Part 10 (1/2)

Accordingly, one morning I set forth into the forest, accompanied by a guide. I was dressed in the remnants of my s.h.i.+rt, tied like a kilt about my waist, and carried a ten-foot blow-pipe and a score of darts; and beyond these I had neither arms nor clothing. I was just a white savage in a great dark wilderness, with my life in my own hands and all Nature at war against me. And I doubt if I can even say that I was white, for I was now tanned almost to the colour of the wild men amongst whom I had lived.

In three days, by easy journeys, my companion and I came to the margin of the woods, to the great plain of waving gra.s.s, in the midst of which the Temple of Cahazaxa stood upon a hill-top.

I begged of the man to come with me, to serve me as a servant, making vague promises of reward which I am sure he did not understand; and though, as I could see, the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak; for he fell down upon his knees before me, trembling in all his limbs, craving permission to return.

I could not be heartless. From the tribe I had never received anything but kindness. But permission to be gone was not all the simple fellow wanted; for, when he saw that I was determined to go alone upon my way to the ruins on the hill-top, he again fell down upon his knees, and implored me to return with him.

In so far as I could take his meaning, the old temple was infested by ghosts and evil spirits. Singular things for centuries had been known to happen among those grey, worn stones: weird singing had been heard and strange coloured lights had been seen of nights, and no man of the forest who had ever ventured to the hillock had as yet returned alive.

To speak true, these fables--though I believed no word of them--did but whet my appet.i.te for action. I had a taste for danger. For the first time in my life, I was conscious of my own individuality. Man or boy, I was free. I had a part to play upon the stage of life, and the wide world was my scene. I, too, was upon the same quest as Amos: the hunt for the Greater Treasure. It was as if something within me urged me to go forward, like a knight-errant of old, placing my firm trust in Providence; and I now have little doubt that it was the voice of Destiny that spoke within me.

And so I bade farewell to the forest tribesman, whom I left upon the verge of tears, believing in his heart of hearts that I was as good as doomed; and with a light heart and my blow-pipe, I went my way across the plain, towards the hill upon which stood the ancient Temple of Cahazaxa, whilst the sun was sinking in the sky.

CHAPTER XII--THE PATH OF THE TIGER

It was near upon the time of sunset when I slowly climbed the hill. I could not take my eyes from the great stones before me, many of which must have been at least ten square yards in surface area, and cut so straight and square that, without cement or mortar, they fitted one against the other as nicely as a child's wooden bricks. I wondered how they had come there, by what means they had been transported and lifted into position; and I marvelled that an ancient people should have been masters of such science.

But it was not this alone that caused my footsteps to become slower and slower as I approached the ruin. Despite myself, I could not help remembering much that the wild man had said to me of ghosts and evil spirits.

In the dim evening light, wreathed in the mist that rose from the surrounding plain, those great pillars of cold, silent stone looked not to belong to this world of common things. Towering, as they did, above the tree-tops of the forest, they made me think of the enchanted palaces of which in childhood my mother had read to me from fairy tales. If there were ghosts anywhere in all the world, they were here--and I was sure of that.

This notion got the strongest hold of me; and presently, a cold sweat broke out upon my forehead, and I wished that I were back with the wild men in their woodland village. However, I had more pride than to retreat, and that at the eleventh hour; and I continued to go forward, though something after the manner of a condemned man towards the gallows.

As it grew darker I became more afraid. Night in those tropic lat.i.tudes comes suddenly; darkness falls like a curtain upon a stage; and when I had gained the outer pillars, which formed together an encircling colonnade, there was scarce light enough for me to see a distance of thirty yards.

Within the circ.u.mference of these outer pillars--which attained upon an average a height of about fifty feet--was a great roofless building with a floor of flagstones, where the silence quite unnerved me. It was more oppressive than the silence of the forest, where I had always been conscious that one was surrounded by Life in a million forms: plants, insects, and animals--all at war that they might live.

But this place seemed dead, save for vast colonies of small red ants whose bite was poisonous; for I had not been there a full minute before I was bitten from head to foot, and there were painful weals all over me.

It was plain I could not sleep amid the ruins as I had intended. Not only would the ants torture me almost to distraction, but the place was uncanny, and I could now well understand how those ignorant woodlanders believed it to be haunted.

I was about to go, and had actually turned towards the main entrance, which I could see quite clearly in the light of the newly-risen stars, when a sound came to my ears that was so like a groan that I felt my blood run cold.

I stood transfixed, more frightened than bewildered. Looking about me on every side, straining my eyes in the semi-darkness, I could see nothing. I was convinced that there was no one in that vast chamber save myself and the red ants. And yet the groan came again, louder than before.

I tip-toed across the room, my heart throbbing like an engine. And like a frightened child, I hid myself in a corner; for I had no convictions any longer, and I wished only to be somewhere where I could not be seen.

Then a spider descended upon me from somewhere high up the wall. And you may laugh at me when I say that I sprang to my feet and dropped my blow-pipe and let out a cry that was very near a shriek. But you would never have laughed had you been placed as I was, seen that spider, and felt upon your shoulders his restless, furry legs. For this was no common spider that eats flies and gnats, but a bird-devouring brute, the size of a saucer; and this is no exaggeration when one takes into account the full extension of his legs.

As I fled, I picked it from off me with my hand, and threw it away; whereupon I found that it had covered my fingers with a disgusting and sticky saliva. I am only thankful that it had no time to bite me, for I believe the bite of these terrible insects has been known to prove fatal. They build webs of such strength and solidity that birds as large as sparrows are caught in the toils and killed; and I have heard it said that these monsters also ascend trees, drive hens from their nests and then devour their eggs.

However, this is no treatise upon Natural History. He who wishes to know more of this horrid creature may read of it in recognised works of science. For myself, to have felt once its quick, hairy legs upon my bare neck and shoulders is enough for many a day, and the thing may belong to any species and genus that it likes, so long as I never set eyes upon one again.

For I was thoroughly scared; I had become as jumpy as a bean on a hot plate. I trust that I am not by nature a coward; but the atmosphere of that ghostly, misty place, the mysterious groans that I had heard, which had seemed to come from nowhere, and the long-legged, furry spider, had all so played upon my nerves that I knew neither what I was doing nor what would happen next.

I had made, in any case, as much noise as a harlequinade. I had cried out at the top of my voice and had sent my wooden blow-pipe rattling to the ground. And then I stood motionless, breathless, waiting--as it seemed--for some new calamity.

This time it was no groan I heard, but a human voice calling, at first loudly, and then more softly, in a strange foreign tongue.