The Burning Bridge, Philip Verrill Mighels [the lemonade war series .txt] 📗

quickly. Then, binding on each of the arrows a trio of these improvised "rudders," he took up his club, informed Elaine he might be absent half an hour, and descended at once to the clearing.

His porcupine, seen no less than half a dozen times when his arms had been burdened, or his club was not at hand, was not to be found for all his elaborate searching, now that he was desirable for dinner. Naturally, Grenville had no particular preference for porcupine where pheasants were not impossible. But the fact that the bristling hedgehog is not to be despised, he knew from past experience. Moreover, he had fondly hoped this somewhat stupid quarry might be readily found and taken.

Notwithstanding the fact that for three days past not a sign had been vouchsafed him of the tiger, Grenville took to himself no fulsome sense of security as he made his way slowly through the jungle, towards the estuary swamp. The island was small; the brute was always near—and some day the contest between they two must be waged to a definite conclusion.

The axiom is old that the most game is seen when the huntsman has no weapon. It seemed to Grenville, slipping as noiselessly as possible down towards the water, where birds and beasts had always been encountered, that the island had been suddenly deserted. He saw not a thing, beyond the vaguest movements in the trees, perhaps for the very fact he moved so cautiously, and thereby assumed an aspect that was crafty, sinister, or suspicious.

Some reptile glided to the water, starting a ripple on the surface, but not even its head was visible to the watchful eyes of the man. An arrow was notched upon his bow, and, while the practice in which he had indulged had been far too brief to develop the skill he knew he might finally acquire, Sidney was certain that up to a range of five or ten yards his shaft would prove fairly deadly.

He had heretofore seen no game at all that was not, in fact, almost under his very feet. Of the pheasants, flushed before on at least three separate occasions, he detected not so much as a hint. The monkeys were silent. Not even the noisy parrots flew out with their usual disturbance. All about the growth of bamboo he trod, wherever a space was open, but in vain.

Reflecting that the pheasants might have gone beyond, to a section where rocks and shrubbery doubtless afforded the seeds or berries on which they would probably feed, he started more briskly towards the trail that would take him past the wreck.

He had not entirely cleared the bamboo growth when, abruptly, there in the open space before him, hardly fifteen feet away, a wild hog paused, fairly startled to inaction where it had entered the clearing from the jungle. It had turned its head to stare at the man inquiringly. Its two little eyes, maliciously gleaming, increased its threatening aspect as the bristles slowly rose on its back.

Without making the slightest unnecessary movement, Grenville raised his bow. He drew the arrow fairly to the head. A sharp twang followed instantly. A streak of gray sped swiftly and obliquely towards the earth. Then, for a second, Grenville saw the stout shaft quiver where it was buried in the base of the creature's neck.

One challenging grunt the wild hog uttered, starting as if to charge. But the arrow had shattered the nerves that make for rage and courage, cleaving to the seat of life itself.

The boar staggered blindly, instinctively, back to the dense, concealing jungle.

Grenville heard it grunt once savagely, as it broke its way past interfering branches of the growth. He realized it was escaping, that it might reach a hole or other concealment before it fell, and cheat him of his dinner.

He dropped his bow, as a useless impediment in such a tangle, and plunged in a reckless manner through the shrubbery and vines where his quarry was no longer in sight.

The hog must have stumbled forward with considerable speed. A vibrating palm, ten feet ahead of his position, urged Sidney impulsively forward. He was baffled and retarded in a most exasperating fashion by the creepers woven through the thicket.

Obliged to make a slight detour, he smashed a path between two stout banana palms—and came upon a hidden clearing. There was one unexpectedly violent movement of the growth just opposite, and there he thought his hog was dying.

Instantly upon his startled vision impinged a blot of yellow color. The full active form of the tiger was immediately revealed, as the brute leaped forth and sank his teeth in the neck of the sinking boar.

There was one shrill mort cry only as the hog became inert. Half raising the limber form in his massive jaws, the while his eyes wildly blazed his challenge to and defiance of the man who had halted in the clearing, the great supple creature, with the studded gold band about his neck, slowly strode once more within the jungle.

With a horribly disquieting comprehension of the fact he had doubtless been stalked for the past half hour, which fully accounted for the absence of game along the trails, Grenville retreated from the place. Why he had not been leaped upon and instantly slain was too much to understand—unless the unknown beings who had placed a collar, like a badge of inferiority, upon the animal's neck, had so impressed him with a dread of man that he dared not make an attack.

All zest for the hunt had departed from his being when Sidney recovered his bow. Anger and exasperation took its place as he reflected on the ease with which this insolent, fearless beast could continue to rob him of his quarry. And one day, he knew, the animal's boldness would increase to a point where a treacherous leap would restore his undisputed mastery of all this bit of land.

