The Return of Tharn Part 22

"After we get away," Tharn said grimly, "I will learn the answer to that. She may be held in another hut at this moment; but if they have slain her...."

The rest of the morning and the long afternoon which followed wore on.

None of their captors entered the hut to learn how they were faring, although not once were they un.o.bserved from without. During the heat of midday the sound of shrill voices stilled; but along toward evening it started up again.

Tharn's position was such that he could see through the small aperture which served at the hut's doorway. As a result he was able to see a horde of the spider-men begin the construction of a good sized platform of small branches in a neighboring tree. At first their purpose was not clear to him; but when, shortly before darkness set in, he saw two tall straight branches denuded of vegetation thrust upright, side by side, into the platform, he understood something of what they had in mind.

This understanding became certainty a little later when he noticed a score of the female members of the tribe busy at the task of putting sharp points on many long straight sticks, using flint knives for that purpose.

He and Trakor would be bound to those stakes and slowly prodded to death! The all-important question was, would that take place this night or would the spider-men wait until dawn? It hardly seemed logical they would be so tortured without sufficient light for the spider-men to observe their sufferings; and to use fire among the inflammable tree tops would be sheer folly--if indeed these creatures were fire users at all.

Darkness came and still none of the spider-men entered the hut. Both men were suffering the pangs of thirst, but hunger had not yet become a problem. Evidently their hosts had no intentions of pampering them.

Sometime later three of the spider-men crawled into the hut and immediately set about examining the prisoners' thongs. So intense was the darkness now that they had to depend solely on the sense of touch.

Satisfied the bonds were intact, the three found places on the floor and presently the sounds of even breathing told all were asleep.

Tharn lay there unmoving while the minutes slipped by and became hours.

With the inexhaustible patience of all wild creatures he bided his time, waiting until the sleep of those guards was sound. Several times he heard Trakor stir impatiently and he smiled a little under cover of darkness. Trakor was waiting for a miracle.

The position of the three spider-men was such that leaving by the door was impossible, even were the prisoners able to gain use of legs and arms. Even if they were able to loose their bonds, a simultaneous attack could account only for two--leaving the third free to raise an alarm.

Slowly, with many pauses lest the jiggling of the flooring arouse those guards, Tharn began to roll himself to Trakor's side. So carefully did he move that almost a full hour had pa.s.sed before he reached his objective.

He felt the animal heat of the youth's body, and a barely audible word reached his ears. "Tharn?"

"Shhh!"

And then Tharn began to gnaw at Trakor's bonds. His strong sharp teeth bit into those tough green vines, filling his mouth with an unpleasant taste. It was slow, jaw-tiring work and the vines were many, stringy and reluctant to part. But the cave lord's indomitable patience and perseverance were not to be denied.

At long last Trakor was able to free his hands. He winced as blood began to move again in his veins and minutes pa.s.sed before he was able to control his hands. His questing fingers found the knots holding Tharn helpless and very soon both men were free to act.

Still lying side by side, Tharn began to whisper instructions. Twice one of the sleeping spider-men stirred and the two Cro-Magnards held their breaths until he had quieted.

When Trakor nodded to indicate Tharn's plan was clear to him, the cave lord rose to his feet and, like a shadowy wraith, moved to the nearest wall. This was a tense moment in the execution of his plan; its entire success depended on how substantial that wall would prove to be.

A brief examination by the means of touch alone told him the hut was constructed by first forming a cage-like skeleton of fairly thick but pliable boughs, then interlacing the openings with gra.s.s. The horizontal "beams" were roughly three feet apart; the roof, as Tharn had earlier been careful to gauge, was something like fifteen feet above the floor at its highest point.

Tharn's original plan had been to force an opening in one of these walls large enough for Trakor and him to wriggle through into the open air.

But his ears and nose told him that this hut was practically ringed with patrolling sentries, several of which were perched among branches directly above the hut itself. The minute he and Trakor appeared outside they would be buried under an avalanche of spider-men.

But there was another way--a way daring and imaginative and infinitely dangerous. But in its daring lay the very chances for its success--while danger was so common a phenomenon in jungle life as to rouse little more than indifference among its dwellers.

Using the relatively st.u.r.dy skeletal branches foot--and hand--holds Tharn began to climb up that rounded wall. After some eight feet of this the inner side of the conical roof began and the cave lord was hard pressed to cling to the inward sloping surface.

