THE ELK-HUNTERS.
FOR some time after the departure of their friends, Wilson and Haverly sat yarning, the latter arousing the admiration of the engineer by his thrilling stories of train robberies and Indian fighting on the early railways of the States. Then their talk turned upon their absent comrades, and the American had many a tale to tell of Seymour’s daring in the face of dire peril.
So the time passed pleasantly enough, until suddenly, in the midst of a particularly thrilling yarn, Haverly leapt to his feet and strode to the door.
“What is it?” asked Wilson.
“Listen!” was the reply.
From somewhere in the jungle came a chorus of wolfish yelps, succeeded by a faint cry, “Help!”
“It’s Seymour!” cried the engineer, and snatched up a rifle.
Silas darted out on deck, revolver in hand.
“Help!” The cry was repeated, this time much nearer than before.
Quick as thought, Silas skimmed over the gangway, and leapt ashore, closely followed by the engineer.
As their feet touched the shingle, some heavy body burst out of the jungle.
It was the baronet! Gasping for breath and sweating at every pore from his terrible exertions, he plunged madly down the beach, his eyes fixed in a glassy stare of terror.
Suddenly he stumbled over a loose stone and fell heavily. It was the most fortunate fall he ever had; for, as he pitched forward, three great spears hummed out of the fungi, passing close over his prostrate body.
Had he not tripped, he would certainly have been impaled by the murderous weapons.
Emptying his revolver into the undergrowth to secure immunity from further attack, Haverly assisted his friend aboard, and, after a short rest, Seymour told his story.
“Wal!” exclaimed Silas, when the baronet had finished, “I allow this licks all I ever heard! Mervyn carried off by a tricera—what do you call it?—an’ Garth wiped clean out as though he never existed, without you clappin’ eyes on the brutes that attacked him.”
“What do you advise?” asked Seymour hoarsely; “we must act quickly, whatever course we decide upon. There is a chance—faint, I admit—that our friends are still alive, and if we go well armed we may manage to effect their rescue.”
“And you don’t know what sort of brutes these are, that jumped you?” the American questioned.
“Haven’t the least notion,” was the reply; “but I’ll admit they fairly scared me. Those wolfish cries of theirs completely unmanned me. There was something so devilish about the whole thing that my fear got the better of me, and I bolted for my life.”
“Small blame to you,” replied Silas. “We heard a bit of the entertainment here. But now for business. This is how I figure things out. We’ll sink the boat, an’ trot her along a bit further up the coast, in case any of the gentry that trailed you are hidin’ in the mushroom bed there. Don’t think I funk meetin’ ’em; you know that ain’t my style. But it won’t do to take no chances on a picnic of this yer sort. With the lives of our two pards hangin’ on our efforts, I guess we’ve got to hustle some. I assume you can find that gully you mentioned again?”
“Blindfold!” returned Seymour.
“That’s well. If we don’t strike some kind of a trail, my name ain’t Si. K. Haverly. You don’t mind stoppin’ aboard alone, Wilson?”
“Certainly not,” answered the engineer; “but for Heaven’s sake be careful. If you don’t return, and I am left alone, I think I shall go mad in this ghostly hole!”
“I guess it’ll have to be a mighty smart nigger to get the drop on me and Seymour,” Haverly asserted. “Just skip down to your engines, like a good chap, an’ we’ll get a move on.”
Within a few moments the Seal—totally submerged—was moving cautiously up the coast, under the able guidance of the American, while Seymour hastily packed a couple of knapsacks with provisions necessary for their expedition. Not knowing for how long a time they might be absent, Seymour, with the forethought of an old sportsman, stowed away the greatest possible amount of food in the limited space at his command.
Then, filling a couple of cartridge belts, and chopping a handful of cartridges into his pocket in addition, he judged the preparations for the perilous undertaking to be complete.
For four miles the Seal crept along the coast line, then she was once more raised to the surface, and the two friends made ready to disembark.
“Don’t shift the Seal from here,” Silas said as they stepped ashore. “If we are beaten back we shall make straight for the boat.”
“You may depend on me,” Wilson called, and, at that, the two would-be rescuers plunged into the jungle.
For an hour they pressed on, and, realising full well the need for haste, they put forth every effort, while yet making their passage through the fungi as noiseless as possible.
Scarce a word passed between them, and what little was said was in whispers.
To Seymour, fresh from his terrible experience, every fungi-clump concealed an imaginary foe, and every moment he expected to hear the terrifying cry of his enemies.
