CHAPTER XIII
"A Sight which I shall Never Forget"
Just as the sun was setting upon that melancholy night I saw the lonelyfigure of the Indian upon the vast plain beneath me, and I watched him,our one faint hope of salvation, until he disappeared in the risingmists of evening which lay, rose-tinted from the setting sun, betweenthe far-off river and me.
It was quite dark when I at last turned back to our stricken camp, andmy last vision as I went was the red gleam of Zambo's fire, the onepoint of light in the wide world below, as was his faithful presence inmy own shadowed soul. And yet I felt happier than I had done sincethis crushing blow had fallen upon me, for it was good to think thatthe world should know what we had done, so that at the worst our namesshould not perish with our bodies, but should go down to posterityassociated with the result of our labors.
It was an awesome thing to sleep in that ill-fated camp; and yet it waseven more unnerving to do so in the jungle. One or the other it mustbe. Prudence, on the one hand, warned me that I should remain onguard, but exhausted Nature, on the other, declared that I should donothing of the kind. I climbed up on to a limb of the great gingkotree, but there was no secure perch on its rounded surface, and Ishould certainly have fallen off and broken my neck the moment I beganto doze. I got down, therefore, and pondered over what I should do.Finally, I closed the door of the zareba, lit three separate fires in atriangle, and having eaten a hearty supper dropped off into a profoundsleep, from which I had a strange and most welcome awakening. In theearly morning, just as day was breaking, a hand was laid upon my arm,and starting up, with all my nerves in a tingle and my hand feeling fora rifle, I gave a cry of joy as in the cold gray light I saw Lord JohnRoxton kneeling beside me.
It was he--and yet it was not he. I had left him calm in his bearing,correct in his person, prim in his dress. Now he was pale andwild-eyed, gasping as he breathed like one who has run far and fast.His gaunt face was scratched and bloody, his clothes were hanging inrags, and his hat was gone. I stared in amazement, but he gave me nochance for questions. He was grabbing at our stores all the time hespoke.
"Quick, young fellah! Quick!" he cried. "Every moment counts. Getthe rifles, both of them. I have the other two. Now, all thecartridges you can gather. Fill up your pockets. Now, some food.Half a dozen tins will do. That's all right! Don't wait to talk orthink. Get a move on, or we are done!"
Still half-awake, and unable to imagine what it all might mean, I foundmyself hurrying madly after him through the wood, a rifle under eacharm and a pile of various stores in my hands. He dodged in and outthrough the thickest of the scrub until he came to a dense clump ofbrush-wood. Into this he rushed, regardless of thorns, and threwhimself into the heart of it, pulling me down by his side.
"There!" he panted. "I think we are safe here. They'll make for thecamp as sure as fate. It will be their first idea. But this shouldpuzzle 'em."
"What is it all?" I asked, when I had got my breath. "Where are theprofessors? And who is it that is after us?"
"The ape-men," he cried. "My God, what brutes! Don't raise yourvoice, for they have long ears--sharp eyes, too, but no power of scent,so far as I could judge, so I don't think they can sniff us out. Wherehave you been, young fellah? You were well out of it."
In a few sentences I whispered what I had done.
"Pretty bad," said he, when he had heard of the dinosaur and the pit."It isn't quite the place for a rest cure. What? But I had no ideawhat its possibilities were until those devils got hold of us. Theman-eatin' Papuans had me once, but they are Chesterfields compared tothis crowd."
"How did it happen?" I asked.
"It was in the early mornin'. Our learned friends were just stirrin'.Hadn't even begun to argue yet. Suddenly it rained apes. They camedown as thick as apples out of a tree. They had been assemblin' in thedark, I suppose, until that great tree over our heads was heavy withthem. I shot one of them through the belly, but before we knew wherewe were they had us spread-eagled on our backs. I call them apes, butthey carried sticks and stones in their hands and jabbered talk to eachother, and ended up by tyin' our hands with creepers, so they are aheadof any beast that I have seen in my wanderin's. Ape-men--that's whatthey are--Missin' Links, and I wish they had stayed missin'. Theycarried off their wounded comrade--he was bleedin' like a pig--and thenthey sat around us, and if ever I saw frozen murder it was in theirfaces. They were big fellows, as big as a man and a deal stronger.Curious glassy gray eyes they have, under red tufts, and they just satand gloated and gloated. Challenger is no chicken, but even he wascowed. He managed to struggle to his feet, and yelled out at them tohave done with it and get it over. I think he had gone a bit off hishead at the suddenness of it, for he raged and cursed at them like alunatic. If they had been a row of his favorite Pressmen he could nothave slanged them worse."
