Philip Verrill Mighels

“ With the thought half finished in his swiftly-working brain came the thud and shock of his explosion—a tangible movement in the bulk of rock—and then the cataclysm.
Almost as one with Elaine's small detonation, the mighty jar, the air-confounding concussion, the smothered boom, and the dizzying tremor that swayed the hill, shook down the girl's bewildered senses. She saw the red leap from the cannon's mouth—and saw three men, surprised to inaction on the deadly angle of the trail—then down she went, her mind convinced she had rended the island asunder. ”

“ Then Elaine, too, saw the black, irregular stripes, the huge, topaz eyes, and the lazy movement of a mighty shoulder muscle, as the beast before them arose and blocked their path.
It was not the fact that he had rarely if ever seen a tiger so large that most impressed the man, thus unexpectedly confronted by this unfrightened monarch of the island—the brute bore a collar about his neck, gleaming with gold and the facets of some sort of jewels!
He had obviously once been a captive! He knew the form of man, if not his nature! ”

“ Meantime the man by the tiger's kill continued to lie without motion on the earth. Not even the glow of his cheering brand remained like a sign of life in that silent theater.
The jungle cat, smitten and addled in its brain, had dragged itself painfully away to the cover of the thicket, its instinct feebly alive. There was not a sound in all the place, where crash and roar had been so tremendously expended for one prodigious second.
A vague, weird dream came finally creeping intangibly through Grenville's brain, resuming an intermittent function. ”

“ It was simply that same cartouch he had found on the map or parchment—once part of a living being—with the figure of a mummy in the oval. On either side of this the beetle or scarab was repeated.
The utter inutility of gold and gleaming jewels was momentarily forgotten as Grenville stared in from the wall. The island, its perils—everything save an underlying current of thought that wove about Elaine—had ceased for the moment to impress his newly dazzled senses. He withdrew his arm to plant his torch in the stones already removed. ”

“ Elaine, even more than Grenville, was bursting with explosive breath when, at length, the raft came twisting once more to the chill, sweet region of the gale. And even then strong currents drew it fiercely in their wake before it rode freely on the waters.
Dripping and gasping, Grenville half rose to scan the troubled billows for companions in distress. Not a sound could he hear, save the swash of the waves. Not a light appeared in all that void, save the distant, indifferent stars. ”

“ A breeze had sprung up from the north, bringing gushes of heat and jungle fragrance across the summit of the hill. Then, at length, as if this steadying wind was the final agency for which they had waited, the Dyaks set up a queer, wild chant from various places in the thicket.
A few minutes later a cloud of smoke arose from one of their centers. This was followed by several more. A huge, thick smudge was soon rising upward from the earth, and rolling on the breeze to envelop all the headland. ”

“ Never had the man so vividly realized how much it meant to be near Elaine, to hear her voice, to gaze in the depths of her eyes.
It was not till the sun was about to set that his long, impatient vigil was somewhat rewarded at last. The Dyak boat drifted barely in sight, as he crouched there on the shattered ledge.
Without a moment's hesitation, even as he saw that the craft was beating back, as before, to the shelter behind the cliff, he ran out his platform, dropped its end across a rung of the ladder, and cast a heavy stone as far out upon it as possible. ”

“ Indeed, it was not an extensive outcrop of some ocean-buried range, and, despite the luxuriance of its various patches of greenery and jungle, it was decidedly rugged in formation.
The edge past which the raft was leisurely floating was a broken and cavern-pitted wall of rock affording no promise of a landing. Above this loomed the solitary tree that Grenville had seen from a distance. Nothing suggestive of hearth smoke arose against the sky from one end of the place to the other.
This one vital fact, in her excitement, Elaine entirely overlooked. ”

“ A wild, unreasoning hope was in her breast that the tiger might escape, or die in some different manner—do something, almost anything, rather than contribute one more testimony to Sidney Grenville's might. She could not wish the creature to live, nor yet to injure this bold, audacious man. She only knew that some dread of the being who could dare engage or attack this savage monster of the jungle was once more assailing her quaking heart and stirring her nature to rebellion. ”

“ She was suddenly agonized by the thought that the thing would fail, but Grenville had barely reached the solid rock when the cannon abruptly thundered.
A wide-spreading cataract of fire was projected in a red-and-yellow cone across the space between the brink and the wall behind the trail, as the powder poured its punishment into the ranks of the creatures leaping upward to destruction. The detonation, sharp, crisp, appallingly loud in the stillness of the island, fairly stunned Elaine, now kneeling helplessly among the rocks. ”

“ A strange, wild note broke from her lips as Elaine came plunging along the trail with a torch redly blazing in her hand, held well above her face.
She saw, before she could reach his side, that the tiger lay lifeless upon him. She feared the man was dead, but, with wits exceptionally clear and ordered, she thrust her torch-end firmly in the earth, laid hold of the huge, limber beast she so fearfully dreaded, and tugged and dragged it feverishly off with all her fine young strength. ”

“ What with his turtle, his fish, the digging of several yams, and the making of his bomb, Grenville was amply employed.
Elaine was at length made acquainted with his programme for the night. She made no effort to dissuade him from his purpose, but excitement rose in her bosom. She feared for what the tiger might by mischance accomplish, and, also, she felt that in some occult way her own fate and the animal's were alike, if not related—that if such a brute must helplessly succumb to the man's superior prowess, there was no chance at all for anything as feeble as herself. ”

“ That easy access might be obtained on the seaward side he readily understood. He fretted under the long suspense—the uncertainty brooding over the island. He much preferred that the visitors exhibit a downright hostile intent than to feel that beneath the sinister calm of thicket and jungle might lurk insidious death.
He felt that Elaine and himself would lack for nothing, except fresh meat, for at least a couple of days, yet he knew that even their fruit supply was wholly inadequate for a siege, should the new arrivals make up their minds to starve them on the terrace. ”

