Hammer spared no thought on himself. That he was in any present danger did not occur to him, since he could not suspect the thoughts behind the doctor's heavy-lidded eyes and throbbing band of muscle.
For the jungle smell had entered into the nostrils of the scientist—and whether it be in jungle or forest or sand reaches, no man can taste the loneliness of Nature and hold to his veneer of man-learning.
It is the same whether he be beside the Mackenzie or the Mahakkam, under Kilimanjaro or Tacoma. Once away from his kind, man forgets his kind, for the despotism of the wild overbears all else.
It was so with Krausz and, to a certain sense, with Sara Helmuth; it was so with Hammer, though he did not comprehend it; but if it was so with John Solomon no man could say.
"We are here," exclaimed the girl dully.
The party halted. Without perceiving it in the half-gloom of the overhanging masses of vegetation, they had suddenly come among half-fallen walls, ruined stone structures that loomed far up and were held in place by thigh-thick vines.
Through some had pierced old trees and limbs of trees, yet the walls still held in grotesque mimicry; no roofs were there, but only walls and ruins of walls. And over the place brooded silence, with never a chattering of monkey or parrot's screech to quiver hollowly up.
Hammer felt a twitch at his arm, but shook off the hand of the askari. If the man thought he was going to run for it and leave Sara Helmuth in the lurch, he was much mistaken. Slowly, very slowly, the American saw that men had been here not long before, since in amid the ruins were evidences of clearing—lopped branches piled up in places, flickering shadow-gleams of sunlight that filtered down from somewhere above, and queer white fragments that strewed the ground in spots.
If Krausz saw this, however, he paid small heed, but clambered over a smoothed-out pile of stones, the others following.
"Gott! Truly thiss iss the real place!"