"Well, what did they do?" I was enthralled by the strange story whichmy companion was whispering into my ear, while all the time his keeneyes were shooting in every direction and his hand grasping his cockedrifle.
"I thought it was the end of us, but instead of that it started them ona new line. They all jabbered and chattered together. Then one ofthem stood out beside Challenger. You'll smile, young fellah, but 'ponmy word they might have been kinsmen. I couldn't have believed it if Ihadn't seen it with my own eyes. This old ape-man--he was theirchief--was a sort of red Challenger, with every one of our friend'sbeauty points, only just a trifle more so. He had the short body, thebig shoulders, the round chest, no neck, a great ruddy frill of abeard, the tufted eyebrows, the 'What do you want, damn you!' lookabout the eyes, and the whole catalogue. When the ape-man stood byChallenger and put his paw on his shoulder, the thing was complete.Summerlee was a bit hysterical, and he laughed till he cried. Theape-men laughed too--or at least they put up the devil of acacklin'--and they set to work to drag us off through the forest. Theywouldn't touch the guns and things--thought them dangerous, Iexpect--but they carried away all our loose food. Summerlee and I gotsome rough handlin' on the way--there's my skin and my clothes to proveit--for they took us a bee-line through the brambles, and their ownhides are like leather. But Challenger was all right. Four of themcarried him shoulder high, and he went like a Roman emperor. What'sthat?"
It was a strange clicking noise in the distance not unlike castanets.
"There they go!" said my companion, slipping cartridges into the seconddouble barrelled "Express." "Load them all up, young fellah my lad,for we're not going to be taken alive, and don't you think it! That'sthe row they make when they are excited. By George! they'll havesomething to excite them if they put us up. The 'Last Stand of theGrays' won't be in it. 'With their rifles grasped in their stiffenedhands, mid a ring of the dead and dyin',' as some fathead sings. Canyou hear them now?"
"Very far away."
"That little lot will do no good, but I expect their search parties areall over the wood. Well, I was telling you my tale of woe. They gotus soon to this town of theirs--about a thousand huts of branches andleaves in a great grove of trees near the edge of the cliff. It'sthree or four miles from here. The filthy beasts fingered me all over,and I feel as if I should never be clean again. They tied us up--thefellow who handled me could tie like a bosun--and there we lay with ourtoes up, beneath a tree, while a great brute stood guard over us with aclub in his hand. When I say 'we' I mean Summerlee and myself. OldChallenger was up a tree, eatin' pines and havin' the time of his life.I'm bound to say that he managed to get some fruit to us, and with hisown hands he loosened our bonds. If you'd seen him sitting up in thattree hob-nobbin' with his twin brother--and singin' in that rollin'bass of his, 'Ring out, wild bells,' cause music of any kind seemed toput 'em in a good humor, you'd have smiled; but we weren't in much moodfor laughin', as you can guess. They were inclined, within limits, tolet him do what he liked, but they drew the line pretty sharply at us.It was a mi
ghty consolation to us all to know that you were runnin'loose and had the archives in your keepin'.
"Well, now, young fellah, I'll tell you what will surprise you. Yousay you saw signs of men, and fires, traps, and the like. Well, wehave seen the natives themselves. Poor devils they were, down-facedlittle chaps, and had enough to make them so. It seems that the humanshold one side of this plateau--over yonder, where you saw thecaves--and the ape-men hold this side, and there is bloody war betweenthem all the time. That's the situation, so far as I could follow it.Well, yesterday the ape-men got hold of a dozen of the humans andbrought them in as prisoners. You never heard such a jabberin' andshriekin' in your life. The men were little red fellows, and had beenbitten and clawed so that they could hardly walk. The ape-men put twoof them to death there and then--fairly pulled the arm off one ofthem--it was perfectly beastly. Plucky little chaps they are, andhardly gave a squeak. But it turned us absolutely sick. Summerleefainted, and even Challenger had as much as he could stand. I thinkthey have cleared, don't you?"
