As It Was in the Beginning

by Philip Verrill Mighels

"Now, if ever!" muttered Grenville, half aloud, and impelled by a new and reckless desperation, increased by his thirst and his impotent rage at the creatures still feeding the fumes that Elaine could not avoid, he sent his craft swiftly landward, thankful, at least, for the mild disturbance of breaking ripples on the shore that would drown what slight noises he might make.

Tempted to moor his float outside the estuary, he readily agreed it might thereby lead to his discovery, and must, as a matter of fact, be completely concealed in the shadows of the pool. Excited now by the possibility that his catamaran, with the oars and rowlocks, might still remain in its former harbor, he was doomed to prompt disappointment on gaining the estuary basin. There was nothing whatsoever in the place.

His jugs and paddles he had placed upon the sand. It was only the work of a moment to draw his float across the bar and gently thrust it away from sight beneath the overhanging verdure. Then he stood there, knee-deep in the water, straining his ears for the slightest sound of the Dyaks stirring in the thicket.

Only the drone of a halting voice was wafted to the place. In silence he concealed his paddles, and took up his jugs, to wade with the utmost caution up the pool, towards the spring that formed its source. The water about him was brackish, from its mixture with the tide.

Deeper and deeper grew the basin. The water had risen to his waist. He sank in steadily with every step, despairing now with the sickening thought he might be compelled to swim. Such a task, with two filled jugs, would be impossible, as he bitterly realized. But on he went, as noiselessly as before.

The water was now about his breast, and he held his jugs above it. Something gently nosed against him—and gave him a start. Thoughts of the tropic serpents so frequently inhabiting the water, chilled a thin channel down his spine. Then he saw that the thing which might have been a reptile head was the cork and neck of a bottle. He dipped down and caught it between his teeth, more gratified in all his being than if it had been a thing of gold.

It almost seemed to the man like a sign that the tide of ill-fortune had turned—the tide of luck. He had certainly passed the deepest section of the estuary; he was rising on higher ground.

To avoid the soundings of dripping water, ready to fall from his clothing, he proceeded more slowly than before. When at length he came to a strip of barren sand, he rested his jugs, withdrew the cork from his bottle, and was gratified to detect the odor of stale beer, or stout, which the thing had formerly contained. He rinsed it then and there, to make it sweet, and crowded it into his pocket.

When he once more took up his jugs, to resume his quest of drinkable fluid, he was presently confronted by an exceptional tangle of the shrubbery, arching the tortuous windings of the estuary's head. Here he found himself obliged to pause and noiselessly bend back or break a number of the slender branches before he could wade as before.

He started some small nocturnal animal out through the growth, and the rustling disturbance made by the beast was heard by the Dyaks beyond. One of them called out sharply. To Grenville's complete astonishment and dismay another man, barely a few yards off, replied with a species of grunt. The fellow had come there, either to visit or to set a snare, and must have believed he had frightened the animal himself.