But they reached the ridge in safety, and, with a final glance round to assure themselves that they were not followed, they descended into the valley, and passed out on to the plain.
Here Silas produced a small electric lantern, which, with his usual forethought, he had brought with him; and, while Seymour kept a sharp watch for enemies, animal or otherwise, he made a thorough examination of the ground around the entrance to the valley.
The footsteps of the mighty Triceratops were plainly to be seen, but of Garth or his captors there seemed no trace for a time.
Then suddenly a smothered cry left Haverly’s lips.
“Jupiter! I’ve got it!”
Seymour hurried to his side. In the ground at his feet, plainly revealed by the light of the lantern, was the impression of a horrible, ape-like foot, and close beside it was the imprint of a boot.
The baronet gave a whistle of astonishment.
“The brute must have been close behind Garth when we turned for the valley,” he said. “See, here are more footprints leading out across the plain.”
With eyes bent upon the trail, the two comrades moved forward over the spongy ground in the direction of the distant hills.
Two miles they covered, then a certain peculiarity about the trail struck Haverly.
“Say, Seymour,” he remarked, “have you noticed? The footprints of the critturs we’re followin’ run close alongside the trail of the Triceratops. I reckon that looks considerable queer!”
“I think I can tell you what it means,” replied the baronet, after a moment’s thought.
“Wal?” Haverly inquired.
“The brutes must have seen Mervyn carried off,” Seymour asserted, “and have followed the trail in the hopes of his being pitched off the animal’s back, when, of course, they could capture him, if he were still alive, without much trouble.”
“I guess you’re right,” returned the American, and once more silence fell between them.
Three hours went by, and then Silas called a halt.
Flinging themselves down in the shadow of an enormous boulder—only one of many with which the plain was dotted—they made a hasty meal.
They were sitting resting for a short time, ere resuming their journey, when, sudden and terrible, the hideous wolf-cry they knew so well trembled over the plain.
Thrice it was repeated; then, as the two men sprang to their feet in expectation of an attack, the sound of running feet broke upon their ears.
The next instant, through the twilight, loomed the monstrous form of a gigantic elk.
“Jupiter!”
“Great Scott!”
The exclamations burst simultaneously from the two men, as the huge bull—almost as large as an elephant—flashed past them. His great tongue was lolling out, and his mighty sides heaved madly, as the breath poured, hissing, through his nostrils.
He was evidently nearly spent, for, when he had covered a score yards or so, he swung round and stood at bay, with his back against a boulder almost opposite to the one in the shadow of which the rescuers were flattening themselves, with their rifles at the ready.
His towering antlers gleamed like silver in the light of a great fungus growing close at hand; yet, for all the vast size of the creature, for all his great strength, there was something indescribably pathetic in the droop of the proud head, and a great feeling of pity rose in the hearts of the watchers for the hunted brute.
“What a magnificent creature!” Seymour whispered; “but where are its——”
His sentence ended in a choking gasp, and his face paled beneath its tan, as, silent as phantoms, six sinister forms glided out of the shadows.
So hideous were they in form that the two comrades stood as though stunned, every energy being completely paralysed by the horror of the things.
Had the creatures attacked Seymour and the Yankee at that moment theirs would have been an easy victory, for neither man could have lifted a weapon in defence; but they apparently had no idea of the presence of other than themselves.
Their long, fearfully-distorted limbs, their hideous feet and hands, armed with talon-like nails, their lean, emaciated bodies, covered with coarse, brown hair; their low, receding foreheads, flat noses, and immense, protruding, wolf-like fangs—all this, crowned by a mass of thickly-matted hair, which hung almost to the loins, seen in the dim, ghostly twilight of the underworld, made up a picture of diabolical horror such as would be difficult, if not impossible, to beat.
Their thick, coarse lips were drawn back in an everlasting snarl, and their bloodshot eyes gleamed savagely as they sighted the motionless figure of the giant elk.
“What are they?” Haverly whispered hoarsely, when the first shock of their appearance had passed, “men or devils?”
“Heaven knows!” was the low answer. “They are more like wolves than either!”
No scrap of clothing did the creatures wear, save a hide girdle, in which was stuck a broad-bladed knife, fit companion to the deadly-looking spear which each carried in its hand.
Straight towards the great ruminant the creatures glided, their faces aglow with savage expectancy.
Half a dozen paces from their quarry they paused, and, squatting on their haunches in a semicircle, raised a series of ghastly howls which thrilled the two spectators.