We listened intently, but nothing save the calling of the birds brokethe deep peace of the forest. Lord Roxton went on with his story.
"I think you have had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad. Itwas catchin' those Indians that put you clean out of their heads, elsethey would have been back to the camp for you as sure as fate andgathered you in. Of course, as you said, they have been watchin' usfrom the beginnin' out of that tree, and they knew perfectly well thatwe were one short. However, they could think only of this new haul; soit was I, and not a bunch of apes, that dropped in on you in themorning. Well, we had a horrid business afterwards. My God! what anightmare the whole thing is! You remember the great bristle of sharpcanes down below where we found the skeleton of the American? Well,that is just under ape-town, and that's the jumpin'-off place of theirprisoners. I expect there's heaps of skeletons there, if we looked for'em. They have a sort of clear parade-ground on the top, and they makea proper ceremony about it. One by one the poor devils have to jump,and the game is to see whether they are merely dashed to pieces orwhether they get skewered on the canes. They took us out to see it,and the whole tribe lined up on the edge. Four of the Indians jumped,and the canes went through 'em like knittin' needles through a pat ofbutter. No wonder we found that poor Yankee's skeleton with the canesgrowin' between his ribs. It was horrible--but it was doocedlyinterestin' too. We were all fascinated to see them take the dive,even when we thought it would be our turn next on the spring-board.
"Well, it wasn't. They kept six of the Indians up for to-day--that'show I understood it--but I fancy we were to be the star performers inthe show. Challenger might get off, but Summerlee and I were in thebill. Their language is more than half signs, and it was not hard tofollow them. So I thought it was time we made a break for it. I hadbeen plottin' it out a bit, and had one or two things clear in my mind.It was all on me, for Summerlee was useless and Challenger not muchbetter. The only time they got together they got slangin' because theycouldn't agree upon the scientific classification of these red-headeddevils that had got hold of us. One said it was the dryopithecus ofJava, the other said it was pithecanthropus. Madness, I callit--Loonies, both. But, as I say, I had thought out one or two pointsthat were helpful. One was that these brutes could not run as fast asa man in the open. They have short, bandy legs, you see, and heavybodies. Even Challenger could give a few yards in a hundred to thebest of them, and you or I would be a perfect Shrubb. Another pointwas that they knew nothin' about guns. I don't believe they everunderstood how the fellow I shot came by his hurt. If we could get atour guns there was no sayin' what we could do.
"So I broke away early this mornin', gave my guard a kick in the tummythat laid him out, and sprinted for the camp. There I got you and theguns, and here we are."
"But the professors!" I cried, in consternation.
"Well, we must just go back and fetch 'em. I couldn't bring 'em withme. Challenger was up the tree, and Summerlee was not fit for theeffort. The only chance was to get the guns and try a rescue. Ofcourse they may scupper them at once in revenge. I don't think theywould touch Challenger, but I wouldn't answer for Summerlee. But theywould have had him in any case. Of that I am certain. So I haven'tmade matters any worse by boltin'. But we are honor bound to go backand have them out or see it through with them. So you can make up yoursoul, young fellah my lad, for it will be one way or the other beforeevenin'."
I have tried to imitate here Lord Roxton's jerky talk, his short,strong sentences, the half-humorous, half-reckless tone that ranthrough it all. But he was a born leader. As danger thickened hisjaunty manner would increase, his speech become more racy, his coldeyes glitter into ardent life, and his Don Quixote moustache bristlewith joyous excitement. His love of danger, his intense appreciationof the drama of an adventure--all the more intense for being heldtightly in--his consistent view that every peril in life is a form ofsport, a fierce game betwixt you and Fate, with Death as a forfeit,made him a wonderful companion at such hours. If it were not for ourfears as to the fate of our companions, it would have been a positivejoy to throw myself with such a man into such an affair. We wererising from our brushwood hiding-place when suddenly I felt his gripupon my arm.
