CHAPTER XXVI
AFTER TO-MORROW——
The truth of his loss was hardly to be credited as Grenville continued to stare below where the hollowed log had been.
There was not a sign of a living thing in the clearing or near-by jungle. There had been no sounds of unusual movement in the thicket, he was sure, or otherwise he must have wakened. No voices had spoken, since his ears had all but ached to catch the slightest disturbance.
On the blue of the sea, so tremendously expanded from this particular point of vantage, there was not a hint of a sail. But the fact remained his boat was gone, with all the work it represented, and all the hope their situation had centered upon it for them both.
An utter sinking of the heart assailed him. His moment of sleep, he told himself, could have been no more treacherous had it been planned by a scheming enemy to complete their abandonment to some rapidly impending fate. And yet had he waked in the gray of the dawn, with his bombs and fuses still too damp for employment, and his cannon planted only to guard the trail, the boat could hardly have been saved. At most, his protest would merely have betrayed the fact he was camped there on the terrace.
A new line of thought sprang into his brain, as one suggestion after another was swiftly deduced from his loss. The natives who had landed and carried off his precious craft must certainly have found the wall with which he had barred the trail. He could hardly doubt they knew of his presence on the hill. They might even now be lying in wait to get him the moment he appeared.
His preconceived theory, that they dared not land while those tidal sounds still haunted this end of the island, received a shattering blow. Their craft was doubtless hidden now behind either one of the other lofty walls comprised by the neighboring hills. The thieves had cut off all possible hope of his escape with Elaine by means of his solid, if crude, canoe, and could finally starve them on the hill, if they had no courage for a battle.
Yet how had they happened on his boat and why had they removed it? That they must have carried it bodily down to the shore, through the jungle, was absolutely certain. And this, he thought, argued a half-dozen men, though it might have been done by four.
He remained there, stunned by this utterly defeating discovery, watching the thicket for the slightest sign that might betray the presence of the enemy and revolving the proposition over and over in his mind. When at last he admitted that the natives might have known the log was lying there, if they had not indeed prepared it with fire for some of their uses the previous year, he was more than verging on the facts. They had felled it solely for a boat—and much of their work he had completed.
This line of reasoning did not, however, serve to quiet further questions. The visitors must certainly have wondered how it came about that the log was so nearly hollowed. The clay, still plastered upon it, must have suggested to their minds the work of a craftsman minus tools. That the workman must be present on the island would be more than suspected, since his boat was not even launched.
They might suppose the tiger had captured and devoured him—always admitting they knew of the brute's former presence on the place. It seemed far more likely to Grenville they had found his tracks about the spring, his gate on the trail, and the signs of his recent fires and general activity about the region of his smelter, and would therefore conclude he was still encamped on the hill.
He could fancy a half-dozen pairs of maliciously glittering eyes fastened even now upon the crest and edges of the terrace, all hidden by the thickets. Had the poisoned dart from a blowpipe come winging swiftly up from the shadows of the foliage, he should not have been surprised.
But not a leaf below him was disturbed. Not a sound arose to warn his eager ears. With a sense of bitter rage and humiliation in all his system, he finally crept once more to the trail, and beyond it to the cliff's final shelving.
From this extremity of the heights new aspects of the island were in view, as well as different expanses of the sea. His keen eyes searched the jungle and the clearings first, with no more results than before.
It was not until he gazed afar, on the darkening silver of the waters, that his search was at all rewarded. Even then, for a moment he was not wholly convinced that what he saw was not a spearlike leaf of foliage projected beyond the clean-cut edge of the farthest of the island's tufa towers.
But the angle of color detached itself and receded in far perspective. It was plainly the sail of the visiting craft, previously hidden from his sight by the hill at the island's end. It was already far on a northern course, where he should not have thought to find it. The freshening breeze was heeling it over gracefully; it would vanish in less than half an hour.
He wondered instantly—had they towed away his boat? Or might they have left it moored in some inlet of the island, to be taken upon some future visit?
Stifling an impulse to hasten down the trail, and aware that one, or even more, of the natives might have been left concealed upon the place, to ambush himself and Elaine, or anyone else suspected of being present on the rock, he remained behind his barrier of stones, no less cautious than before.
The fact that the entire morning passed in apparent security, with never the flicker of a leaf below to advertise a lurking menace, could not suffice to render Grenville careless or overconfident. He had told Elaine of their loss—which worried her less than himself. Together they maintained an all-day vigilance, half expectant of the sailing-craft's return and keyed to the highest tension of expectancy at every stirring of a shrub below them in the jungle.
