The Monster Men, Edgar Rice Burroughs [best free ebook reader .TXT] 📗

her lie down beneath it, and then he removed his Dyak war-coat and threw it over her, but it was hours before her exhausted body overpowered her nervous fright and won a fitful and restless slumber. Several times Virginia became obsessed with the idea that Bulan had left her alone there in the jungle, but when she called his name he answered from close beside her shelter.

She thought that he had reared another for himself nearby, but even the thought that he might sleep filled her with dread, yet she would not call to him again, since she knew that he needed his rest even more than she. And all the night Bulan stood close beside the woman he had learned to love— stood almost naked in the chill night air and the cold rain, lest some savage man or beast creep out of the darkness after her while he slept.

The next day with its night, and the next, and the next were but repetitions of the first. It had become an agony of suffering for the man to fight off sleep longer. The girl read part of the truth in his heavy eyes and worn face, and tried to force him to take needed rest, but she did not guess that he had not slept for four days and nights.

At last abused Nature succumbed to the terrific strain that had been put upon her, and the giant constitution of the man went down before the cold and the wet, weakened and impoverished by loss of sleep and insufficient food; for through the last two days he had been able to find but little, and that little he had given to the girl, telling her that he had eaten his fill while he gathered hers.

It was on the fifth morning, when Virginia awoke, that she found Bulan rolling and tossing upon the wet ground before her shelter, delirious with fever. At the sight of the mighty figure reduced to pitiable inefficiency and weakness, despite the knowledge that her protector could no longer protect, the fear of the jungle faded from the heart of the young girl—she was no more a weak and trembling daughter of an effete civilization. Instead she was a lioness, watching over and protecting her sick mate. The analogy did not occur to her, but something else did as she saw the flushed face and fever wracked body of the man whose appeal to her she would have thought purely physical had she given the subject any analytic consideration; and as a realization of his utter helplessness came to her she bent over him and kissed first his forehead and then his lips.

“What a noble and unselfish love yours has been,” she murmured. “You have even tried to hide it that my position might be the easier to bear, and now that it may be too late I learn that I love you—that I have always loved you. Oh, Bulan, my Bulan, what a cruel fate that permitted us to find one another only to die together!”

16

SING SPEAKS

 

For a week Professor Maxon with von Horn and Sing sought for Virginia. They could get no help from the natives of the long-house, who feared the vengeance of Muda Saffir should he learn that they had aided the white men upon his trail.

And always as the three hunted through the jungle and up and down the river there lurked ever near a handful of the men of the tribe of the two whom von Horn had murdered, waiting for the chance that would give them revenge and the heads of the three they followed. They feared the guns of the white men too much to venture an open attack, and at night the quarry never abated their watchfulness, so that days dragged on, and still the three continued their hopeless quest unconscious of the relentless foe that dogged their footsteps.

Von Horn was always searching for an opportunity to enlist the aid of the friendly natives in an effort to regain the chest, but so far he had found none who would agree to accompany him even in consideration of a large share of the booty. It was the treasure alone which kept him to the search for Virginia Maxon, and he made it a point to direct the hunt always in the vicinity of the spot where it was buried, for a great fear consumed him that Ninaka might return and claim it before he had a chance to make away with it.

Three times during the week they returned and slept at the long-house, hoping each time to learn that the natives had received some news of her they sought, through the wonderful channels of communication that seemed always open across the trackless jungle and up and down the savage, lonely rivers.

For two days Bulan lay raving in the delirium of fever, while the delicate girl, unused to hardship and exposure, watched over him and nursed him with the loving tenderness and care of a young mother with her first born.

For the most part the young giant’s ravings were inarticulate, but now and then Virginia heard her name linked with words of reverence and worship. The man fought again the recent battles he had passed through, and again suffered the long night watches beside the sleeping girl who filled his heart. Then it was that she learned the truth of his self-sacrificing devotion. The thing that puzzled her most was the repetition of a number and a name which ran through all his delirium— “Nine ninety nine Priscilla.”

She could make neither head nor tail of it, nor was there another word to give a clue to its meaning, so at last from constant repetition it became a commonplace and she gave it no further thought.

The girl had given up hope that Bulan ever could recover, so weak and emaciated had he become, and when the fever finally left him quite suddenly she was positive that it was the beginning of the end. It was on the morning of the seventh day since they had commenced their wandering in search of the long-house that, as she sat watching him, she saw his eyes resting upon her face with a look of recognition.

Gently she took his hand, and at the act he smiled at her very weakly.

