Читать книгу The Crystal Sceptre - Philip Verrill Mighels - Страница 8

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THE darkness had begun to descend before we reached the camp, plainly causing anxiety to the Links, who were hindered on the march by the burden of several dead members of the tribe. Various sounds issued from the jungle, where brutes that eat flesh in the night were beginning to prowl. Doubtless no few of these smelled the blood that laded the wind which was sweeping down through the chasm.

I thought of all this and meditated much also on my peculiar situation. Why these two opposing bands of Missing Links should so desire myself as a prize as to fight with such fatal results, was a puzzle too deep for solution, considering that I had been treated by both parties in a manner far from being inimical to my safety. Were they cannibals, I asked myself, did they desire me for a dinner? Manifestly such was not the case, inasmuch as no man-eating creatures should be expected to be so moderate as to permit me to live in freedom as long as I had lived already in their settlement. No, their purpose involved something more permanent.

There was no end to the chatter as we hastened "home." Though I failed to understand this, yet the gestures were easy to interpret. Reason also made it plain that Fatty, when he fled from my side and escaped the Blacks, had darted toward the camp to give the alarm, meeting on the way the Links who had come to the rescue, they having started beforehand on information furnished by the females, who had watched us start toward the peak.

I recapitulated the results of my exploration. I was hopelessly lost, as far as any human beings were concerned. I was in the hands of friendly creatures, more primitive than the lowest mortal. My only chance of escape lay in cultivating the friendly feelings and in endeavouring to understand my companions, with a view to inducing a force, later on, to accompany myself on a march across the country to the sea. Incidentally I had much to do to keep myself partially civilised. I must fashion tools, in the use of which the Links must be instructed. We were surrounded by dangerous animals, and we had a powerful enemy, the force of whose numbers might be greater than our own. This would mean that I must make our tribe superior, and arm them with a better class of weapons. Fortunately the country promised to be one of great resources. Yet the only tool I had with which to start was my knife.

I thought of the endless array of implements of war and peace to be had in the poorest modern community. Such meditation being idle, I reflected how glad I would be to hammer out my own requisites from the crude iron, but this was equally vain. In short my thoughts came tumbling down the age of iron and the age of bronze, as if I had fallen back through time and history, to land at the very age of stone itself. Here I must work with stone for hammers, axes, drills and even for an anvil, supposing I had my white-hot metal ready to forge into shape, for there was nothing else to be had.

All this made me excited, eager to be at work. I was forgetful of all that it meant, as my brain pictured stage after stage of this new development, but when a cool night wind blew across my half-clothed body, I was aroused from my reverie and confronted by a pitiless array of facts. I then foresaw personal suffering, mayhap a miserable death, and toil and disappointment, before I could wrest even something small from the fist of Nature, while I should have about me a tribe of semi-animal beings, fighting constantly for a bare existence. My hope and fate were rapidly being entangled with the lives and fates of these extraordinary creatures.

Before we reached the camp, the glow of fires shone brightly through the trees. The Links had learned the use of a lively blaze in keeping off the beasts of prey. I wondered how they had first started their fire, admitting that I should doubtless find no end of trouble if I were obliged to kindle one myself, without a match.

We were met by a large and enthusiastic band of the males, with Fatty in their midst. His capers, at seeing me whole and hearty, were enough to shake an ordinary individual to pieces. He made me ponder on another peculiar thing. How did it happen that he, being black, was not only living among the Reds, but was also at feud with the fellows of his colour? I made up my mind that he was either a freak, like the albino, born in the tribe, or else that he had been captured when a baby, and reared away from his kind. It was certain the black Links recognised a foe in the fellow, whatever his pedigree and blood.

Having conceived an idea, I was glancing about at the trees revealed by the glow of the fires, when I discovered a growth of stuff wherein there was a large portion dead and dry. Going to this, amid evident protest and questionings on the part of many Links, I took out my knife and cut away some likely looking branches. The wood I found to be exceedingly tough. It was hard work to get what I wanted. On bending it over, in an effort to break it off, where my cut had been made, I found it to be exceptionally elastic and stubborn, although I could see it had been dead and seasoned for many months. Getting out a long straight shaft, half as large as my wrist, and several other straight pieces a trifle larger than a pencil, I brought it all to the circle about the fire.

The Links, who were much excited over recent events, watched my every movement with the gravest concern. I faced them and attempted to convey, by signs and pantomime that I intended to make a bow and several arrows with which I could kill six of the number in the briefest time. They understood enough to be highly amused and delighted. There were an incredible number of things they did and said of which the meaning was clear, and with comparative ease I made Fatty understand that I wished him to boil me a dinner in the way he had seen me do already.

