Was it Jack?
Shielding his face with his hands, Don attempted to force an entrance, but the heat of the furnace-like doorway drove him back. In frantic accents he called his chum by name—called again and again—to be answered only by the hissing of the pitiless flame-tongues that licked the black heavens.
Was it Jack? Had the natives who escaped—if, indeed, any did—the deadly effects of the explosion, carried him with them in their flight from the burning village, or had he been mercilessly abandoned to a fiery grave within his prison walls?
It was a terrible question; but not that night, nor for many nights to come, was he to know whether those unnumbered moments of unconsciousness had consigned his chum to continued captivity or to death.
One thing only was certain: their mission to the village had reached a disastrous climax. To remain longer where they were was useless; to follow the trail of the natives who had escaped, impossible. No course was left but immediate return to the camp.
Weary, dejected, with aching bodies and aching hearts—for even light-hearted Puggles, heathen though he was, felt crushed by their sad misadventure—they sought the spot where, the axe and lantern had been left, and then set their blackened faces towards the hill.
By this time the moon had risen, making the task of finding the footpath an easy one. Just as they turned their backs upon the beach and the burning village, out upon the tense stillness of the night—a stillness softened rather than broken by the music of the surf—from the shadowy hill above rang the sharp report of a gun.
“Something wrong up there, I'm afraid,” said Don, rousing himself and pausing to listen. “Hullo!” as a second report broke the stillness, “there goes another! Come, Pug, we must pull ourselves together a bit and get over the ground faster. The captain's not a man to waste powder; those reports mean danger.”
“Him maybe another lubberly warmint shooting, sa'b,” Pug suggested.
“Unless I'm very much mistaken, there's something a jolly sight worse afoot,” was his master's uneasy rejoinder as they began the ascent.