"I'll kill him!" said Grenville, unexcitedly. "I'll blow him clean out of his skin!"

He went boldly down to the rotting wreck, climbed eagerly up to the slanted cabin, and saluted the dead man, sitting there in chains.

"Brother, I've come for the cannon," he said. "There's little else left for you to guard."

Although the small bit of ordnance would make a load of fully fifty pounds, Grenville determined, then and there, to make a clean sweep of all the old hulk's remaining bits of brass and bronze not appropriated earlier. He, therefore, heaved the cannon out through a gap in the rotting planks, and began a hurried overhauling of everything left in the lockers.

He had drawn out coil upon coil of ancient cordage, that broke like wetted paper in his hands, before the largest and last of the lockers had been emptied of its junk. This was a deep and comparatively sound sort of box beneath a former bunk. Its interior was absolutely dark.

Unwilling to overlook the slightest metal object, Grenville got down on his hands and knees, to peer to the farthest corner. There seemed to be nothing remaining in the place. Nevertheless, he reached well inside and swept his hand about the walls, till it came to a slight obstruction.

This was a screw-head, so far as he could determine, in the planking just to the left of the door, in one of the nearest corners. He pressed rather heavily against the moldy woodwork, and his fist went through, breaking away a decayed square of wood that had once been a tiny door.

Convinced at once that a small and, heretofore, undiscovered locker, of insignificant dimensions, had been made between the walls of two of the usual compartments, he conceived it to be a secret hiding-place, and strained the full length of his reaching arm, blindly to explore its interior.

He could not touch its wall at the rear without crawling fully inside the larger locker, and for this he felt but little relish. With a plan worth two of that discomfiting scheme, he arose and kicked out the paneling from the front of the narrow box.

Once more he knelt, and thrust his arm to the end of the place. His fingers came gropingly upon a round, metallic object, wedged tightly down between two supports of wood. He broke it out in his vigorous way, and drew it to the light.

CHAPTER XI A MYSTERY

With an odd sensation tingling in his veins, Grenville examined his find.

It was merely a cylinder, made of brass, fully three inches in diameter, and, perhaps, eight inches long. Its cap was rusted so firmly in place that he could not possibly remove it. He gave the tube a shake. There was something inside, but its weight was exceedingly light.

Once more he knelt before the secret locker to examine all its walls. But although his fingers finally played upon every square inch of the sides and ceiling, there was nothing further to be found. Apparently the only "treasure" the place had concealed was contained within the tube.

He thought of a score of documents the one-time captain of the barque might have thus desired to preserve, but the sun was rapidly nearing its purple horizon, and the old ship's hold was growing dark. Grenville gathered the last of the metal spoils he had found in an empty box, half rotted, on the floor. The tube he thrust firmly in his pocket.

What with the cannon balanced on his shoulder, his box of rusted metal hugged beneath his arm, and his bow, club, and arrows clutched tightly in his hand, he presented a singular figure as he finally made his way along the darkening trail, and came at length to the clearing, to be hailed from the heights by Elaine.

"Just for the sake of variety," he said, when he came to the terrace with his burdens, "we'll eat one more dinner of fruit."

"I couldn't think what you had killed," said Elaine, "when I saw you coming with this," and she placed her foot on the cannon he had gladly dropped to the ground. "What is it, anyway?"

"A pop-gun," he said, "to tickle my friend the tiger."

She was instantly apprehensive. "You have met him again?"

He had no intention of arousing her alarm.

"The brute is still about the island. I should like his skin for a rug."

"You could really shoot him with this?"

"Well—I shall mount it, in any case, though I have my doubts of his standing while I blow a few rocks through his person."

When he went for a fresh supply of fruits he brought up a log some four or five feet in length, with a burned-off prong at its end. This he intended to prepare as a "carriage" for the gun. He placed the pronged end down in his fire, to burn out a niche for the little brass piece, which he cleaned of its mud then and there.

His preliminary work on the bit of ordnance was soon concluded. When his log had burned to a moderate depth, he removed it to a near-by rock and gouged the charred portions away. Into the hollow thus rudely formed, the breach of the gun loosely fitted, ready to be firmly bound in place.

But the day was done, and Elaine had spread their "table," to which Sidney was glad to repair.

He had mentioned nothing of the tube still fatly bulging his pocket. Until he should first determine what the cylinder contained, he meant to arouse no unnecessary speculations in the breast of his companion. How much she might yet have to know of the barque and the mummy chained in its cabin he could not determine to-night. That something sinister lurked behind the mystery which this and the two headless skeletons involved was his constantly growing conviction.

It was not until night was heavily down, and Elaine had crept gladly to the comfort of her cave, that Grenville produced the brass cylinder, and stirred up new flames of his fire.

Then, sitting alone in the ruddy glow, with a rock for a stool, and another