Into the Primitive Part 39

"Not to the river! The very thought of that dreadful snake--"

"No; just the other way. I've been thinking for some time that we ought to run down to that south headland, and take a squint at the coast beyond. Ten to one, it's another stretch of swamps, but--"

"You think there is a chance we may find a town?"

"About one chance in a million, even for a native village. The slave trade wiped the n.i.g.g.e.rs off this coast, and I guess those that hit out upcountry ran so hard they haven't been able to get back yet."

"But it has been years since the slave trade was forbidden."

"And they don't sell beer in Kansas--oh, no! I'll bet the dhows still slip over from Madagascar when the moon is in the right quarter. At any rate, n.i.g.g.e.rs are mighty scarce or mighty shy around here. I've kept a watch for smoke, and haven't seen a suspicion of it anywhere.

Maybe the swamps swing around inland and cut off this strip of coast.

It looked that way to me when I made that trip along the ridge. But there's a chance it used to be inhabited, and we may run across an abandoned village."

"I do not see that the discovery would do us any good."

"How about the chance of grain or bananas still growing? But that's all a guess. We're going because we need a change."

She nodded, and hastened to prepare breakfast, while he packed a skin bag with food, and examined the slender tips of his arrows. As a matter of precaution, he had been keeping them in the cigarette case, where the points would be certain of a coat of the sticky poison and at the same time guarded against inflicting a chance wound. But as he was now about to set out on a journey, he fitted tips into the heads of his two straightest shafts.

The morning was still fresh when they closed the barricade behind them and descended to the pool. There was no game in sight, but Blake had no wish to hunt at the commencement of the trip. The steady southwest wind had blown the sky clear of its malarial haze, and gave promise of a day which should know nothing of sultry calm--a day on which game would be hard to stalk, but one perfectly suited for a long tramp.

Mindful of ticks, Blake headed obliquely across to the beach. Once on the smooth, hard sand, they swung along at a brisk pace, light-hearted and keen with the spirit of adventure. Never had they felt more companionable. Miss Leslie laughed and chatted and sang s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs, while Blake beat time with his club, or sought to whistle grand opera--he had healed his blistered lips some time before by liberal applications of antelope tallow.

Gulls and terns circled about them, or hovered over the water, ready to swoop down upon their finny prey. Sandpipers ran along the beach within a stone's throw, but the curlews showed their greater knowledge of mankind by keeping beyond gunshot.

Once a great flock of geese drove high overhead, their leader honking the alarm as they swept above the suspicious figures on the beach. Like the curlews, they had knowledge of mankind. But the flock of white pelicans which came sailing along in stately leisure on their immense wings floated past so low that Blake felt certain he could shoot one.

He raised his bow and took aim, but refrained from shooting, at the thought that it might be a sheer waste of his precious poison.

A little later a herd of large animals appeared on the border of the gra.s.s jungle, but wheeled and dashed back into cover so quickly that Blake barely had time to make out that they were buffaloes--the first he had seen on this coast, but easily recognized by their resemblance to the Cape variety. Their flight gave him small concern; for the time being he was more interested in topography than game.

The southern headland now lay close before them, its seaward face rearing up sheer and lofty, but the approach behind running down in broken terraces. Mid-morning found the explorers at the foot of the ridge.

Blake squinted up at the boulder-strewn slopes and the crannies of the broken ledges.

"Likely place for snakes, Miss Jenny," he remarked. "Guess I'd better lead."

Eager as she was to look over into the country beyond, the girl dropped into second place, and made no complaint about the wary slowness of her companion's advance. She found the most difficult parts of the ascent quite easy after her training on the tree-ladder. Blake could have taken ledges and all at a run, but as he mounted each terrace, he halted to spy out the ground before him. Like Miss Leslie, he was looking for snakes, though for an exactly opposite reason. He wished to add to the contents of the cigarette case.

Greatly to his disappointment and the girl's relief, neither snake nor sign of snake was to be seen all the way up the ridge. As they neared the crest Blake turned to offer her his hand up the last ledges, and in the instant they gained the top.

The wind, now freshening to a gale, struck the girl with such force that she would have been blown back down the ledges had not Blake clutched her wrist. Heedless alike of the painful grip which held her and of the gusts which tore at her skirt, the girl stood gazing out across the desolate swamps which stretched away to the southwest as far as the eye could see. She did not speak until Blake led her down behind the shelter of the crest ledges.

"What's the matter?" he demanded. "Didn't I warn you?"

She looked away to hide the tears which sprang into her eyes.

