Into the Primitive Part 25

The fire was soon re-lit, and a pot of meat set on to stew. It had ample time to simmer. Winthrope was wrapped in a life-giving sleep, out of which he did not waken until evening, while Blake, unable to wait for the pot to boil, and nauseated by the fishy odor of the dried seafowl, hunted out the jerked leopard meat, and having devoured enough to satisfy a native, fell asleep under a bush.

The sun was half down the sky when he sat up and looked around, wide awake the moment he opened his eyes. Miss Leslie was quietly placing an armful of sticks on the fuel heap beside the baobab.

"h.e.l.lo, Miss Jenny! Hard at it, I see," he called cheerfully.

"Hush!" she cautioned. "Mr. Winthrope is still asleep."

"Good thing for him. He'll need all of that he can get."

"Then you think--?"

"Well, between you and me, I don't believe Win was built for the tropics. This fever of his, coming on so soon, wouldn't have hit nine men in ten half so hard. He's bound to have another spell in a month or two, and--"

"But cannot we possibly get away from here before then? Is there no way?

Surely, you are so resourceful--"

"Nothing doing, Miss Jenny! Give me tools, and I'd engage to turn out a seagoing boat. But as it is, the only thing I could do would be to fire-burn a log. That would take two or three months, and in the end we'd have a lop-sided canoe that'd live about half a second in one of these tropic squalls."

"Do not the natives sail in canoes?"

"Maybe they do--and they make fire by rubbing sticks. We don't."

"But what can we do?"

"Take our medicine, and wait for a ship to show up."

"But we have no medicine."

"Have no-- Say, Miss Jenny, you really ought to have stayed home from boarding-school and England long enough to learn your own language. I meant, we've got to take what's coming to us, without laying down or grouching. Both are the worst thing out for malaria."

"You mean that we must resign ourselves to this intolerable situation--that we must calmly sit here and wait until the fever--"

"No; I'll take care we don't sit around very much. We'll go on the hike, soon as Win can wobble. Which reminds me, I've got a little hike on hand now. I'm going to close up that barricade before dark. Me for a quiet night!"

Without waiting for a reply, he took his weapons, and swung briskly away down the cleft.

He returned a few minutes before sunset, with what appeared to be a large fur bag upon his back. Miss Leslie was pouring a bowl of broth from the stew-pot, and did not notice him until he sang out to her: "Hey, Miss Jenny, spill over that stuff! No more of that in ours!"

"It's for Mr. Winthrope. He has just wakened," she replied, still intent on her pouring.

"And you'd kill him with that slop! Heave it over. He's going to have beef juice."

"Oh! what's that on your back? You've killed an antelope!"

"Sure! Bushbuck, I guess they call him. Sneaked up when he was drinking, and stuck an arrow into his side. He jumped off a little way, and turned to see what'd bit him. I hauled off and put the second arrow right through his eye, into his brain. Neatest thing you ever saw."

"You surely are becoming a splendid archer!"

"Yes; Jim dandy! I could do it again about once in ten thousand shots.

All the same, I've raked in this peacherino. Trot out your grill and we'll have something fit to eat."

"You spoke of beef juice."

"I've a dozen steaks ready to broil. Slap 'em on the fire, and I'll squeeze out enough juice with my fist to do Win for to-night."

He made good his a.s.sertion, using several of the steaks, which, having lost less than half their juices in the process, were eaten with great relish by Miss Leslie and himself.

Winthrope, after drinking the stimulating beef juice and a quant.i.ty of hot water, turned over and fell asleep again while Blake was dressing his wounds. None of these was serious of itself; but Blake knew the danger of infection in the tropics, and carefully washed out the gashes before applying the tallow salve which Miss Leslie had tried out from the antelope fat.

The dressing was completed by torchlight. Blake then rolled the sleeper into a comfortable position, took the torch from Miss Leslie, and left the cave, pausing at the entrance to mutter a gruff good-night. The girl murmured a response, but watched him anxiously as he pa.s.sed out.

A step beyond the entrance he paused and turned again. In the red glare of the torch, his face took on an expression that filled her with fright. Shrouded by the gloom of the hollow, she drew back to her bed, and without turning her eyes away from him, groped for one of her bamboo stakes.