The great bull trembled at the sound. Doubtless he knew these wolfish brutes of old; perhaps had been hunted by them, and had managed to shake them off. But now his time had come.
Planting his forefeet firmly, he stood with lowered head, awaiting the end.
Suddenly one of the hunters rose. Gripping his spear firmly with his teeth, he crouched for an instant, then leapt into the air.
The amazing height of his leap staggered the watchers, while rousing a grudging admiration.
“The brute must have sinews like watch-springs!” Seymour whispered, then——
A swift, upward flash of the great palmated antlers, a sound like the ripping of sacking, and, with a fearful death-cry, the daring leaper pitched heavily to the ground.
The elk had drawn first blood!
But it was his last effort in a hopeless struggle. Quick as lightning another of the elk-hunters sprang.
High above the bull’s drooping head he leapt, and, ere the ill-fated animal could make another move, the wolfish creature was upon his back, stabbing out his life with his great spear.
A few moments of feeble struggling, and then the elk fell with a crash, the life-blood pouring from his severed arteries.
Scarcely was he down ere the waiting four were upon him, rending the still quivering flesh with their great nails.
“Poor brute!” Seymour muttered compassionately; “let those demons have it, Silas.”
The reports of the two rifles rang out as one, and a couple of the fearsome elk-hunters rolled over upon the carcase of their quarry, the rest diving like a flash to cover behind it.
“I guess we’ll have to wipe them out now,” said the Yankee grimly, “or they’ll bring a hull hornet’s nest about our ears in half an hour.”
A spear flashed up from behind the carcase as he spoke, and, missing Seymour by a hair’s-breadth, shivered itself to fragments against the boulder.
“A close call,” remarked Silas.
“Close indeed,” Seymour returned. “They’ll have one of us next time, sure as fate, if we remain here. Let us move round in opposite directions, and outflank them. Down!” he hissed suddenly, pushing Haverly violently to one side, as a second missile hummed towards them.
His quick action saved the American, who would undoubtedly have been transfixed by the great weapon but for that.
An instant later a hideous head poked up from behind the dead elk.
Seymour let drive with a jerk, but, owing to the uncertain light, missed, his shot striking a monstrous puff-ball growing within a few feet of the spot whereon the carcase lay.
A vivid sheet of flame leapt from the fungus, followed by a terrible explosion, the shock of which hurled Silas and the baronet violently to the ground.
[CHAPTER IX.]
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SEAL.
SOME moments later, when the shock had somewhat passed, the two friends rose, not a little dazed and bewildered.
But their astonishment knew no bounds when they saw that the dead elk and its late hunters had vanished, blown to fragments by the bursting of the explosive fungus. Even the boulder, in the shadow of which the bull had met his doom, had been partly destroyed.
By what marvellous chance the two comrades had escaped the flying fragments they themselves could not imagine, and they moved on their way, feeling deeply thankful that they had escaped the fury of the elk-hunters, and had also come safely through the explosion.
“I guess we’ll have, to be careful what we’re shootin’ at,” remarked Haverly. “This pesky mushroom stuff seems to be made of gunpowder!”
“It got us out of a tight corner, anyway,” returned Seymour; “we should scarcely have come off scatheless but for that explosion. What do you think of the natives of the underworld?”
“I guess they don’t improve on acquaintance,” was the answer. “For sheer devilry they romp in an easy first. Heaven help Garth and Mervyn if they’re in the power of them critters!”
“I reckon ‘wolf-men’ would be a suitable handle for the brutes,” Silas went on, “with a fair marjority of the ‘wolf.’ They’re real stunners! Say, I guess old Darwin could ha’ had a hull heap of missing links if he’d only ha’ burrowed his way down here.”
“I wish the brutes were missing literally,” Seymour retorted.
“We’ll do our best to give ’em that same distinction,” replied the Yankee. “I guess this old planet ’ud wobble along quite as well without these lantern-jawed freaks trottin’ around in her innards. Anyway, the population of this yer desirable location is going to find itself considerable reduced at an early date if our two pards ain’t handed over safe and sound. My barker’s kinder impatient occasionally.”
Another hour went by, and still the dual tracks of Garth’s captors and the great Triceratops stretched before them.
The plain grew more and more gloomy as they advanced, the fungi failing entirely, so that the two had to grope their way as best they could through the dim twilight of this subterranean world; and, though haste was so necessary, Haverly dared not use his lantern, save occasionally, when the trail grew indistinct, lest the light would attract some of the hideous creatures whom he had well named “Wolf-men.”
