As It Was in the Beginning Part 39

The usual vigilance was not for a moment neglected, but nothing occurred in the world below, save a repet.i.tion of the former day's activity on the part of the unseen natives. It was not until well in the afternoon that the Dyaks' plan developed.

A breeze had sprung up from the north, bringing gushes of heat and jungle fragrance across the summit of the hill. Then, at length, as if this steadying wind was the final agency for which they had waited, the Dyaks set up a queer, wild chant from various places in the thicket.

A few minutes later a cloud of smoke arose from one of their centers.

This was followed by several more. A huge, thick smudge was soon rising upward from the earth, and rolling on the breeze to envelop all the headland.

The Dyaks had gathered enormous quant.i.ties of resinous wood, and had deliberately fired the jungle!

CHAPTER x.x.xV

A BATTLE IN THE SMOKE

No doubts could be for long entertained as to what the smudge was expected to accomplish. Its dense and suffocating fumes not only rendered a further watch upon the clearing or the trail practically useless, but it seemed to Grenville highly improbable that he or Elaine could for long survive the pungent reek they were soon obliged to breathe.

There were two slight elements only in their favor. One was the pa.s.sageway, through the rock, where clean fresh air was constantly flowing upward; the other was the very breeze itself that swept the smoke upon them. It frequently split the cloud of black and gray upon two juttings of the headland, or even beat it down and mingled its own overheated but acceptable ozone with the otherwise stifling fume.

Anger and horror together had lodged in Grenville's being. That the Dyaks would soon attempt a sneak upon them, under cover of the cloud, he felt was as certain as that hideous death must be their portion, were this business sufficiently prolonged. Even retirement to the cavern could avail them nothing but a short delay of the fate they must finally face when their food and water should be presently exhausted.

Under cover of the drifting smudge, he sent Elaine to the pa.s.sage. As long as a breath remained in his lungs he resolved he would not desert his post, where he waited for attack by the trail. To permit the fiends to swarm upon the terrace, destroy or capture his powder and the gun, and prison himself and Elaine in the narrow gallery, was a thought that aroused him through and through.

All further contemplation of his scheme for alluring the Dyaks to the cavern was necessarily abandoned. The most he could do was to watch as before, and, perhaps, convey his bombs and stores to the pa.s.sage, as time and his highly essential vigilance permitted.

Back and forth through the smoke he moved upon the hill, seeking the better air that came occasionally through the billows, and listening intently for the faintest sound from the always ready alarm. When an hour had gone and no attack had developed, his heart underwent a new despair. He began to doubt that the Fates would supply him an opportunity for further retaliation on the fiends below, who could finally overcome him with the fumes.

The drift of smoke was intermittently broken, near the trail, where apparently a current of wind that a.s.sumed a rotation as it rose through a half-round niche of considerable dimensions in the wall, swept vertically upward to lift the billowing cloud. Thus for at least a portion of the time Grenville could glimpse the ledge behind the trail where besiegers must finally pa.s.s.

So dense became the reek, however, that he feared his post must soon become insupportable. There was neither time nor air in which to arrange a longer fuse, which, as a matter of fact, would be too long for accurate work with the gun.

He knew at last the hour was nearing sunset, and silence still seemed to roll with the smoke across the enveloped terrace. His eyes were burningly filled with water; his head had begun to ache. He went weakly over towards the gallery, intent upon breathing a little fresher air before resuming his duties.

Suddenly, above the ringing in his ears, came a sound from his gate alarm. Its deep hollow tone was strangely resonant in all that blanket of smoke. He darted back, where lay his bombs and the short fuse laid to the cannon.

The smudge had, unfortunately, fallen like a pall, concealing all the trail. It lifted slightly, however, as a fog may lift over waters, revealing one half-seen form upon the ledge.

Then, in the second that Grenville laid his fire to the powder, his second alarm, from the frame of bamboo buckets, hung behind him on the wall, rattled out its xylophonic warning. The head-hunting demons, front and rear, were practically upon him!

He fired the gun. Its orange flame shot out through the smoke in ragged spears, mingling the fume of imperfect powder with all that reek from the jungle.

A gap was apparently torn in the rolling cloud, to be filled with a denser substance. Nothing could possibly be discerned where the charge must have splattered on the wall. There were cries in the air, but whether from pain, or the Dyaks' exultation, Grenville could never have told.

Aware that the demons were capable of sacrificing some of their number to the gun, to beget its discharge, and thus clear the way for concerted attack by greater numbers, Grenville promptly lighted the fuse of a bomb and hurled it from him down the trail.