"By George!" he whispered, "here they come!"
From where we lay we could look down a brown aisle, arched with green,formed by the trunks and branches. Along this a party of the ape-menwere passing. They went in single file, with bent legs and roundedbacks, their hands occasionally touching the ground, their headsturning to left and right as they trotted along. Their crouching gaittook away from their height, but I should put them at five feet or so,with long arms and enormous chests. Many of them carried sticks, andat the distance they looked like a line of very hairy and deformedhuman beings. For a moment I caught this clear glimpse of them. Thenthey were lost among the bushes.
"Not this time," said Lord John, who had caught up his rifle. "Ourbest chance is to lie quiet until they have given up the search. Thenwe shall see whether we can't get back to their town and hit 'em whereit hurts most. Give 'em an hour and we'll march."
We filled in the time by opening one of our food tins and making sureof our breakfast. Lord Roxton had had nothing but some fruit since themorning before and ate like a starving man. Then, at last, our pocketsbulging with cartridges and a rifle in each hand, we started off uponour mission of rescue. Before leaving it we carefully marked ourlittle hiding-place among the brush-wood and its bearing to FortChallenger, that we might find it again if we needed it. We slunkthrough the bushes in silence until we came to the very edge of thecliff, close to the old camp. There we halted, and Lord John gave mesome idea of his plans.
"So long as we are among the thick trees these swine are our masters,"said he. "They can see us and we cannot see them. But in the open itis different. There we can move faster than they. So we must stick tothe open all we can. The edge of the plateau has fewer large treesthan further inland. So that's our line of advance. Go slowly, keepyour eyes open and your rifle ready. Above all, never let them get youprisoner while there is a cartridge left--that's my last word to you,young fellah."
When we reached the edge of the cliff I looked over and saw our goodold black Zambo sitting smoking on a rock below us. I would have givena great deal to have hailed him and told him how we were placed, but itwas too dangerous, lest we should be heard. The woods seemed to befull of the ape-men; again and again we heard their curious clickingchatter. At such times we plunged into the nearest clump of bushes andlay still until the sound had passed away. Our advance, therefore, wasvery slow, and two hours at least must have passed before I saw by LordJohn's cautious movements that we must be close to our destination. Hemotioned to me to lie still, and he crawled forward himself. In aminute he was back again, his face quivering with eagerness.
"Come!" said he. "Come quick! I hope to the Lord we are not too latealready!"
I found myself shaking with nervous excitement as I scrambled forwardand lay down beside him, looking out through the bushes at a clearingwhich stretched before us.
It was a sight which I shall never forget until my dying day--so weird,so impossible, that I do not know how I am to make you realize it, orhow in a few years I shall bring myself to believe in it if I live tosit once more on a lounge in the Savage Club and look out on the drabsolidity of the Embankment. I know that it will seem then to be somewild nightmare, some delirium of fever. Yet I will set it down now,while it is still fresh in my memory, and one at least, the man who layin the damp grasses by my side, will know if I have lied.
A wide, open space lay before us--some hundreds of yards across--allgreen turf and low bracken growing to the very edge of the cliff.Round this clearing there was a semi-circle of trees with curious hutsbuilt of foliage piled one above the other among the branches. Arookery, with every nest a little house, would best convey the idea.The openings of these huts and the branches of the trees were throngedwith a dense mob of ape-people, whom from their size I took to be thefemales and infants of the tribe. They formed the background of thepicture, and were all looking out with eager interest at the same scenewhich fascinated and bewildered us.
In the open, and near the edge of the cliff, there had assembled acrowd of some hundred of these shaggy, red-haired creatures, many ofthem of immense size, and all of them horrible to look upon. There wasa certain discipline among them, for none of them attempted to breakthe line which had been formed. In front there stood a small group ofIndians--little, clean-limbed, red fellows, whose skins glowed likepolished bronze in the strong sunlight. A tall, thin white man wasstanding beside them, his head bowed, his arms folded, his wholeattitude expressive of his horror and dejection. There was nomistaking the angular form of Professor Summerlee.
