Part 13 (1/2)

CHAPTER XV--HOW I BEHELD A MIRACLE

I found a place where I could rest and eat; and there I cut steaks from the deer with a quaint knife which had been given me by Atupo--for I now prided myself on being a hunter of experience--and made a fire of dried sticks and leaves.

The heat of the night was excessive, and I had little need of the warmth; but I was glad of the light of the flames, for I was still much shaken by my adventure with the great constrictor, and had imagined vague, savage enemies amid the dark thickets that hedged me in.

It will be noted that I have referred to the snake as a ”constrictor”; but, from this, it must not be thought that the monster was a boa. The family of the boas, known scientifically as the _boidae_, contains many species which are to be found in all parts of the world: the diamond snake of Australia, the rock python of Natal, the Indian python, and the great South American genera--the anaconda and the true boa-constrictor.

All these reptiles are remarkable for the partial development of hinder limbs, proving conclusively that the snakes and lizards are nearly related to one another. These rudimentary limbs, however, are not visible in the living animals, being covered by the skin, but are quite evident in their skeletons. It is also of interest to remember that birds have evolved from reptiles, the forelegs having been converted into wings.

All the constrictors kill their prey by crus.h.i.+ng, and none have poison-fangs; and though these species are, with one or two exceptions, the largest snakes in the world, they move, whether in the water or among the tree-tops, in absolute silence. That which I myself attacked was undoubtedly an anaconda; and I know this for sure, because, though the light was bad, I distinctly saw two rows of great, dark spots upon his back, and not a black chain, which is the distinguis.h.i.+ng mark of the boa-constrictor. Besides, the anaconda is essentially a water-snake, whereas the boa, though he will take readily to water, lives as a rule among the trees.

Well, though I shudder when I think of the brute, I had no real cause at the time to abuse him, for I might not have slain the deer with my blow-pipe, and I was now supplied with food so long as the meat would keep in that steaming hothouse of a jungle.

I did not sleep so well that night, weary though I was. I think I was not so much afraid as oppressed by an almost overwhelming sense of loneliness.

Quite suddenly I realised, as I sat by my camp-fire, chewing the venison steaks--which were inordinately tough--that I was utterly alone. For weeks I had enjoyed the company of Atupo, and before that of the wild men; and even Amos and his companions, my sworn enemies, had human voices to which I had been wont to listen of an evening by the fire when the day's march was ended. But here was I indeed, alone in the dark wilderness, and I could not but recognise that the woods around me were alive, that life in a thousand shapes and forms was all about me, unseen, but not unheard.

For I listened to strange and little noises everywhere--upon the ground, in the thick undergrowth, among the great trees that towered above me.

My strained ears heard, perhaps, sounds that never were; but I know that great moths came fluttering to my fire, and leaves moved where insects crept and crawled, and now and again some kind of cricket would begin to sing, only to cease quite suddenly, I should think, on the approach of danger.

They all lived, thought I, on sufferance, by the grace of the great G.o.d who made them all, and me as well. For I was one with them, even these little living things of the endless wilderness, encompa.s.sed by so many dangers, at the mercy of the great forces of Nature that might at any moment rise against us and stamp out our little lives.

And I thought, too, of Amos. In the silence and the darkness, my old dread of the man returned; and I asked myself where was he all these months, and what were he and his companions doing?

I knew that, like myself, he had been searching for the Treasure in this same Wood of the Red Fish; but I could not think that he was still in the neighbourhood. At the time, of course, I knew nothing of Forsyth's wound, which had delayed Baverstock so long; and when I afterwards came to work the matter out, I arrived at the conclusion that Amos must have left the wood on the very night when I encountered the anaconda. He then returned to the temple, and, finding both the ruins and the village quite deserted, gave unholy vent to his wrath by burning everything that fire could touch. He then came back upon his own tracks, by way of the suspension bridge, drawn to the Red Fish like steel to a magnet, for the man's soul itself was magnetised by gold.

And all this time was I searching in the wood. For ten days I roamed here and there, living upon wild fruits and berries, and the birds I slew with my blow-pipe. Atupo had given me certain vague directions, which had seemed clear enough to me at the time. However, the man's knowledge of our language was but imperfect, and the wood itself a veritable maze, a labyrinth of shallow, twisting tunnels, from which the sunlight was eternally shut out.

I wandered daily, lost in very truth, and came often to the Glade of Silent Death, near which place I would never venture to sleep for fear of the great serpent that I knew lay somewhere in the pool.

On the tenth night of my wanderings, I received something in the nature of a shock. I had made my camp-fire somewhat earlier than was my wont, and a small, gay-feathered bird that I had shot and plucked was roasting over the red-hot charcoal, when, of a sudden, a shot from a rifle rang out in the woods not far from where I was.

I sprang to my feet, in a high state of alarm, and kicked the fire broadcast, for I had gone barefooted for so long that the soles of my feet were like leather. And even as I did so, several other shots were fired in quick succession.

I ate my bird half cooked--for I was hungry--and sat in the darkness for hour upon hour, certain that Amos himself was near at hand, and filled with apprehension.

I had a good mind that night to give up my quest, to return to the gra.s.sland, where I could breathe the open air and feel the warmth of Heaven's sun upon me, hoping that thence I might somehow find my way back to the abodes of civilised men. I was sick at heart for want of the sound of a human voice and the sight of those I loved.

What would be my fate in that dark wilderness, armed only with my blow-pipe, if I should fall into the hands of men like Amos Baverstock and Trust? In my thinking, the shots that I had heard could have been fired by no one else. And yet, of my own free will, for three days longer I delayed within the wood; and now, when I can look back upon those wild, adventurous days, I am devoutly thankful that I did.

My own audacity can be explained, I think, by the fact that I was now three parts a savage. I was, as one might say, on friendly terms with danger. Peril and I had sojourned together for so long that I had come to regard even grim Death itself as no such weighty matter. Life was no more to me than to the little wild things that I daily slew for food.

And so, for three days, I continued my searching in the jungle, howbeit acting more cautiously than before, making little noise and pausing frequently to listen.

And then, by chance, I made a great discovery. At the time, in very truth, I did believe that I beheld the manifestation of a miracle; and I warrant that he that reads this will think the same, when I have set down the facts as they occurred.

I came, late of an afternoon, upon an open place where there were rocks among the trees; and between these rocks the ground was soft, the soil quite black, being composed of the decayed vegetation of many tropic seasons. Here I found footmarks of living men, and, moreover, men who were no strangers to leather boots.