Into the Primitive Part 41

Trying to take us from behind--curse him! He may get me, but I'll get him too,--the dirty sneak!"

The blood had flowed back into Blake's face, and showed on each cheek in a little red patch. His broad chest rose and fell slowly to deep respirations; his eyes glowed like b.a.l.l.s of white-hot steel. He drew his bow a little tauter, and wheeled slowly to keep the arrow pointed at the slight wave in the gra.s.s which marked the stealthy movements of the lion. Miss Leslie, more terrified with every added moment of suspense, cringed around, that she might keep him between her and the hidden beast.

Minute after minute dragged by. Only a man of Blake's obstinate, sullen temperament could have withstood the strain and kept cool. Even he found the impulse to leap up and run all but irresistible. Miss Leslie crouched behind him, no more able to run than a mouse with which a cat has been playing.

Once they caught a glimpse of the sinuous, tawny form gliding among the leafless stems of a thorn clump. Blake took quick aim; but the outlines of the beast were indistinct and the range long. He hesitated, and the opportunity was lost.

Yard by yard they watched the slight swaying of the gra.s.s tops which betrayed the cautious advance of the grim stalker. The beast did not roar again. Having failed to flush his game, he was seeking to catch them off their guard, or perhaps was warily taking stock of the strange creatures, whose like he had never seen.

Now and then there was a pause, and the gra.s.s tops swayed only to the down-puffs of the heightening gale. At such moments the two grew rigid, watching and waiting in breathless suspense. They could see, as distinctly as though there had been no screening gra.s.s, the baleful eyes of the huge cat and the s.h.a.ggy forebody as the beast stood still and glared out at them.

Then the sinuous wave would start on again around the gra.s.s border, and Blake would draw in a deep breath and mutter a word of encouragement to the girl: "Look, now--the dirty sneak! Trying to give us the creeps, is he? I'll creeps him! 'Fraid to show his pretty mug!"

Not until the beast had circled half around the glade did his purpose flash upon Blake. With the wariness of all savage hunters, the animal had marked out the spur of jungle on the north side, where he could creep closer to his quarry before leaping from cover.

"The d.a.m.ned sneak!" growled Blake. "You there, Jenny?"

She could not speak, but he heard her gasp.

"Brace up, little woman! Where's your grit? You're out of this deal, anyway. He'll choke to death swallowing me-- But say; couldn't you manage to shin up a palm, twenty feet or so, and hang on for a couple of minutes I"

"I--can't move--I am--"

"Make a try! It'll give me a run for my money. I'll take the next elevator after you. That'll bring the bluffer out on the hot-foot. I slip a surprise between his ribs, and we view the scenery while he's pa.s.sing in his checks. Come; make a spurt! He's around the turn, and getting nearer every step."

"I can't--Tom,--there is no need that both of us-- You climb up--"

He turned about as the meaning of her whisper dawned upon him. Her eyes were shining with the ecstasy of self-sacrifice. It was only the glance of an instant; then he was again facing the jungle.

"G.o.d! You think I'd do that!"

She made no reply. There was a pause. Blake--crouched on one knee, tense and alert--waited until the sinister wave was advancing into the point of the incurved jungle. Then he spoke, in a low, even tone: "Feel if my gla.s.s is there."

Her hand reached around and pressed against the fob pocket which he had sewn in the belt of his skin trousers.

"Right. Now slip my club up under my elbow--big end. Lick on the nose'll stop a dog or a bull. It's a chance."

She thrust the club under his right elbow, and he gripped it against his side.

At that moment the lion bounded from cover, with a roar like a clap of thunder. Blake sprang erect. The beast checked himself in the act of leaping, and crouched with his great paws outstretched, every hooked claw thrust out, ready to tear and mangle. In two or three bounds he could have leaped upon Blake and crushed him with a single stroke of his paw. As he rose to repeat his deafening roar, it seemed to Blake that he stood higher than a horse--that his mouth gaped wide as the end of a hogshead. And yet the beast stood hesitating, restrained by brute dread of the unknown. Never before had any animal that he had hunted reared up to meet his attack in this strange manner.

"Lie flat!" commanded Blake; "lie flat, and don't move! I'm going to call his bluff. Keep still till the poison gets in its work. I'll keep him busy long as I can. When it's over, hit out for home along the beach. Keep inside the barricade, and watch all you can from the cliffs.

Might light a fire up there nights. There's sure to be a steamer before long--"

"Tom!" she cried, struggling to her knees,--"Tom!"

But he did not pause or look around. He was beginning to circle slowly to the left across the open ground, in a spiral curve that would bring him to the edge of the jungle within thirty yards of the lion. There was red now showing in his eyes. His hair was bristling, no longer with fear, but with sheer brute fury; his lips were drawn back from the clenched teeth; his nostrils distended and quivering; his forehead wrinkled like that of an angry mastiff. His look was more ferocious than that of the snarling beast he faced. All the primeval in him was roused. He was become a man of the Cave Age. He went to meet death, his mind and body aflame with fierce l.u.s.t to kill.

