As It Was in the Beginning Part 20

His brute was at the feast!

With heart abruptly pounding and senses suddenly tense, Grenville leaned down, with his glowing brand, to complete his work for the night.

His hand felt blindly along the limb, to pick up the end of the fuse.

But someway the place was lost. More eagerly then, and telling off each twig like a sign that blazed the trail, he explored the branch anew.

He found the fiber that had held the fuse--but the fuse itself was gone! The panic-stricken creature that had climbed the tree had clawed or broken it down!

A bitterer disappointment to Grenville could scarcely have been planned. He was sickened all through by disgust, and a sense of the utter uselessness of all he had striven to accomplish. With fire in hand, the bomb all laid, and the tiger actually present--he was helpless, after all!

It was futile to rage at the cowering beast, above him somewhere in the darkness. He glanced up once and saw its eyes--two blazing coals of fear and malice, like near-by sinister stars!

"By Heavens! I'll not be cheated!" he murmured to himself. A mad new thought had possessed him.

The fuse had been drawn about the tree before it could be fastened near his perch. Had it fallen straight down, when torn from its hold, it would still lie close at hand.

His ladder was hidden from the tiger's position by the tree. Any sounds he must make might be thought to be those of the cat. There was no particular danger in descending to the ground--with the ladder near with which to regain a safe position.

Noiselessly, yet not without excitement, he began his retreat from the branches. With every step he paused for a bit, to listen to the sounds of the tiger.

The brute was seemingly quite engrossed in the business of filling his belly. But, despite his utmost efforts at silence, the leaves of one of the branches loudly rustled as Grenville's weight was intrusted to the ladder.

He halted and held his breath. The tiger continued his eating.

Holding his firebrand firmly in his teeth, Grenville slowly and cautiously descended, with the furtive alertness of a thief.

When he reached the earth, he was certain his heart would betray his presence with its pounding. He leaned there, heavily, against the tree, to still the mad leap of his pulses. Then, at length, he began to feel about for the fuse that should be at his feet.

It was not to be found--and he moved a little outward. His hand came in contact with a long, slender thing--but it proved to be a creeper.

Further and further out he moved, blindly groping with his fingers. He encountered a shrub, and, fumbling between it and the tree, bethought him to feel about its crest. There he found one end of the fuse he sought--but it proved that the length had been broken! He held the useless end!

One despair after another had seized him within an endless minute.

More recklessly, in a burning fever of impatience, he pawed about and moved even closer to the tiger--whose sounds were horribly near.

He could almost have uttered a cry of joy when the severed fuse was discovered. He waited for nothing, but immediately pressed his brand against the sun-dried substance.

There was no powder there. It had spilled when it broke, and it harmlessly smoked as it burned.

Why a groan did not escape him, Sidney could never have told. He broke off the tough, resisting substance six inches further along and again applied his spark.

It seemed as if in all its length there could be no powder remaining.

He was savagely grasping the fuse once more, to break it at a fresher place, when a fiery-red line, some four feet away, seemed creeping like a snake out beyond him.

The spark that was racing along to the bomb had been started while still he was sweating there with baffled and excited impatience.

He took no time for further caution, but sprang away to the shelter of the tree and caught at a lungful of breath.

There was not a sound in all the place. This much he knew in that second, as he hugged up close to the trunk. The tiger had ceased to lap at the meat, and perhaps was poised for a spring.

It seemed to Grenville, waiting there, that nothing would ever happen.

A thousand doubts went darting through his brain. The fuse had failed!

It was broken again. Or, perhaps----

A low growl broke the stillness. There was a sound of something moving towards the tree!

Instantly a frightful red-and-yellow glare leaped upward from the earth. A deafening, cras.h.i.+ng detonation rent the intimate universe and shook down incredible stars. The air was filled to overcrowding with rus.h.i.+ng billows of concussion that rocked the trees as in a storm.

Grenville went down, dazed and helpless, unable to think, so jarred to chaos were his senses. But, beyond being stunned for a moment, he was totally unhurt.

He leaped to his feet, aware of some mighty disturbance in the curdled, heavy darkness that had followed.

The tiger it was, in some extravagant activity, moving towards Grenville and the thicket. He was almost upon the staggering man before he could move to escape. Then Grenville stumbled towards the ladder.

The jar to the limb, as he tugged at a rung, brought something down from above. This was the creature that had hidden in the tree. It had partially fallen, earlier stunned by the huge concussion. It dropped upon Grenville leadenly--and down he went in a heap.

The three sworn enemies--tiger, man, and jungle-cat--were embroiled on the earth together. Before the man could sufficiently recover to stagger from his knees to his feet and grasp his club, the tiger flung out a mighty paw, that struck him a blow upon the chin.

Without a sound he sank limberly down, inert and helplessly unconscious.

CHAPTER XIX

GRENVILLE'S RADIANT STAR

Even had sleep overcome Elaine, the explosion must have startled her awake like a wildly fluttering bird.

All her life she had known the sound of guns, but never before had her ears received such an air-splitting shock as this.

Her alarm could know no bounds. It had come so suddenly and unexpectedly; it had been such a cataclysmic destruction of the island's haunting calm! She was certain some hideous blunder had occurred--that Grenville, too, had perished by the thing he had fearlessly dared to create.

She had seen for an instant that fan-like glare, as she gazed far out across the jungle. And now, as she stood there, rigid with fears and fixedly staring at the formless gloom--why did she hear no sound?

"Oh, he might--he might call!" she said, and she tried to halloo, but in vain.

She waited a time that seemed endless for some little sign from the jungle. He had promised before that, if all went well, he would hasten home at once. Surely this promise held good to-night--especially after that explosion!

Perhaps it was not yet time; perhaps it was farther away than she had thought. The glare had seemed near, but he had no torch, and must walk but slowly through the thicket. How dark it must be along the trails, in that tangle growth, with nothing for a light! How could he possibly hasten?

She was standing out on the brink of the wall, staring down at the gloom of the clearing, convinced that her ears, if not her eyes, would detect the first sign of his coming. Just the merest red gleam from the firebrand was all she would ask of the darkness--just that dull little star in the firmament of black!

But the ebon remained unbroken. That he might be lost occurred to her mind, but again she thought it was yet too soon for his return. She stumbled swiftly to the fire again, to stir it to brighter refulgence.

It would seem to him a beacon against the sky to guide his footsteps home!

She thought of a blazing brand she could carry to the brink of the wall. With the largest limb afforded by the fire she returned, in haste and eagerness, to wave him a signal of welcome. And still nothing came from the clearing.

"Sidney!" she cried through the stillness, at last. "Sidney! Are you there?"