Читать книгу King of Claw and Fang - Bob Byrd - Страница 5

Table of Contents

A HIGH-SPIRITED young Yank, John Rand had roamed the world in search of adventure and fortune. He had found them both. The Gods had indeed been kind to him.

In a romantic two-weeks' interlude between his fortune seeking expeditions, he had wooed and won the gentle Constance and had spirited her away from under the very nose of the stern headmistress of a fashionable French finishing school. Neither of them had ever regretted the elopement.

Constance had brought her share of luck with her, for shortly after their marriage, Rand had stumbled on a rich diamond field in the Transvaal and wealth had become theirs. And with the birth of their son a year later, their home on the outskirts of Johannesburg had become a paradise indeed.

Now looking into the glowing heart of the fire in the depths of the jungle, Rand wondered at the strange trick Fate had played on him. In his adventuresome youth he had learned many things and the art of flying an airplane had been not the least of them. For his own pleasure, when the income from the diamond field permitted him to satisfy all his desires, he had purchased and maintained the plane that now lay in ruins behind him.

And when Constance had received the telegram two days before, that her father was seriously ill in Cairo, he had immediately suggested that they make the trip to his bedside in the plane. That their course would lay over thousands of miles of wild and dangerous territory, they had never considered for a moment.

Rand sighed. If it had been himself alone who had crashed, he would not have minded. But Constance and his son complicated the situation.

He shrugged philosophically. They would be there a couple of days at the most. A rescue ship would surely come in search of them--probably it was on its way already. He would be ready for it. In the morning he would prepare a great signal fire in the center of the clearing, ready to be lit at the first sound of an approaching plane. It was fortunate indeed that they had crashed in the clearing instead of in the heart of the thick jungle. A rescue ship could make a safe landing and easily take off.

The fire died down to glowing embers. He caught himself nodding, prodded the blaze to life again and added more brush. Slowly the stars wheeled their majestic course across the heavens and the hours passed. Then at long last the impenetrable blackness slowly lightened to a murky gray, the first herald of the coming day. Rand stirred, rose and stretched and greeted the booming sunrise with a smile.

Young David pushed back the tarpaulin with chubby hands, sat up and looked about him with wondering eyes Rand placed a finger to his lips, lifted the youngster across the still form of his mother and led him down to the lake.

To a three-year-old, to whom the common-place features of every-day life are still a mystery and a delight, the heart of the African jungle is hardly more startling. David was enchanted. To him, the Dark Continent was a place of dazzling sunshine and brilliant color; of pleasing smells and intriguing noises.

The night life of the jungle had died with the dawn to yield place to the equally noisy life of day. A flight of long-tailed, scarlet birds wafted across the lake and came to rest in a squawking group in the tree-tops. Slender, spidery monkeys trooped through the branches and peered curiously down at the strange invaders of their domain One, bolder than the rest, cautiously approached the tail of the plane. With a gleeful whoop, David ran to catch it.

Rand smiled at the comical mixture of surprise and disappointment on his face when the monkey scurried agilely off, mocking the youngster over his shoulder as he went.

When they came back to the lean-to to prepare breakfast they found Constance awake. Her leg was setting nicely and bothered her little. Rand adjusted the splints, served breakfast and then set to work to prepare the signal fire. He warned his wife that yet another day might pass before rescue came, but the sight of the towering brushpile and the wet tarpaulin lying beside it, ready to blanket the smoke and send it up in signal puffs, cheered her greatly.

She made no complaint, though Rand knew that her broken leg gave her constant pain. The loaded rifle was set against the lean-to and young David warned of dire results if he should touch it An automatic was strapped to Rand's belt and thus prepared for whatever the day might bring, he set to work to make their shelter yet more comfortable and safe.