Fatty, I believe, was one of the most intelligent of all the Links. He made blunders enough in doing what I wished, while I tried to keep at work on my bow, yet he was insanely anxious to do me any favour and crazy with delight at being considered worthy of employment. Dinner cooking went forward again in the same desultory manner I had noted before, but a large majority of the Links sat or stood about me in the semidarkness, seeming more than ever like apes as they glanced about with their nervous, round eyes, chattered their monkey-like language, and released the muscles of their long, uncanny arms. The glow that was tossed from the fire, making silhouettes of many an astounding red statue, painted a weird picture that night beneath the trees.

As I looked in their faces, many of them drawn with the first vague efforts of thinking, I beheld strange, fleeting promise of things to be, dim lights, as it were, of ambitions—desire to grasp a something just beyond their mental capacity. Many seemed awed by the simple sight of that knife, cutting away the stubborn wood in thin, smooth shavings, as it flashed in the light.

I put my finger on the blade. "Knife," I said, "knife."

A few, including Fatty, attempted to repeat the word. A chorus of peculiar laughter followed and the spell of awe was gone. As I worked, then, I pointed to various things and gave the name in English. There was not even one of the Links who failed to comprehend that I was making an effort to establish a means of communication between us, but a very few only tried my easy lessons. Fatty, however, was quite willing to "make a fool of himself," for he essayed everything, manfully. But better than this, the fellow attempted to reciprocate the favour. Thus when I had given a name to the blazing pieces of wood he waited a moment and then pointing to it earnestly said, distinctly:

"Ouch."

Then he pantomimed burning his finger, and jerked it back, saying "Ouch" again. He made it plain that the fire would hurt if touched, that a Link would cry "ouch" at the smart, and that therefore a fire was named for this cry. When I proved that this much Link language was mine beyond a doubt, the ecstasy of my fat friend was most extravagant. Gratified with his effort, he soon made me acquainted with the names of a number of articles. These names were invariably chosen in a manner analogous to the one by which they had arrived at "ouch" for fire. For instance, a gurgle, impossible to set down in letters, was the name for water; a sound like a thud meant a club; an audible breath through the lips, (wind), signified a tree. Manifestly such "words" as these defy all efforts at spelling. I found them difficult to imitate, for the throat was largely employed to make the noises and my tongue seemed to be very much in the way. I tried my best, as I worked out my first crude bow, and when I had finished my dinner I felt that no little progress had been made toward a better understanding all around.

Inasmuch as there was more need for haste than there was for finish on my weapon, I made short work of tapering off the ends of my bow and cutting the notches. I then prepared several arrows, somewhat clumsy, but still fairly straight, after which I feathered them all, roughly, and attempted to break some of the glass-like "flints," I had found that day, into shapes that would pass for arrow-heads. This was a most unsuccessful business. An accident formed the only piece which by any stretch of the imagination could be conceived as what I desired. This I bound at the tip of a shaft, with cord similar to that which the Links employed on their clubs, but it was hopelessly awkward. Being then provided with more of their string, I bent my bow and had the satisfaction of seeing that it was fairly symmetrical in form and amazingly stout. Indeed, it broke the string, and I feared it had split at the sudden release, but this was not the case. In excitement and admiration, the Links now furnished me with a stouter cord, a cleverly twisted deer-gut, or tendon, which was nearly perfection for the purpose.

Fitting my pointed arrow on the string and bidding the Links stand aside, I drew it as far as I could and let it drive at the nearest tree. The twang that followed gave me a thrill of delight, as always it had done in the days of my youth, and I felt a gush of pride in my veins when the shaft stood quivering in the bark, its head so deeply buried that the greatest effort to drag it out merely broke it short off in the hands of the giant chief.

The Links knew not whether to be alarmed or delighted. Again I placed a shaft on the string. This time I signed for silence and turned the arrow straight up toward the star-dappled sky, to give my friends a rough idea of the height to which the wooden messenger would climb. In the absolute silence I drew even further than before. With a swish the arrow sprang from the humming string and disappeared like a bullet as it cleaved the upper darkness, near the trees.

I threw up my hand for continued silence. In eager expectation we waited. Beat, beat, beat, went my heart as the seconds were multiplied, the long stillness proclaiming the distance to which the arrow had sped. Longer became the time; I was thrilled with pleasure and surprise myself; it seemed as if the shaft never would return. How still was the night for that minute; not a breath was stirring.

Suddenly there was a swish—a plunk! as the leaf of a palm was punctured, and then a quick, incisive plith! as the shaft was driven forcibly home in the earth. It had come down about ten good strides away!

We hastened in a body to find it. There it was, standing straight as a line, stabbed six inches deep in the sod and roots of grasses, and—marvel of accidental things!—impaled upon it, half way up its length, was a bat, transfixed in action, still holding in its mouth an unswallowed moth.

Circumstance had completely eclipsed my humble skill, for this miracle of chance made me at once a species of god and devil, in the eyes of my wonder-smitten companions.