Part 28 (1/2)
These things he sahile he stooped, while his lips pressed her bud of a mouth For he kissed her After a fashi+on he did kiss her--though the fu froh he understood how abhorrent was this caress unknown to Orientals--beginning to feel pretty much ashamed of himself But a bit too late
The sa hiers closed on the back of his neck
He screa there while his cry throttled down to a gasp Behind him he could hear the click of steel links; before hiht swaht for life
Because the chain was fastened high and because the beast was yoked between the shoulders he had corip of only onemoment while his blood beat thick and his eyeballs started froarrote A claw tough as a athering the cords andslowly He could only stare at vacancy and dance upon the air and clench the creeper that brought down around hi branches overhead
The creeper held So did not his collar when the eager fingers shi+fted and found a purchase whereby the half of his coat was stripped like a husk of corn At the sudden release he lost footing
He was like one overtaken in a nighted to will an effective movement for escape With safety a led by vines and grasses, tugging htmare was very close, a horror not to be faced, a red fury with gigantic ar his clothes to ribbons as he groveled!
It lasted until the ape took a trick froht him about the body with his feet Then Tunstal's revolver caan to shoot!
When he stood up above the quivering heap and looked about hile the silence dropped in upon him like a ram The walks were empty, the thickets were quiet, the house at the end of the inclosure seeirl She was gone He turned toward the gates They had been closed He ran stuainst them and found they had been locked as well No one caarden drowsed in the warmth of a forenoon brilliant, heavy-scented, tropical!
The last Tunstal re back and forth within those four walls with a useless gun in his fist and the pitiless sun beating upon his head
There is no tradition of thethe fortunes of travelers who step ashore to enjoy the scenery or other benefits But a traveler who carries an ie ticketof the _Lombock's_ stay at the port by the river mouth her first mate found time and occasion for a cryptic ith her captain And the captain was exceeding wroth, for the _Lo on the ebb and he had no mind to miss a tide
”Who d'y'say? Hiot to drynurse every glorified pup of a globe-trotter that takes a sanctified notion to soak hisself?”
Nivin explained at soers!” wished the captain then, a man of strictly professional temper ”Here's this little rat Van Goor been devilin' rub we fed his blessed coolies in the 'tween-decks He says he'll lose a week's labor off the lot before they're fit for work Well, go on, go on If your blighter's such a fool as you say, you better go get hiht--mind that And I wish you joy of the job”
So Nivin cah the same streets and alleys to which he had directed another's erring steps at dawn
He sought a handsoray helree Drunk, probably Even very drunk Possibly violent and uproarious--this was Nivin's fear More likely to be fever-proofed and solidified--this was Nivin's hope Had any seen such a wonder? None had, though a boat the white tuan from the _Lombock_, and there was plain testimony that he had purchased a bottle of arrack for three dollars and a half Singapore silver Beyond that point the trail evaporated Apparently the person of Alfred Poynter Tunstal had dissolved in local liquor
It was the hour of la when the enial and elephantine official in white ducks as by way of being an acquaintance and who beamed upon him from the step ”You los' somebody? Here? My dear fallow, do you sink you are in Calcutta or Kowloon? Nosing happens here to sailormen or whoever
Why, zis is not even semicivilize', wizout one coffee shop! Unless, of course, he actually injuries ze people”
”Ah,” said Nivin
”In zeir pride,” added De Haan reflectively
”And if he did?”
De Haan slossy beard with a deliberate hand the size of a spade He was controller in a district of so had been, and his father before him
”If he did--I cannot say,” he answered ”In such affairs ays remember zese folk haf been alife in ze land a few years before us Who shall say? But it would be so and op-propriate Zere was once a man came to steal liddle stone pictures from old temples in ze hills He wanted ze heads for souvenirs, you see?” He rocked complacently ”I haf seen his head, nicely smoked Which was alzo a souvenir”