It burst in the smoke, its red blot of fire a lurid illumination in the black and gray billows from the smudge. Again a cry succeeded, this one unquestionably voicing some wretch's mortal agony in the all-concealing fume.

Without for a moment pausing, Grenville plunged swiftly through the drifting envelope, to gain the brink at the rear. He caught up a rock as he stumbled half blindly onward, and blew on the fire of his brand.

A thicker shroud of the reek revolved about him, halting him there to gasp for breath, which he stooped in the hope of finding. He dropped the stone as a useless burden. Once more he staggered onward--and blundered against a Dyak, more blinded than himself!

The creature had scaled the wall despite the bamboo framework and its cups, or wooden bells! He and Sidney were instantly locked in a fierce and deadly embrace!

A battle as silent as it was swift and ferocious was curtained there in the smoke.

That the edge was near was a knowledge equally shared, as each man wrestled in desperate violence to overcome his antagonist and hurl him down to the sea.

More by instinct than design, Grenville had paused to grip his firebrand hotly between his teeth. He had seen that the head-hunter held a knife, which was instantly turned, as the boatman writhed in Sidney's arms, in an effort to sink it to the hilt.

Grenville, however, clutched the wiry wrist with all his might, and tried to fetch it upward for a quickly planned maneuver. It slipped from his grip, and together he and the native froze more savage than before. The Dyak once more attempted a stabbing pa.s.s, and Sidney again caught the sinewy hand, in a clutch that he knew must fail.

The wrist left his impotent fingers like a snake. The whole arm writhed backward for the stroke. Sidney abruptly leaned forward, turning his head, and jabbed the red-hot firebrand against the Dyak's eye.

With a shriek of pain the fellow lurched galvanically, to stab with demoniacal might. But the blow went wide, in his agony, and when Grenville had caught the wrist in a grip that a serpent could scarcely have broken, he instantly laid hold of it with his second hand, with a motion incredibly swift. Then turning his back with the skinny brown arm across his shoulder, and abruptly stooping forward, Sidney hoisted the scoundrel free from the rocks, on his shoulders, and, moving quickly towards the cliff, ended the fight then and there.

He broke the arm thus used as a leverage against the Dyak's weight, and literally slammed the shuddering creature down on the rocks, at the brink of the wall, where he poised but a moment over death.

If he tried to writhe backward to the solid ledge, the effort was belated. With a piercing scream he toppled over, flinging out his broken arm in a gesture grotesque and disordered. Then he suddenly grayed, in the limbo of smoke, and shot swiftly downward to his doom.

Grenville still bit upon the branch that glowed with fire. He searched about pantingly, found his end of fuse, and saw the powder sputter with ignition. He had barely stepped back when, from over at the trail, came a sudden and tremendous detonation.

That the Dyaks were there on the terrace, after all, destroying his bombs, was the one thought that flashed through the smoke in his brain, as his own sharp explosion shook the air and hollowed huge ma.s.ses from the cliff.

He stumbled and groped laboriously across the uneven heaps of stone to reach the secret pa.s.sage, where Elaine must be crouching in fear. In his ears rang her words "If it has to come, let's receive it here together."

Already he feared her one grim wish had been brutally denied her in this hideous pall of smoke. He saw a figure, dimly, through the reek, and crouched to take revenge.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

THE LAST CUP OF WATER

The figure was Elaine's. Grenville was almost upon her, prepared for some swift and terrible deed of retaliation, when a swirl in the shroud that enveloped them both revealed her standing near the edge.

She still held a glowing fire-stick in her hand, as she peered through the billowing cloud of smoke where she had flung an ignited bomb. She had fled from her shelter, in desperate dread, lest a murderous fate overtake her companion, battling alone with the fiends. She had found his post deserted, and, having discerned two figures on the trail, had instantly obeyed an impulse to protect the hill with the only means provided.

She uttered a cry as she saw Grenville crouching behind her, raising her brand like a weapon, then sinking in relief.

"You!" he said. "Elaine! I might have known!"

"I am sure they are coming up behind us there!" she answered. "I know I heard the bamboo buckets jangling! Have you been across to see?"

"I fired the bomb," he answered. "Didn't you know?"

She shook her head. Her ears, that had been so finely attuned to catch the warning from the rearward cliff, had received or recorded no impression whatsoever of the huger disturbance, while her own bomb's colossal thunder and shock engrossed her eager attention.

"Was anyone there?" she asked, half choking with the reek. "I suppose you couldn't see."