“You are better, Bulan,” she said. “You have been very sick, but now you shall soon be well again.”

She did not believe her own words, yet the mere saying of them gave her renewed hope.

“Yes,” replied the man. “I shall soon be well again. How long have I been like this?”

“For two days,” she replied.

“And you have watched over me alone in the jungle for two days?” he asked incredulously.

“Had it been for life,” she said in a low voice, “it would scarce have repaid the debt I owe you.”

For a long time he lay looking up into her eyes— longingly, wistfully.

“I wish that it had been for life,” he said.

At first she did not quite realize what he meant, but presently the tired and hopeless expression of his eyes brought to her a sudden knowledge of his meaning.

“Oh, Bulan,” she cried, “you must not say that. Why should you wish to die?”

“Because I love you, Virginia,” he replied. “And because, when you know what I am, you will hate and loathe me.”

On the girl’s lips was an avowal of her own love, but as she bent closer to whisper the words in his ear there came the sound of men crashing through the jungle, and as she turned to face the peril that she thought approaching, von Horn sprang into view, while directly behind him came her father and Sing Lee.

Bulan saw them at the same instant, and as Virginia ran forward to greet her father he staggered weakly to his feet. Von Horn was the first to see the young giant, and with an oath sprang toward him, drawing his revolver as he came.

“You beast,” he cried. “We have caught you at last.”

At the words Virginia turned back toward Bulan with a little scream of warning and of horror. Professor Maxon was behind her.

“Shoot the monster, von Horn,” he ordered. “Do not let him escape.”

Bulan drew himself to his full height, and though he wavered from weakness, yet he towered mighty and magnificent above the evil faced man who menaced him.

“Shoot!” he said calmly. “Death cannot come too soon now.”

At the same instant von Horn pulled the trigger. The giant’s head fell back, he staggered, whirled about, and crumpled to the earth just as Virginia Maxon’s arms closed about him.

Von Horn rushed close and pushing the girl aside pressed the muzzle of his gun to Bulan’s temple, but an avalanche of wrinkled, yellow skin was upon him before he could pull the trigger a second time, and Sing had hurled him back a dozen feet and snatched his weapon.

Moaning and sobbing Virginia threw herself upon the body of the man she loved, while Professor Maxon hurried to her side to drag her away from the soulless thing for whom he had once intended her.

Like a tigress the girl turned upon the two white men.

“You are murderers,” she cried. “Cowardly murderers. Weak and exhausted by fever he could not combat you, and so you have robbed the world of one of the noblest men that God ever created.”

“Hush!” cried Professor Maxon. “Hush, child, you do not know what you say. The thing was a monster— a soulless monster.”

At the words the girl looked up quickly at her father, a faint realization of his meaning striking her like a blow in the face.

“What do you mean?” she whispered. “Who was he?”

It was von Horn who answered.

“No god created that,” he said, with a contemptuous glance at the still body of the man at their feet. “He was one of the creatures of your father’s mad experiments—the soulless thing for whose arms his insane obsession doomed you. The thing at your feet, Virginia, was Number Thirteen.”

With a piteous little moan the girl turned back toward the body of the young giant. A faltering step she took toward it, and then to the horror of her father she sank upon her knees beside it and lifting the man’s head in her arms covered the face with kisses.

“Virginia!” cried the professor. “Are you mad, child?”

“I am not mad,” she moaned, “not yet. I love him. Man or monster, it would have been all the same to me, for I loved him.”

Her father turned away, burying his face in his hands.

“God!” he muttered. “What an awful punishment you have visited upon me for the sin of the thing I did.”

The silence which followed was broken by Sing who had kneeled opposite Virginia upon the other side of Bulan, where he was feeling the giant’s wrists and pressing his ear close above his heart.

“Do’n cly, Linee,” said the kindly old Chinaman. “Him no dlead.” Then, as he poured a pinch of brownish powder into the man’s mouth from a tiny sack he had brought forth from the depths of one of his sleeves: “Him no mlonster either, Linee. Him white man, alsame Mlaxon. Sing know.”

The girl looked up at him in gratitude.

“He is not dead, Sing? He will live?” she cried. “I don’t care about anything else, Sing, if you will only make him live.”

“Him live. Gettem lilee flesh wounds. Las all.”

“What do you mean by saying that he is not a monster?” demanded von Horn.

“You waitee, you dam flool,” cried Sing. “I tellee lot more I know. You waitee I flixee him, and then, by God, I flixee you.”

Von Horn