The Radio Detectives in the Jungle

by A. Hyatt Verrill

In their aircraft, speeding through the sky at eighty miles an hour, the distance from the great river to the lake had seemed nothing. From far aloft, the country had been spread like a map beneath them and from the height of a few thousand feet the lake had appeared close to the big river with only a few miles of winding, forest-fringed creeks connecting the two. But they soon realized that what seemed a short run by aircraft was interminably long when paddling along the twisting waterways in a canoe. They had expected to come out upon the bosom of the Essequibo by nightfall at the latest, but sundown found them still upon the dark and dismal creek surrounded by jungle. As they knew that they could not go on in the darkness, they were compelled to stop and camp for the night.

Fortunately the red-bearded fellow had had the foresight to strip some of the waterproof linen covering from the plane’s wings and this they erected for a tent. They built a rousing fire and tired out with their unaccustomed labor of paddling, stretched themselves on another strip of linen and prepared to sleep. They were no longer worried, all their self-confidence had returned and they joked and laughed to think how the Americans would have all their long trip for nothing and would find only the useless, deserted aircraft at the end of their journey. Their one regret was that they could not be present to gloat over the discomfiture of their enemies and to see their puzzled looks and hear their comments when they found the fugitives flown and were utterly at a loss to fathom the means of their escape.

But despite their feeling of security, they were uneasy. They had nothing to fear for they knew there were no hostile Indians in the country; they had the utmost contempt for any wild animals and they were armed and could protect themselves even if they were attacked. Yet as the hours passed and the myriad strange noises and calls and cries of the wild things shrilled and grunted and croaked through the jungle, the slender highly strung leader tossed uneasily on his hard couch and found himself staring, wide-eyed and sleepless into the blackness of the night. His companion--brutal, phlegmatic and absolutely without nerves, was snoring lustily, and ashamed of his ridiculous fears, the other tried to follow his example.

Then, just as he was dozing off, a low unearthly cry reverberated through the forest, a blood-curdling moan, rising and falling in weird cadence like the wail of a Banshee. At the sound, the noises of frogs, insects and night birds ceased as with one accord and an awful deathly silence followed. With a sharp cry of terror the man sprang up, a cold sweat breaking out on his skin, shivers running up and down his spine and yet his companion slumbered on.

Never in his life had this unprincipled, heartless villain known the meaning of fear, but like all of his sort he was an arrant coward at heart and, though he would be the last to admit it, thoroughly superstitious, and that awful cry, ringing through the midnight forest, was enough to bring terror to the bravest man.

In a vague way he knew that jaguars dwelt in the forest, but Van Brunt had often talked of the bush and had laughed at the idea of a jaguar attacking a human being. It never entered his mind that the moaning scream, like that of a tortured soul, was merely the hunting cry of the big spotted cat. To him it was supernatural, something that could not come from a form of flesh and blood, and trembling and shaking he cowered there under his shelter with straining ears listening for a repetition of the awful sound. For a space he was tempted to arouse his sleeping comrade, but pride stopped him. The red-bearded fellow had not heard the cry, he would scoff at the story, would claim his comrade had been dreaming or had had a nightmare and would curse at being aroused, and so he kept his vigil alone, starting at each sound of crackling twig or rustling leaf, gasping when a frog plumped with a splash into the creek and shivering as he crouched beside the fire.

But the minutes passed, the cry was not repeated, the frogs and creeping things resumed their chorus and at last, utterly exhausted, the man threw himself upon the rough couch and slept.

With daylight the memories of the terrors of the night seemed scarcely more than a dream and, indeed, the man tried to convince himself that it had been a dream and forebore mentioning it to his companion. But all through the day, as they paddled down the creek, he was nervous. He had a strange unaccountable sensation of being followed and from time to time he glanced back, half expecting to see something--he did not, could not imagine what--behind them. So strong was this feeling that when noon came and they stopped for lunch, he insisted upon landing at a small island in the creek and as the red-bearded man had long been accustomed to obeying his chief without question, he made no comment and followed commands.

Throughout the afternoon they paddled on and again sunset found them upon the creek and they began to fear that they had lost their way, that through some error they were following the wrong watercourse and that they would not reach the river by continuing. And yet they could not see how this could be. They had passed no branches or other creeks of any size, the water still flowed in the direction they were going and reasoning that it must eventually empty into a larger stream, they dismissed their fears on this score, decided that they had miscalculated the distance and the speed of their canoe and prepared to camp.

The leader, however, had no desire to repeat his terrifying experiences of the preceding night and once more he headed the canoe for a tiny islet in the stream. Leaving his companion to start the fire and prepare for the night, he followed about the shore of the island, pushed through the tangle of brash, investigated it thoroughly, and convinced that there was nothing on the place which could possibly be feared, he returned with an easier mind to the camp.