The lion stilled his roars, and crouched as if to spring, snarling and grinning with rage and uncertainty. His eyes, unaccustomed to the glare of the mid-day sun, blinked incessantly, though he followed the man's every movement, his snarls deepening into growls at the slightest change of att.i.tude.

In his blind animal rage, Blake had forgotten that the purpose of his lateral advance was to place as great a distance as possible between him and the girl before the clash. Yet instinct kept him moving along his spiral course, on the chance that he might catch his foe off his guard.

Suddenly the lion half rose and stretched forward, sniffing. There was an uneasy whining note in his growls. Blake let the club slip from beneath his arm, and drew his bow until the arrow-head lay upon his thumb. His outstretched arm was rigid as a bar of steel. So tense and alert were all his nerves that he knew he could drive home both arrows, and still have time to swing his club before the beast was upon him.

A puff of wind struck against his back, and swept on to the nostrils of the lion, laden with the odor of man. The beast uttered a short, startled roar, and whirling about, leaped away into the jungle so quickly that Blake's arrow flashed past a full yard behind.

The second arrow was on the string before the first had struck the ground. But the lion had vanished in the gra.s.s. With a yell, Blake dashed on across to the nearest point of the jungle. As he ran, he drew the burning-gla.s.s from his fob, and flipped it open, ready for use.

If the lion had turned behind the sheltering gra.s.s stems, he was too cowardly to charge out again. Within a minute the jungle border was a wall of roaring flame.

The gra.s.s, long since dead, and bone-dry with the days of tropical sunshine since the cyclone, flared up before the wind like gunpowder.

Even against the wind the fire ate its way along the ground with fearful rapidity, trailing behind it an upwhirling vortex of smoke and flame.

No living creature could have burst through that belt of fire.

A wave of fierce heat sent Blake staggering back, scorched and blistered.

There was no exultance in his bearing. For the moment all thought of the lion was swallowed up in awe of his own work. He stared at the h.e.l.l of leaping, roaring flames from beneath his upraised arm. To the north sparks and lighted wisps of gra.s.s driven by the gale had already fired the jungle half way to the farther ridge.

Step by step Blake drew back. His heel struck against something soft.

He looked down, and saw Miss Leslie lying on the sand, white and still.

She had fainted, overcome by fear or by the unendurable heat. The heat must have stupefied him as well. He stared at her, dull-eyed, wondering if she was dead. His brain cleared. He sprang over to where the flask lay beside the remnants of the lunch.

He was dashing the last drops of the tepid water in her face, when she moaned, and her eyelids began to flutter. He flung down the flask, and fell to chafing her wrist.

"Tom!" she moaned.

"Yes, Miss Jenny, I'm here. It's all right," he answered.

"Have I had a sunstroke? Is that why it seems so-- I can hardly breathe--"

"It's all right, I tell you. Only a little bonfire I touched off. Guess you must have fainted, but it's all right now."

"It was silly of me to faint. But when I saw that dreadful thing leap--" She faltered, and lay shuddering. Fearful that she was about to swoon again, Blake slapped her hand between his palms with stinging force.

"You're it!" he shouted. "The joke's on you! Kitty jumped just the other way, and he won't come back in a hurry with that fire to head him off. Jump up now, and we'll do a jig on the strength of it."

She attempted a smile, and a trace of color showed in her cheeks. With an idea that action would further her recovery, he drew her to a sitting position, stepped quickly behind, and, with his hands beneath her elbows, lifted her upright. But she was still too weak and giddy to stand alone.

As he released his grip, she swayed and would have fallen had he not caught her arm.

"Steady!" he admonished. "Brace up; you're all right."

"I'm--I'm just a little dizzy," she murmured, clinging to his shoulder. "It will pa.s.s in a minute. It's so silly, but I'm that way--Tom, I--I think you are the bravest man--"

"Yes, yes--but that's not the point. Leave go now, like a sensible girl. It's about time to hit the trail."

He drew himself free, and without a glance at her blushing face, began to gather up their scattered outfit. His hat lay where he had weighted it down with the cocoanut. He tossed the nut into the skin bag, and jammed the hat on his head, pulling the brim far down over his eyes. When he had fetched his club, he walked back past the girl, with his eyes averted.

"Come on," he muttered.

The scarlet in the girl's cheeks swept over her whole face in a burning wave, which ebbed slowly and left her colorless. Blake had started off without a backward glance. She gazed about with a bewildered look at the palms and the barren ridge and the fiery tidal wave of flame. Her gaze came back to Blake, and she followed him.