The Man from Brodney's

by George Barr McCutcheon

"It's easier to forget the dead than the living, they say."

"Don't be too sure of that."

"Ah, there's Selim! Good-bye! We'll have good news for you all, I hope, before long. Keep your eyes on Neenah. She and Selim have arranged a set of signals. Don't lie awake all night—and don't pray for me," he scoffed, in reckless mood.

The three men stole out through the small gate in the upper end of the park. Selim at once took the lead. They crept off into the black forest, keeping clear of the mountain path until they were far from the walls. It was hard going among the thickly grown, low-hanging trees. They were without lights; the jungle was wrapped in the blackness of night; the trail was unmade and arduous. For more than a mile they crept through the unbroken vegetation of the tropics, finally making their way down to the beaten path which led past the ruins of the bungalow and up to the mountain road that provided a short cut around the volcano to the highlands overlooking the mines district in the cradle-like valley beyond.

Deppingham had not spoken since they left the park grounds. He came second in the single file that they observed, striding silently and obediently at the given twenty paces behind Selim. They kept to the grassy roadside and moved swiftly and with as little noise as possible. By this time, their eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness; they could distinguish one another quite clearly. The starlight filtered down through the leafy canopy above the road, increasing rather than decreasing the density of the shadows through which they sped. None but strong, determined, inspired men could have followed the pace set by the lithe, surefooted Selim.

Mile after mile fell behind them, with no relaxation of energy or purpose. Chase found time and opportunity to give his thoughts over to Genevra. A mighty longing to clasp her in his arms and carry her to the ends of the earth took possession of him: a longing to drag her far from the conventions which bound her to a world he could not enter into. Down in his heart, he knew that she loved him: it was not a play-day folly with her. And yet he knew that the end would be as she had said. She would be the wife of the man she did not love. Fate had given her to him when the world was young; there was no escape. In story-books, perhaps, but not in real life. And how he had come to love her!

They were coming to the ridge road and Selim fell back to explain the need for caution. The ridge road crept along the brow of the deep canyon that ran down to the sea. This was the road, in all likelihood, he explained, that the abductors would have used in their flight from the cavern. Two miles farther south it joined the wide highway that ran from Aratat to the mines.

Selim crept on ahead to reconnoitre. He was back in ten minutes with the information that a party of men had but lately passed along the road toward the south. Their footprints in the soft, untraveled road were fresh. The stub of a cigarette that had scarcely burned itself out proved to him conclusively that the smoker, at least, was not far ahead of them.

They broke away from the road and took a less exposed course through the forest to their right, keeping well within earshot of the ridge, but moving so carefully that there was slight danger of alarming the party ahead. The fact that the abductors—there seemed to be no doubt as to identity—had spent several hours longer than necessary in traversing the distance between the cave and the point just passed, proving rather conclusively that they were encumbered by living, not dead, burdens.

At last the sound of voices came to the ears of the pursuers. As they crept closer and closer, they became aware of the fact that the party had halted and were wrangling among themselves over some point in dispute. With Selim in the lead, crawling like panthers through the dense undergrowth, the trio came to the edge of the timber land. Before them lay the dark, treeless valley; almost directly below them, not fifty yards away, clustered the group of disputing islanders, a dozen men in all, with half as many flaring torches.