Part 5 (1/2)
”Well--doubtless some Simian, in any case,” he answered, having fancied one movement half seen in the trees beyond was made by an ape or a monkey. ”I'd suggest you recall your fondness for fruit for breakfast.”
She comprehended his meaning with amazing promptness. Her face took on its serious expression.
”You don't believe we shall find the island inhabited? We shall have only fruit this morning?”
”I am sure we shall find some fruit,” he said, ”and we must certainly look for water.”
A sense of helplessness and despair attacked Elaine momentarily. She began to wonder, with alarm, how long they might be stranded on the place--and what att.i.tude Grenville might a.s.sume. She had thoroughly comprehended the pa.s.sion of his nature in the outburst she had seen. A sense of distrust she dared not show came creeping to her mind.
”We must make the best of it, of course,” she said, as calmly as possible. ”We can't even light a fire, I suppose.”
”I certainly have no matches,” he answered, cheerfully. ”All I had were in my coat. Suppose we explore the island first and leave despair till after breakfast.”
She met his gaze with fearless eyes that set his heart to pounding.
”I shall never despair,” she answered, more bravely than she felt,--”at least, I shall try to do my part, till we are taken off.”
He understood the challenge in her att.i.tude.
”I felt that from the first,” he answered, easily. ”Perhaps we'd better begin by climbing up to the headland.”
He caught up a short, heavy stick and turned about to force a way up through the rocks and tangled growth between the sh.o.r.e and summit.
And what a figure he presented--even to the frightened girl, whose anger still lingered in her veins--stripped, as he was, to his s.h.i.+rtsleeves, a powerful, active being, masterful and unafraid. With a strange, dreadful sense of isolation and the primitive, aye, even primal, conditions in which they had been cast, she followed helplessly at his heels for their first real look at the island.
CHAPTER V
THE ISLAND
The ascent was steep and difficult, so unbroken was the undergrowth, except where jagged and pitted rocks rose grayly on the slope.
Bananas, nut palms, and mangoes Grenville promptly noted. Indeed, every tropical tree, shrub, and fruit of which he had ever learned was represented in the thicket, together with long, snake-like creepers, huge ferns, and many plants with which he had no acquaintance.
There was abundant life in all directions. Here, with a grunt, and beyond with a bound of startled surprise, some animal scuttled to cover in alarm at their approach. A small flock of parrots abruptly arose, flas.h.i.+ng their brilliant plumage in the sunlight and screaming raucously. Half a dozen leeches, clinging firmly to the fat, green leaves next the ground, where all was moist and shaded, attracted Grenville's notice as they lifted their heads and groped about for flesh upon which to fasten.
Here and there in the tree tops a monkey obscured a patch of sky for a moment and chattered or squeaked a warning to his kind. 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 gra.s.s 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 att.i.tude of alertness. Elaine glanced quickly ahead.
Apparently a patch of orange sunlight was lifting from the gra.s.s. 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!
For a moment or more there was absolute stillness in that gra.s.sy arena, where two world-old enemies stood face to face in their first, preliminary contest of courage. A certain arrogance, a contempt of all possible adversaries, here in his undisputed realm, shone unmistakably in the eyes of the motionless brute. His paunch was rounded significantly. He had recently dined.