"I can't explain--only, it makes me feel so--so lonely!"

"Oh, come now, little woman; don't take on so!" he urged. "It might be a lot worse, you know. We've gotten along pretty well, considering."

"You have been very kind, Mr. Blake, and as you say, matters might have been worse. I do not forget how far more terrible was our situation the morning after the storm. Yet you must realize how disappointing it is to lose even the slightest hope of escape."

"Well, I don't know. If it wasn't for the fever that's bound to come with the rains, I, for one, would just as leave stick to this camp right along, providing the company don't change."

She turned upon him with flashing eyes, all thought of caution lost in her anger. "How dare you say such a thing? You are contemptible! I despise you!"

"My, Miss Jenny, but you are pretty when you get mad!" he exclaimed.

The answer took her completely aback. He was neither angry nor laughing at her, but met her defiant glance with candid, sober admiration. There was something more than admiration in his glowing eyes; yet she could not but see that her alarm had been baseless. His manner had never been more respectful. Suddenly she found that she could no longer meet his gaze. She looked away and stammered lamely, "You--you shouldn't say such things, you know."

"Why not? Hasn't everything been running smooth the last few days?

Haven't we been good chummy comrades? Of course you've got the worst of the deal. I know I'm not much on fancy talk; but I like to hear it when I've a chance. I've led a lonesome sort of life since they did for my sisters-- No; I'm not going to rake that up again. I'm only trying to give you an idea what it means to a fellow to be with a lady like you. May be it isn't polite to tell you all this, but it's just what I feel, and I never did amount to shucks as a liar."

"I believe I understand you, Mr. Blake, and I really feel highly complimented."

"No, you don't, any such thing, Miss Jenny. Own up, now! If I met you to-morrow on your papa's doorstep, you'd cut me cold."

"I should if you continued to be so rude. Have you no regard for my feelings? But here we are, talking nonsense, when we should be going--"

"Is it nonsense?" he broke in. "What does life mean, anyway? Here we can be true friends and comrades,--real, free living people. It can't be that you want to go back to all those society shams, after you've seen real life! As for me, what have I to gain by going back to the everlasting grind? I don't mind work; but when a man has nothing ahead to work for but a bank account, when it's grind, grind, grind till your head goes stale and all the world looks black, then there's no choice but throw up your job and go on a drunk, if you want to keep from a gun accident. Maybe you don't understand it. But that's what I've had to go through, time and again. Do you wonder I like to fancy an everlasting picnic here, with a little partner who wouldn't let me come within shouting distance of her in the land of lavender--trousers and peek-a-boos?"

"Mr. Blake, really you are most unjust! I could not be so--so ungrateful, after all your kindness. I--we should certainly be glad to number you among our friends."

"Drink and all, eh?"

"A man of your will-power has no need whatever to give way to such a habit."

"Course not, if he's got anything in sight worth while. Guess, though, my folks must have been poor white trash. I never could go after money just for the fun of the game. No family, no friends, no--what-you -call-it?--culture-- What's the use? I have a fair head for figures; but all the mathematics that I know I've had to catch hot off the bat.

It's true I grubbed my C. E. out of a correspondence school; but a fellow has to have an all-round, crack-up education to put him where it's worth while."

"You still have time to work up. You are not much over thirty."

"Twenty-seven."

"Twenty-seven! I should have thought-- What a hard life you must have had!"

"Hard work? Well, I suppose Panama did do for me some. But it wasn't so much that. Few fellows could hit up the pace I've set and come out at all."

"I do not understand."

"Just what you might expect of a fellow in my fix--all kinds of gamble and drink and--the rest of it."

Miss Leslie looked away, visibly distressed. She had not been reared after the French method. Young as she was, she had fluttered at will about the borders of the garden of vice, knowing well that the gaudy blossoms were lures to entice one into the pitfall. Yet never before had she caught so clear a glimpse of the slimy depths.

"That's it!" growled Blake. "Throw me down cold, just because I'm square enough to tell you straight out. You make me tired! I'm not one of the work-ox sort, that can chew the cud all the year round, and cork the blood out of their brains. I've got to cut loose from the infernal grind once in a while, and barring a chance now and then at opera, there's never been anything but a spree--"

"Oh, but that's so dreadfully shocking, Mr. Blake!"

"And then like all the other little hypocrites, you'll go and marry one of those swell dudes who's made that sort of thing his business, and everybody knows it, but it's all politely understood to've been done sub rosa, so it's all right, because he knows how to part his name in the middle and--"