To the youngster, this task was delightful play. Despite his happy conviction that he was being of great assistance, he was constantly underfoot He picked up his father's knife, dropped it and the sharp blade missed his foot by inches. He stumbled over a gnarled root and the rush of his fall blew a shower of sparks from the fire a scant foot away. Ten minutes later, while making faces at himself in the mirror of the lake he fell into the water and was thoroughly drenched. After that episode he was seated beside his mother and requested to remain there.

The day wore on, hot and sultry, with a sudden deluge in mid-afternoon. A few minutes later the torrid sun turned the damp floor of the jungle to a steaming mist. Always Rand and his wife listened, ears strained, for the sound of an approaching motor.

The sun wheeled its long arc across the heavens and headed down towards the distant mountain peak that rose up, to meet it. At last they touched, quivering in a shimmer of heat and a riotous sunset flared its vivid colors over the land. And then, in the brief hush of silence with which the jungle paid tribute to the sun's glory, they heard the sound for which they had been waiting.

The jungle had humming noises of its own. But the distant drone of a powerful motor floated unmistakably across the still air. Rand leaped at once to his waiting pile of brush. With hands that trembled slightly in their eagerness he scratched a match and set it ablaze. Then, after a moment, he seized the damp tarpaulin and blanketed the flames.

The drone of the approaching plane grew steadily louder. Whipping back the tarpaulin, Rand set a great puff of black smoke skyward. Then hastily he blanketed the fire again, to repeat the operation.

The last slanting rays of the sun picked out a glinting speck in the sky and turned it to shining gold. It grew slowly larger until it resembled a giant, iridescent dragon fly soaring far above the earth.

"John!" called Constance anxiously. "He's going to miss us. He's bearing north instead of west!"

Rand flung a hasty glance upward. He whipped up a last cloud of smoke from his fire, then clutching the tarpaulin, he raced down to the shore of the lake.

The plane loomed larger now but its nose was not pointed directly for the clearing. And it was riding high--much higher than Rand would have wished. With a sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach, he realized that from where the unknown pilot rode in his cockpit, the wreckage of Rand's ship was hidden by the towering trees and the clearing itself was scarcely visible.

Swiftly he splashed out into the lake until the water rose above his waist and waved the tarpaulin over his head. But the plane held to its steady course and did not falter.

Though he knew the pilot could not hear him, he cried out hoarsely. He flapped the heavy tarpaulin until his arms ached. But neither the rising column of smoke from the clearing nor his wildly gesticulating figure were seen. The motor of the ship in the air rose to a high crescendo, then diminished again as it continued on.

Not until it had become a vanishing dot in the blue did John Rand's arms drop. Wearily he plodded back to his wife and child. Constance made a manful effort to conceal her bitter disappointment. She smiled, a little tremulously.

"Well, it looks as though we've failed to thumb a ride."

Rand dropped the tarpaulin and sank down beside her. "Pooh! This is a main highway. Busy traffic. There'll be another along in a moment." Then, more soberly, he went on. "He'll be back--probably tomorrow. It was the sunset. If he had come an hour earlier, he'd have spotted me at the edge of the lake. Or if he'd come an hour later, he'd have seen the light of the fire. Better luck next time."

But in the most important aspect of this optimistic prediction, Rand was wrong. True, the plane came again on the next day--and one the day after that. But each time it was farther from their lonely camp. The last time it appeared, it was but a dim speck far towards the horizon.

Helplessly they watched it vanish from their sight and no amount of forced good humor could hide the ache in their hearts.

Then three days passed and though they strained eyes and ears, the ship did not come again Reluctantly they had to voice the dismal conclusion that their would-be rescuers had given them up to the jungle.

Constance consoled herself with the thought that as soon as her leg had mended, they would begin the long over-land trek that would carry them out of the wilderness. Her husband would not deprive her of this meager consolation but he realized that until the long rainy season Was ended--and it had just set in, in earnest--they must remain in their lonely outpost.

They were both astounded and in a measure glad, to hear young David declare that he liked the jungle and had no desire to leave it. The fact that he was thoroughly enjoying their enforced sojourn in the wilds lightened their own burden.