In front of and around this dejected group of prisoners were severalape-men, who watched them closely and made all escape impossible.Then, right out from all the others and close to the edge of the cliff,were two figures, so strange, and under other circumstances soludicrous, that they absorbed my attention. The one was our comrade,Professor Challenger. The remains of his coat still hung in stripsfrom his shoulders, but his shirt had been all torn out, and his greatbeard merged itself in the black tangle which covered his mighty chest.He had lost his hat, and his hair, which had grown long in ourwanderings, was flying in wild disorder. A single day seemed to havechanged him from the highest product of modern civilization to the mostdesperate savage in South America. Beside him stood his master, theking of the ape-men. In all things he was, as Lord John had said, thevery image of our Professor, save that his coloring was red instead ofblack. The same short, broad figure, the same heavy shoulders, thesame forward hang of the arms, the same bristling beard merging itselfin the hairy chest. Only above the eyebrows, where the slopingforehead and low, curved skull of the ape-man were in sharp contrast tothe broad brow and magnificent cranium of the European, could one seeany marked difference. At every other point the king was an absurdparody of the Professor.
All this, which takes me so long to describe, impressed itself upon mein a few seconds. Then we had very different things to think of, foran active drama was in progress. Two of the ape-men had seized one ofthe Indians out of the group and dragged him forward to the edge of thecliff. The king raised his hand as a signal. They caught the man byhis leg and arm, and swung him three times backwards and forwards withtremendous violence. Then, with a frightful heave they shot the poorwretch over the precipice. With such force did they throw him that hecurved high in the air before beginning to drop. As he vanished fromsight, the whole assembly, except the guards, rushed forward to theedge of the precipice, and there was a long pause of absolute silence,broken by a mad yell of delight. They sprang about, tossing theirlong, hairy arms in the air and howling with exultation. Then theyfell back from the edge, formed themselves again into line, and waitedfor the next victim.
This time it was Summerlee. Two of his guards caught him by the wristsand pulled him brutally to the front. His thin figure and long limbsstruggled and fluttered like a chicken being dragged from a coop.Challenger had turned to the king and waved his hands franticallybefore him. He was begging, pleading, imploring for his comrade'slife. The ape-man pushed him roughly aside and shook his head. It wasthe last conscious movement he was to make upon earth. Lord John'srifle cracked, and the king sank down, a tangled red sprawling thing,upon the ground.
"Shoot into the thick of them! Shoot! sonny, shoot!" cried mycompanion.
There are strange red depths in the soul of the most commonplace man.I am tenderhearted by nature, and have found my eyes moist many a timeover the scream of a wounded hare. Yet the blood lust was on me now.I found myself on my feet emptying one magazine, then the other,clicking open the breech to re-load, snapping it to again, whilecheering and yelling with pure ferocity and joy of slaughter as I didso. With our four guns the two of us made a horrible havoc. Both theguards who held Summerlee were down, and he was staggering about like adrunken man in his amazement, unable to realize that he was a free man.The dense mob of ape-men ran about in bewilderment, marveling whencethis storm of death was coming or what it might mean. They waved,gesticulated, screamed, and tripped up over those who had fallen.Then, with a sudden impulse, they all rushed in a howling crowd to thetrees for shelter, leaving the ground behind them spotted with theirstricken comrades. The prisoners were left for the moment standingalone in the middle of the clearing.
Challenger's quick brain had grasped the situation. He seized thebewildered Summerlee by the arm, and they both ran towards us. Two oftheir guards bounded after them and fell to two bullets from Lord John.We ran forward into the open to meet our friends, and pressed a loadedrifle into the hands of each. But Summerlee was at the end of hisstrength. He could hardly totter. Already the ape-men were recoveringfrom their panic. They were coming through the brushwood andthreatening to cut us off. Challenger and I ran Summerlee along, oneat each of his elbows, while Lord John covered our retreat, firingagain and again as savage heads snarled at us out of the bushes. For amile or more the chattering brutes were at our very heels. Then thepursuit slackened, for they learned our power and would no longer facethat unerring rifle. When we had at last reached the camp, we lookedback and found ourselves alone.