“ She presently fled from before the cavern, across, through the shadows of the terrace, to the hidden shelf where Grenville had angled for fish.
There she suddenly sank to her knees on the rocks and covered her face with her hands.
"I hate him!" she said, in a hot and passionate utterance, suggestive of a sob. "I hate him! I hate him! I hate every man that ever lived—and you, Gerald Fenton, as much as all the others!" ”

“ Five o'clock developed merely color on the water, but no sign of a sail or a funnel. Elaine still slept, while Grenville, cramped almost beyond endurance, refused to move, and thereby disturb her slumber.
But at six, as he turned for the fiftieth time to scan the limited horizon, he started so unwittingly, at sight of a tree and headland, flatly erected, like a bit of sawed-out stage scenery, above the waste of billows, that Elaine sat up at once.
"It's land!" he said. "We're drifting to some sort of land!" ”

“ A portion only of the estuary was visible—the outer bay, where the raft was plainly floating. Save for areas covered with rock and brush together, the remaining surface of the island appeared to be thickly grown to jungle, the forest comprising foliage of infinite variety.
With Elaine walking silently at his side, afraid to be with him, yet more afraid to be alone, Grenville passed from this hasty examination of the island's general topography to a closer inspection of the perpendicular scarp of the terrace. On the seaward side it rose about one hundred feet above the mark of high water. ”

“ They rose to a pitch incredible; they seemed to involve every accent of human grief and torture, and to wrap the rock escarpment completely in an agonizing appeal.
This chorus sank, but a haunting solo of wailing arose as before, to be followed again by the air-splitting scream, and at length once more by the mingling of many dreadful voices.
The island exiles glanced at one another inquiringly, Elaine blanched white with awe.
"By Heavens!—it can't be human," Grenville muttered, as the programme recommenced with only a slight variation.
To Elaine's dismay he started for the cliff. ”

“ The smoldering brands in the furnace of rocks could not be permitted to die away in ash. Elaine had undertaken the maintenance of this, their altar spark, which rarely rose to a flame. She was safe enough to come and go from the passage entrance to the nearby furnace Grenville had moved to facilitate her duties, but the smoke seemed far more stifling and hot than it had the previous day, while, with headache, thirst, and a heaviness in all her weary being, the endlessly cheerful and courageous little companion of Grenville's maddening ordeal felt ready to drop and rise no more. ”

“ But the constant, underlying worry was—when would the tiger arrive?
Elaine's suggestion was a bother. Might there not be hogs so plentiful, quarry so readily captured, that the overdisdainful monarch would prefer warm meat to cold?
There was no mysterious cipher to be studied here to-night. There was nothing, in fact, with which to pass the time. Not even a new speculation concerning the cave and the rotting barque arose to give him entertainment. The haunting, suggestive stillness engulfed him where he sat. The world below had merged in one featureless gloom. ”

“ A single spark flew hotly from the flint. It seemed to curve to the outside edge of the powder. Instantly, however, the mixture was ignited.
It did not burn in a quick, fierce flash, but more with a sputtering, imperfect combustion, productive of stifling fumes. Grenville's hand was slightly scorched—but his joy in the triumph was complete.
"We're kings!" he cried, sublimely indifferent to genders. "We're monarchs of all we survey!" He leaped up, waving his flint about his head, his face outbeaming the sun.
Elaine was vaguely glad of his results. ”

“ Grenville, almost wholly convinced that man seldom or never visited the place, and puzzled to account for a fact so extraordinary, now emerged at the edge of a natural clearing and promptly discovered a small patch of sugar cane, reared above the grass and vines. He was certain that man had brought it to the island.
A half minute later he underwent a decidedly complex set of emotions. He was barely five feet ahead of Elaine, who was following blindly in his trail, a prey to new dreads of all the sounds about them, when he halted in a tense and rigid attitude of alertness. ”

“ He came once more to the main trail through the island, pausing to hearken once again as a sound of splashing in the inlet came uncertainly on the breeze. Doubtless the crew had dipped a pail of water, he thought, or thrown overboard some refuse from their dinner.
He had no more than headed again towards the hill where Elaine was waiting, and swung about from the branch to the principal trail, when, without the slightest warning sound, he suddenly and heavily collided with someone moving as noiselessly as himself in the opposite direction. ”

“ To adjust the barrier solidly in place might readily prove fatal. To leave it loose, a palpable sham where all should appear as solid wall, was scarcely less of a risk.
Holding it firmly, lest it slip, and peering breathlessly out through the chink which it failed by an inch to cover, Grenville beheld three half-naked forms, incredibly magnified and diabolized not only by the torch they held, but also by the shadows they cast upon the rocks, and the general aspect of the region, black as Inferno. Three thinner, more furtive fiends of the nether abyss would have been hard, indeed, to imagine. ”

“ But wounded men were staggering downward, in blind retreat, already abandoned by their unscathed companions, in flight below the gate.
Grenville had run to his store of bombs, instead of coming straight to the gun. He meant to be prepared against a second attack. As his active figure now appeared where he hastened brinkward, watching both trail and clearing, Elaine beheld him at last. She arose and stumbled towards him, her feet still heavy with her dread, her heart wildly leaping in joy. ”

“ For Grenville, however, there could be no sleep, though the darkness rendered up no further sound. Like the outer sentry of a picket-line, with the enemy close, and his whereabouts unknown, he glided silently from one dark edge of the terrace to another, as the hours wore on, alert for the slightest alarm.
He finally sat by the head of the trail, convinced that the visitors would give him no trouble till morning, yet guarding the only way by which they could gain the summit of the hill. ”