Grenville finally armed himself with his bow and straightest arrow, to descend the trail, go quietly over to the spring, and then to the spot from which his boat had vanished. About the pool of crystal water there was not so much as a track of human boots or feet, other than his own. There were none to be seen about the foot of the trail, where there was ample dust in which they might have been recorded.
Where his boat had lain, with its end on a rock, there were far fewer footprints in the ash and soil than Sidney could have believed possible, judging the visitors at only four in number and their task not particularly light. Apparently, however, they had landed down beyond the jungle, proceeded straight to the log, and, wasting no time in wondering how it chanced to be covered with clay or hollowed to a shell, had taken it up, to depart with it as swiftly and directly as possible.
Even his tools still lay beside the hollow tree utilized for a smelter. The one explanation that addressed itself to his mind as being plausible was that the visitors, knowing of the log and having planned to secure it, perhaps in merely passing by the island, had come ashore so soon as the first faint gray of dawn broke the shadows of the jungle, when they had taken their prize and halted for nothing, not even a search for whatsoever tools they must have seen had been employed.
Once more his original theory of their superstitious fright of the island's "haunt" seemed to Grenville to be confirmed. He felt the natives had sneaked ashore—not in fear of himself, since they could not have foreknown his presence on the hill, but in possible fear of some spirit of the place whose wailing filled them with dread.
Barely less cautiously than heretofore, he followed the faintly imprinted trail of the boat's mysterious abductors, where it led across the clearing. He was certain now that a cleared path did exist where he had partially explored the previous morning. But branches and shrubbery had been freshly cut, as if to insure the silent passage of the log.
The lane thus created through the thicket led directly down an easy slope to a broken bit of seawall at the bottom. This, at high tide, would be scarcely a foot above the water. Here the log had undoubtedly been rested. Both broken clay and a charcoal smudge recorded the unseen fact.
The entire inlet was no more than twenty feet across. It was bounded on either side by pitted walls that permitted no access to the jungle. The last faint hope of again beholding his precious boat now vanished from Grenville's mind. It had not been moored, nor probably even towed, but doubtless loaded bodily on the visitor's deck, to be taken to parts unknown.
But, if this heavy fact sunk home in his breast, the man was somewhat relieved, at least, concerning a probable native left behind. He felt practically certain that none of the crew of the native craft had stepped beyond his clearing. How much they might guess as to who had hollowed the heavy log was another matter altogether. He knew that their tale would be widely told—and felt that developments would follow.
He went to Elaine, to whom he owed a report.
"I think we're alone on the place," he said, and related all he had discovered. "We may as well re-light our fires," he added, in conclusion, "and eat the best our sunny possessions afford."
Elaine could not so promptly recover from all she had undergone. She still sat staring at his face, a prey to confused emotions.
"Suppose they had really been friendly, after all—and we let them go and leave us here like that?"
"In that event they may return, since the boat will excite a bit of wonder."
"You mean they will know, of course, that someone must be here who made it?"
"It certainly tells that story rather plainly."
She was thinking rapidly.
"Then—if they shouldn't happen to be friendly, they would know it all just the same—and may still come back to—look us up?"
Grenville nodded.
"I shall certainly go to work with that chance in view."
"Yes," she agreed, "we'll certainly do all we can. But another boat would take you weeks! After all your patient, tedious work—to have it stolen like that! Oh, I could cry, if I weren't so vexed and sorry!"
Grenville smiled despite his sense of loss.
"Perhaps I can rig some sort of a catamaran," he answered. "But for day and night sailing, such as we would doubtless have before us, the best of boats would be none too comfortable."
"And we don't know where to sail."
"Well—not precisely."
"Then—what is the first thing to do?"
"Cook and devour a hearty dinner."
"But after that—to-morrow?"
"Thank God for peace—and prepare for war, meanwhile praying it may not come."
Elaine was grave, but her voice was clear and steady.
"You think it will—that a fight will come? ... I'd much rather know the worst."
"So would I!" said Grenville, cheerfully. "We can't. We can only get ready to acquit ourselves like—well, like gentlemen, and keep out an eye for a steamer.... Would you mind retreating to the cave I found, if dire necessity arose?"
"I'll go wherever you tell me," she answered, with a smile that went to his heart. "But of course I can't help wishing that a steamer would really come."