guess I won't go into details--but if you think you know anything about seasickness-- _Whew!_ Lucky for yours truly, the tide was just starting out, and the wind off sh.o.r.e.

I'd fallen in the water, and the Jonah business laid me out cold.

Didn't know anything until the tide came up again and soused me."

"I am very glad you're not dead. But how you must have suffered! You are still white, and your face is all creased."

Blake attempted a careless laugh. "Don't worry about me. I'm here, O. K., all that's left,--a little wobbly on my pins, but hungry as a shark. But say, what's up with you? You're sweating like a-- Good thing, though. It'll stave off your spell of fever a while. How 'd you happen to be coming down here so early?"

"I was starting to find you."

"Me!"

"Not you--that is, I thought you were dead. I was going to make certain, and to--to get the burning-gla.s.s."

"Um-m. I see. Let the fire go out, eh?"

"Do not blame me, Mr. Blake! I was so ill and worn out, and I've paid for it twice over, really I have. Didn't those awful beasts attack you?"

"Beasts? How's that?" he demanded.

"Oh, but you must have heard them! The horrid things tried to kill us!" she cried, and she poured out a half incoherent account of all that had happened since he left.

Blake listened intently, his jaw thrust out, his eyes glowing upon her with a look which she had never before seen in any man's eyes. But his first comment had nothing to do with her conduct.

"How's that?--sorry Win got rousted out of his nice little snooze-- Snooze! Why, don't you know, we'd been all alone in our glory by to-night if it hadn't been for those brutes. He was in the stupor, and that would have been the end of him if the beasts hadn't stirred him up so lively. I've heard of such a thing before, but I always thought it was a fake. Here you are sweating, too."

"I feel much better than yesterday. I did not tell you, but I have felt ill for nearly a week."

"'Fraid to tell, eh?--and you were so scared over the beasts-- Scared!

By Jiminy, you've got grit, little woman! There's two kinds of scaredness; you've got the Stonewall Jackson kind. If anybody asks you, just refer them to Tommy Blake."

"Thank you, Mr. Blake. But should we not hasten back now to prepare something for Mr. Winthrope?"

"Ditto for yours truly. I'm like that sepulchre you read about--white outside, and within nothing but bare bones and emptiness."

CHAPTER XV

WITH BOW AND CLUB