No answer. Central had cut me off again. I rang the bell until my arm was lame, and listened breathlessly. All was still. I dropped the receiver and tumbled out of the hut, determined to throttle one of the freight-carriers. In the middle of the stream I slipped on a stone and fell on my knees, the water up to my arm-pits. The startled ducks ran away before me. I snatched up a club, and ran after them through the village and back to the creek again. The inhabitants ran screaming behind me. I threw the weapon at the nearest fowl. It was only a joint of bamboo, and fell short. The ducks took to the water. I plunged in after them, and once more fell sprawling.
Before I could scramble to my feet, a shout sounded near at hand. I looked up to see the squad of soldiers breaking out of the jungle. They halted before the government bungalow, and watched me with deep-set grins as I came toward them. The sergeant, understanding the motions I made, offered us places around the common rice heap. I returned to the rest house for my garments. The villagers were driving their panting ducks homeward. The Australian struggled to his feet and waded the stream once more, joining the soldiers on the veranda of the government bungalow. Their porters brought huge wet leaves to protect the floor, and built a fire within. Half an hour later the troopers rose to their feet, shouting, “Kin-kow! Kin-kow!” (“Eat!”) We followed them into the smoke-choked building. In a civilized land I would not have tasted such fare as was spread out on that banana leaf in the center of the floor, to win a wager. At that moment it seemed food fit for a king.
We slept with the soldiers in the telephone bungalow. James’s fever burned itself out, and he awoke with the dawn, ready to push on. For the first few miles we followed a path below the telephone wire. In stumbling over the uneven ground my shoe-laces broke again and again. Well on in the morning I halted to replace them with stout vines. The Australian went on ahead. Before I had overtaken him the path divided into two paths, and the wire disappeared in the forest between the two trails. I hallooed to my companion; but the rain was coming down in torrents, and the voice does not carry far in the jungle. I struck into one of the paths; but in less than an hour it faded and was lost. I found myself alone in a trackless wilderness.
The sort of jungle through which we cut our way for three weeks. Gerald James, my Australian companion, in the foreground.
Here was a misfortune indeed. The Australian had carried off the compass; our money was in my bundle. What chance was there of finding each other again in hundreds of miles of untraveled wilds?
I set a course by the sun, and for three hours fought my way up the wall-like face of a mountain. To crash and roll down the opposite slope took me less than a third of that time. In the valley, tucked away under soaring teak trees, was a lonely little hut. A black-toothed woman in a short skirt squatted in the shade under the cabin, pounding rice in a hollowed log. The jungle was humming its sleepy tune. I climbed to the veranda and lay down, certain that I had seen the last of James, the Australian. Under the hut sounded the thump, thump, thump of the pestle.
But it was not by loafing in the shade that I should beat my way through to civilization. I soon rose to my feet and arranged the things in my bundle again. If I could only hire a guide. Hark! The sound of a human voice came faintly to my ear. No doubt the owner of the hut was returning from a morning hunting trip. I listened attentively. Then off to the right in the jungle rang out a familiar song:
“Oh, I long to see my dear old home again,
And the cottage in the little winding lane.