But his steel thews served their purpose, and a moment or two later he had gained the single heavy section of branch at the very point of the roof. Here the thick gra.s.s rope which held the entire hut in the air entered from above, its ends tied securely about the cross piece on which Tharn was now perched.

From a hidden pouch in the folds of his loin cloth Tharn took a bit of keen-edged flint: the primitive razor with which he painstakingly sc.r.a.ped each second day his sprouting beard. With this he began to saw through the taut rope holding the hut aloft!

Gradually the straining rope began to part. Once it gave, the entire structure, weighted by its five occupants, would plummet toward the ground nearly a hundred feet below. There were enough intervening branches to break the fall sufficiently to keep them from being dashed to instant death; but for those three sleeping spider-men it would be a mad, whirling journey that, once it ended, would daze them long enough for Tharn and Trakor to break for freedom.

Three strands remained, then two. The entire hut lurched sickeningly, the final strand parted with an audible snap as Tharn caught frantically at the cross piece, and down went the hut!

It was a mad mixture of cras.h.i.+ng sounds, of breaking branches, of shrill screams, of falling and bouncing bodies, of clawing hands and feet.

Slithering, scrambling shapes sought to stabilize themselves by attaching themselves to walls, ceiling or roof, but to no avail. Only Trakor, digging his fingers and bare toes desperately into the yielding flooring, and Tharn, wrapped tightly about that crosspiece, were able to hold their positions; while back and forth between them shuffled the three spider-men.

Halfway down, one entire wall broke loose, spilling the guards into the void. As the mazes of foliage grew denser nearer the ground, the remains of the hut began to slow its fall, grinding to a complete stop some twenty feet above ground.

Instantly Tharn and Trakor were out of the ruins and racing away through the branches. Behind them they could hear a wild chorus of angry screams, but apparently the spider-men were still too dazed and bewildered to set up a planned pursuit.

An hour later Tharn called a halt. They stood silently on a high branch for a little while, listening for some sign that their late captors had taken up the chase.

"We have thrown them off," Tharn said finally. "I'll give them a few hours to get over their shock and return to sleep--then I'm going back."

"Going back!" echoed Trakor, aghast, "Why?"

"I must learn what they have done with Dylara. Too, my knife, rope and bow and arrows are somewhere within the wreckage of that hut."

"But even you, Tharn, would be helpless against so many," protested Trakor.

Tharn shrugged. "It is the only way," he said, and there was that in his tone which ended further discussion.

They stretched their bodies out on adjoining branches and after a while Trakor fell into a troubled sleep. He awakened with a start, to find the first flush of dawn across the eastern sky and an empty branch where Tharn had been during the night.

He had little time to worry about his companion's absence; for barely had he opened his eyes than a rustling among the foliage of a neighboring tree brought him hastily to his feet in time to see Tharn emerge into view.

Across the caveman's back was his quiver of arrows, his bow and his rope; thrust within the folds of his loin cloth was his flint knife, and across one shoulder was the meaty foreleg of Neela, the zebra. This last he thrust into Trakor's dazed hands.

"Fill your belly," he said, grinning at the youth's slack-jawed expression. "We have work to do."

"But--But----"

"It was easy," Tharn said, "but only because I was very fortunate. When I got there they were not sleeping; for the commotion I doubt that they will sleep for a long time. While waiting for an opportunity to climb among their huts to hunt for Dylara, I set out to get back my weapons.

The knife and rope were still in the broken hut and I found them at once. But I was forced to hunt about under the trees for my arrows and bow--and a good thing it was!"

"Why do you say that?"

"I came across Dylara's trail. It seem----"

"In the _dark_? How could you _see_?"

Tharn tapped his nose and smiled as understanding dawned in his young friend's eyes. "It seems," he continued, "that she managed to get away from them just a little while ago, for her scent spoor was still fresh.

I followed it far enough to learn that she found a game trail leading into the east which she followed. It is not far from here; feed, and we will set out to overtake her."

Early that afternoon Tharn and Trakor were swinging lightly through the trees above a winding elephant path cutting almost due south through the jungle. Even from his elevated position Tharn was able to make out an occasional print of a sandal in the powdery dust below. Dylara had left those marks--left them so recently that the pa.s.sing feet of animals had not yet obliterated them.