Suddenly the baronet stumbled over some bulky object lying beside the track.
Recovering himself, he stooped and picked it up.
It was the scientist’s specimen case.
“I assume the professor must have got pitched off somewhere hereabouts,” remarked the Yankee. “You can gamble on it he’s in the same boat as Garth. See, here’s the identical spot where he struck earth,” pointing to a deep impression in the clayey soil.
“Perhaps the fall killed him!” Seymour suggested.
“It may be better for him if it did,” retorted Silas; “Heaven alone knows what tortures these darned, red-haired freaks will be trying on him if he’s a prisoner in their hands; but I guess they’ll hardly have taken the trouble to cart his body off, if he’d been killed by the drop, so let’s get a hustle on.”
Nothing loth, the baronet stepped out briskly again.
Now the trail of the wolf-men led over stony ground, and many precious moments were lost in tracing the faint tracks, sometimes all but invisible. Then it would pass through the midst of some quaking morass, where a false step meant death, and that in a form so hideous that even the boldest could not face it calmly. Yet they kept tenaciously to their task, determined to do their utmost to rescue their friends, or, failing that, to avenge them.
For the most part they proceeded in silence, with hearing strained to catch the first sound of approaching foes; then suddenly to their ears came the noise of rushing waters.
A few paces farther and a great, black chasm yawned before them, splitting the plain in twain. At its depth they could only guess, but in width it appeared to be about thirty feet, and from its black depths arose the roar of a mighty torrent.
“See!” cried the baronet, “the ‘wolf-men,’ as you call them, must have crossed here.”
He pointed to where a frail, hide rope bridge—formed by two long strands united by numerous cross-ties after the manner of a rope ladder—swayed giddily above the abyss.
“It will take a bit of nerve to cross that flimsy thing,” he went on, “but I suppose there’s no other way; so here goes.”
He placed one foot carefully upon the first rung of the bridge, and was about to commit his whole weight to it, when suddenly he was dragged forcibly backward by his companion.
The next moment a knife flashed through the twilight on the farther side of the chasm, and the hide bridge, severed from its fastening, swished downward into the depths, and hung dangling against the rocky wall.
Quick as thought the Yankee’s revolver spoke, and a dark figure, leaping high into the air, hurtled over the brink of the abyss.
“I calculate he was a trifle too previous,” drawled Silas. “The flash of his knife gave the show away, or you’d ha’ been down there by now.”
Seymour gazed into the darkness below, then turned and gripped his friend’s hand.
Not a word of thanks did he speak, but that grip expressed more eloquently than words his gratitude to Haverly for the prompt action which alone had saved him from a fearful death.
“I assume it’s a case of checkmate,” the American remarked after a few moments, gazing ruefully at the dangling bridge. “We’ll have to get back to the Seal, and bring her round past the mouth of this plaguey river.”
“I suppose there’s no chance of the chasm being narrower higher up,” Seymour hazarded, “so that we might jump it?”
“Not an eyeful of a chance,” was the reply. “You can bet your last dollar that if this yer land-crack was jumpable anywhere hereabouts these wolfish brutes wouldn’t ha’ troubled to sling a bridge across. I take it the sooner we get back to the old boat the better for Garth and the professor. Say, what’s that?”
Far away on the plain beyond the chasm an arch of light arose, flashing and scintillating with dazzling brilliance. High into the darkness it towered, like a golden rainbow, and, as the two men watched in amazement, against its shimmering surface appeared a number of strange, black figures.
A few moments it hung thus, then vanished as mysteriously as it had come.
“Wal,” remarked Silas, “I reckon that’s a real caution. What do you make of it, William?”
But the baronet did not answer. He was puzzling over certain of the figures—weird, animal-like forms—which had appeared upon the arch.
Strangely familiar they seemed to him, yet, try as he might, he could not call to mind where he had seen them before.
He was still pondering the matter when they turned to retrace their steps towards the coast, and Haverly, though not knowing the cause of his abstraction, forbore to question him.
A mile of the return journey they had covered when light came to Seymour’s mind.
“I’ve got it” he cried.
“Got what?” asked the millionaire.
“The meaning of those signs on the arch,” was the answer. “I have been trying to recall where I saw those figures before. It has just flashed across me. Do you remember that visit Mervyn and I paid to an island in the South Atlantic?”
“Ayuti?”
“The same. Well, it was there I saw the signs. Both Mervyn and I learnt the language during our stay.”