So it seemed to us; and yet we were mistaken. We had hardly closed thethornbush door of our zareba, clasped each other's hands, and thrownourselves panting upon the ground beside our spring, when we heard apatter of feet and then a gentle, plaintive crying from outside ourentrance. Lord Roxton rushed forward, rifle in hand, and threw itopen. There, prostrate upon their faces, lay the little red figures ofthe four surviving Indians, trembling with fear of us and yet imploringour protection. With an expressive sweep of his hands one of thempointed to the woods around them, and indicated that they were full ofdanger. Then, darting forward, he threw his arms round Lord John'slegs, and rested his face upon them.
"By George!" cried our peer, pulling at his moustache in greatperplexity, "I say--what the deuce are we to do with these people? Getup, little chappie, and take your face off my boots."
Summerlee was sitting up and stuffing some tobacco into his old briar.
"We've got to see them safe," said he. "You've pulled us all out ofthe jaws of death. My word! it was a good bit of work!"
"Admirable!" cried Challenger. "Admirable! Not only we asindividuals, but European science collectively, owe you a deep debt ofgratitude for what you have done. I do not hesitate to say that thedisappearance of Professor Summerlee and myself would have left anappreciable gap in modern zoological history. Our young friend hereand you have done most excellently well."
He beamed at us with the old paternal smile, but European science wouldhave been somewhat amazed could they have seen their chosen child, thehope of the future, with his tangled, unkempt head, his bare chest, andhis tattered c
lothes. He had one of the meat-tins between his knees,and sat with a large piece of cold Australian mutton between hisfingers. The Indian looked up at him, and then, with a little yelp,cringed to the ground and clung to Lord John's leg.
"Don't you be scared, my bonnie boy," said Lord John, patting thematted head in front of him. "He can't stick your appearance,Challenger; and, by George! I don't wonder. All right, little chap,he's only a human, just the same as the rest of us."
"Really, sir!" cried the Professor.
"Well, it's lucky for you, Challenger, that you ARE a little out of theordinary. If you hadn't been so like the king----"
"Upon my word, Lord John, you allow yourself great latitude."
"Well, it's a fact."
"I beg, sir, that you will change the subject. Your remarks areirrelevant and unintelligible. The question before us is what are weto do with these Indians? The obvious thing is to escort them home, ifwe knew where their home was."
"There is no difficulty about that," said I. "They live in the caveson the other side of the central lake."
"Our young friend here knows where they live. I gather that it is somedistance."
"A good twenty miles," said I.
Summerlee gave a groan.
"I, for one, could never get there. Surely I hear those brutes stillhowling upon our track."
As he spoke, from the dark recesses of the woods we heard far away thejabbering cry of the ape-men. The Indians once more set up a feeblewail of fear.
"We must move, and move quick!" said Lord John. "You help Summerlee,young fellah. These Indians will carry stores. Now, then, come alongbefore they can see us."
In less than half-an-hour we had reached our brushwood retreat andconcealed ourselves. All day we heard the excited calling of theape-men in the direction of our old camp, but none of them came ourway, and the tired fugitives, red and white, had a long, deep sleep. Iwas dozing myself in the evening when someone plucked my sleeve, and Ifound Challenger kneeling beside me.
"You keep a diary of these events, and you expect eventually to publishit, Mr. Malone," said he, with solemnity.
"I am only here as a Press reporter," I answered.
"Exactly. You may have heard some rather fatuous remarks of Lord JohnRoxton's which seemed to imply that there was some--someresemblance----"
"Yes, I heard them."
"I need not say that any publicity given to such an idea--any levity inyour narrative of what occurred--would be exceedingly offensive to me."
"I will keep well within the truth."
"Lord John's observations are frequently exceedingly fanciful, and heis capable of attributing the most absurd reasons to the respect whichis always shown by the most undeveloped races to dignity and character.You follow my meaning?"
"Entirely."
"I leave the matter to your discretion." Then, after a long pause, headded: "The king of the ape-men was really a creature of greatdistinction--a most remarkably handsome and intelligent personality.Did it not strike you?"
"A most remarkable creature," said I.
And the Professor, much eased in his mind, settled down to his slumberonce more.
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