“Man gone down here,” he said; “there’s a track.” He knelt and began cautiously feeling along the ground. “Lieutenant, there’s a man gone down here,” he repeated; “gone into the Aleh-Aleh (the long grass); you could see if it wasn’t so black.”
A path of any kind there certainly was not; still, Gerard consented to reconnoitre a short distance, cautiously following the trail.
It turned abruptly, and after a few steps which rendered them clear of the trees, the little party stood enclosed in tall green spikes on every hand.
“’Tis along here to the right,” persisted the fusileer. Here, at least, the dark sky hung free above them, and the air was fresher than in the wood. Gerard hesitated. “We shall lose ourselves,” he said. But even as he spoke a faint purl of human voices reached them, evidently coming from some distance farther on down below. For a moment they crouched, with straining ears. Then “Forward,” said their leader, and they slunk through the labyrinth, with constant precaution lest any weapon should catch, pausing to hearken, seeking the sound.
Their pulses quickened as they realized that it was drawing nearer. After a slow descent, which seemed wellnigh endless, they could even distinguish a flow of sound in suppressed but eager torrent. It was impossible to distinguish words, yet suddenly each man’s heart asked the self-same, silent question: Why were these Achinese marauders, with whom they were on the point of colliding, conversing in Malay? The voice ceased.
The Aleh-Aleh broke off unexpectedly on the ridge of a steep incline. Gerard, slipping forward, sprang back under shelter, not a moment too soon. In the sudden opening he had descried above them, a little to the right, as the fusileer had foretold, a dozen of the enemy grouped on a narrow, bamboo-protected ledge round a tiny, low-burning lamp. Cautiously he now peeped forth, and by the feeble flicker recognized the wretched Popa, bound and stripped to the waist, in the centre of the group.
“There,” he said, pointing. “Forward.” Slipping and crawling along the edge, so as to keep clear of the swish of the grass, the men followed him up. Under them the abyss fell straight.
On the skirts of the little plateau they stopped. They could now plainly perceive that Popa had a gaping klewang wound across his shoulder. What feeble light there was had been turned full upon the prisoner, the wild forms of his captors sinking away into the darkness. They have been arguing with him, reflected Gerard, trying to induce him, by the usual horrible threats, to desert. Judging by the man’s countenance, they had now accorded him time to consider.
Even while his comrades stood watching, waiting—to shoot were to imperil the central figure—the allotted moments must have run themselves out. One of the Achinese sprang to his feet, his big gold button twinkling, and with a hideous flash of his scimitar across the dilating stare of the soldiery, he swept off one of the prisoner’s ears. Another started up with a similar movement, but before he could fling himself forward a shrill chorus of shrieks overflowed on all sides. Somehow, he can never tell how, Gerard was up on the ledge, in the midst of them; Popa’s assailant had fallen, shot through the breast; a dozen distorted, yelling faces were seething around the drawn sword of the “Wolanda.”