“Then I take it you can read them hieroglyphics?”
“I can,” returned Seymour. “The six signs meant ‘Leino yos tragumee!’”
“I’d be almighty obliged if you’d translate the same. I guess my list of languages don’t include Ayuti.”
“It is a warning,” Seymour murmured reflectively, “and one that we cannot afford to neglect, though I cannot imagine why it was given, or why it should be in the language of Ayuti.”
“But the translation?”
“Let the white strangers beware!”
“Jupiter! That’s kinder queer,” cried Silas, startled for once out of his composure. “The fireworks were mysterious enough, without this message. I reckon the citizens of this yer location are educated some, for all their peculiar appearance.”
“You surely don’t consider that the wolf-men were responsible for the warning?” asked the baronet in surprise.
“Seems more like a threat than a warning to me,” Haverly rejoined. “I guess they’d hardly hang a message up that all the wolfish freaks in the underworld could see, if they intended to warn us. No pard, you take——”
A screech awoke the echoes of the underworld; there was a whirring of mighty wings, and out of the gloom swooped a monstrous black shape, swift and terrible.
Seymour was knocked sprawling to the ground as the creature flashed past him and vanished again into the darkness whence it had emerged.
The millionaire stared in amazement, then, as his friend rose, he found voice.
“I guess that’s the biggest bat I ever struck!”
“Bat!” ejaculated Seymour, “you don’t mean to say that was a bat?”
“It was nothing more or less,” retorted Silas; “but here he comes again; now’s your chance to get your own back.”
Simultaneously the two men pulled trigger, and the huge creature swooping down upon them, flapped wildly for a moment, then sank heavily to earth, beating the ground madly with its mighty wings.
Its eyes glared savagely at the two comrades, and it made a futile effort to drag itself towards them, seeming to know that they were the cause of its injury.
Half a dozen shots they fired into the great body ere the creature lay still; then, when all movements of the wings had ceased, they moved forward to examine the carcase.
It was, as Haverly had said, a gigantic bat or vampire, armed with hyæna-like teeth and great curved claws that made it a terrible enemy.
Its membranous wings, outstretched, could not have been less than fifteen feet from tip to tip, and it would apparently have had little difficulty in carrying off either of the comrades had it succeeded in gripping one of them at its first swoop.
“What hideous monsters this underworld contains!” exclaimed the baronet disgustedly, as they pushed on once more. “Mervyn would be in raptures could he see that brute. Anything new or strange attracts him like a magnet.”
“I reckon we’ll have to flicker if we’re to save him and Garth,” returned Silas shortly, and increased his pace.
Pressing forward with redoubled speed, every nerve and muscle strained to the utmost, they reached the glade.
A brief rest, then on again until they emerged upon the beach, off which they had left their vessel.
Eagerly they looked for the welcome gleam of the searchlight. But they looked in vain.
The “Seal” had vanished!
A despairing cry burst from the baronet as this fresh misfortune became apparent.
What hope was there for Garth and Mervyn? What chance of their ultimate rescue now?
Even Haverly grew depressed as he thought of the issues at stake. It seemed as though fate itself were against them.
That now, while their comrades’ lives were perhaps trembling in the balance, the vessel, upon whose aid they had relied, should fail them, was a blow indeed.
“Perhaps Wilson’s been attacked, and had to put out from shore,” Seymour suggested gloomily, after standing for some time in moody silence; but the hopelessness of his tones belied his words. In his heart he fully believed that the faithful Seal had vanished for ever.
Vividly to his mind came the adventure of a few days before—the attack of the giant octopus. What if another of the huge cephalopods had attacked the vessel, and had dragged both it and the engineer below the surface!
He shuddered at the thought.
“I reckon we’ll be getting used to reverses shortly,” said the Yankee bitterly.
“He may return,” Seymour answered.
“I wouldn’t gamble on it,” was the retort; “but we’ll camp here awhile, and see if he turns up. If he don’t, I guess it’s a case!” He finished with a significant gesture.
For ten long hours they waited on that dreary beach, waiting vainly for the vessel that was their only hope in this land of eternal twilight.
They slept and watched by turns; but no welcome flash from the searchlight of the submarine made glad their aching eyes, no voice answered their repeated hails.
At intervals they discharged their rifles, caring nought for the risk they ran in so doing should any wolf-men still remain on this side of the abyss.
But no answering report echoed over the water, and at length, fully persuaded that their faithful vessel had disappeared for ever, they turned reluctantly inland once more.