But before she could arm herself, she saw Blake stoop over and grasp with his free hand the ma.s.s of interwoven bamboos. He straightened himself, and the framework swung lightly up and over, until it stood on end across the cave entrance. The girl stole around and peered out at him. He had spread open the antelope skin, and was beginning to slice the meat for drying. Though his forehead was furrowed, his expression was by no means sinister. Relieved at the thought that the light must have deceived her, she returned to her bed and was soon sleeping as soundly as Winthrope.

Blake strung the greater part of the meat on the drying racks, built a smudge fire beneath, and stretched the antelope skin on a frame. This done, he took his club and a small piece of b.l.o.o.d.y meat, and walked stealthily down the cleft to the barricade. Quiet as was his approach, it was met by a warning yelp on the farther side of the th.o.r.n.y wall, and he could hear the scurry of fleeing animals.

He kept on until the barricade loomed up before him in the starlight.

From cliff to cliff the wall now stretched across the gorge without hole or gap. But Blake grasped the trunk of a young date-palm which projected from the barricade near the bottom, and pushed it out. The displacement of the spiky fronds disclosed the low pa.s.sage which he had made in the centre of the barricade. He placed the piece of meat on one side, two or three feet from the hole, and squatted down across from it, with his club balanced on his shoulder.

Half an hour pa.s.sed--an hour; and still he waited, silent and motionless as a statue. At last stealthy footsteps sounded on the outer side of the thorn wall, and an animal began to creep through the wall, sniffing for the bait. Blake waited with the immobility of an Eskimo. The delay was brief.

With a boldness for which Blake had not been prepared, the beast leaped through and seized the meat. Even in the dim light, Blake could see that he had lured an animal larger than any jackal. But this only served to lend greater force to his blow. As he struck, he leaped to his feet The brute fell as though struck by lightning and lay still.

Blake prodded the inert form warily; then knelt and pa.s.sed his hands over it. The beast had whirled about just in time to meet the descending club, and the blow had crushed in its skull. Chuckling at the success of his ruse, he drew the palm back into the opening, and swung his prize over his shoulder. When he came to the fire, a glance showed him that he had killed a full-grown spotted hyena.

In the morning, when Miss Leslie appeared, there were two hides stretched on bamboo frames, and the air was dark with vultures streaming down into the cleft near the barricade. Blake was sleeping the sleep of the just, and did not waken until she had built the fire and begun to broil the steaks which he had saved.

Again they had a feast of the fresh antelope meat. But with repletion came more of fastidiousness, and Blake agreed with Miss Leslie when she remarked that salt would have added to the flavor. He set off presently, and spent half a day on the talus of the headland, gathering salt from the rock crannies.

For the next three days he left the cleft only to gather eggs. The greater part of his time was spent in tanning the hyena and antelope skins. Meantime Miss Leslie continued to nurse Winthrope and to gather firewood. Under Blake's directions, she also purified the salt by dissolving it in a pot of water, and allowing the dirt to settle, when the clarified solution was poured off and evaporated over the fire in one of the earthenware pans.

At first Winthrope had been too weak to sit up. But treated to a liberal diet of antelope broth, raw eggs, hot water, and cocoanut milk, he gained strength faster than Blake had expected. On the fourth day Blake set him to work on the final rubbing of the new skins; on the fifth, he ordered him to go for eggs.

Much to Miss Leslie's surprise, Winthrope started off without a word of protest. All his peevish irritability and childishness had gone with the fever, and the girl was gratified to see the quiet manner in which he set about a task which seemed an imposition upon his half-regained strength. But the very motive which, seemingly, prevented him from protesting, impelled her to speak for him.

"Mr. Blake!" she exclaimed, "Mr. Winthrope is going off without a word; but I can't endure it! You have no right to send him on such an errand. It will kill him!"

Blake met her indignant look with a sober stare.

"What if it does!" he said. "Better for him to die in the gallant service of his fellows, than to sit here and rot. Eh, Win?"

"Do not trouble yourself, Miss Genevieve. I hope I shall pull through all right. If not--"

"No, you shall not! I'll go myself!"

"See here, Miss Leslie," said Blake, somewhat sternly; "who's got the responsibility of keeping you two alive for the next month or so?

I've been in the tropics before, and I know something of the way people have to live to get out again. I'm trying to do my best, and I tell you straight, if you won't mind me, I'm going to make you, no matter how much it hurts your feelings. You see how nice and meek Win takes his orders. I explained matters to him last night--"