As It Was in the Beginning

by Philip Verrill Mighels

They made a splendid noise and smoke, scattering fragments of the tufa far and wide, till a rain of the smaller pieces spattered thickly down in the jungle. Grenville arose from his hiding-place, quite unharmed, and ran about on the terrace crazily, holding his head between his hands for the distant rifleman to witness his discomfort.

The Dyak was overjoyed. He shouted in reckless delight to his kind, who howled like a pack of wolves now certain of feasting. Yet they did not emerge from their places of concealment, nor undertake to bridge the trail, and immediately ascend the hill, as Grenville had somewhat feared.

He crept to a point of vantage, watching the clearing for a demonstration which, much to his gratification, did not arrive. Back once more towards the cliff at the rear he scuttled, beholding the Dyak craft at last heading well around towards the cave. The moment was ripe for his scheme!

Hurriedly creeping to the eastern brink, with one of his firebrands gripped between his teeth, he began a descent of the ladder. Halfway down he paused for breath, and furtively watched, from the tail of his eye, for the boat that should presently appear.

It came within range of his vision silently, and down he continued as before. He could only hope that he might have been seen, for never a sound arose from the crew to make the matter certain. For, perhaps, a distance of twenty feet he must have been plainly in view. The last fleeting sight he caught of the boat, she was putting about with a suddenness enormously exciting to his blood.

That the Dyaks had seen him, and were now intent upon turning away before he should turn and see their boat, and know himself discovered, was an inescapable conclusion. A moment later he was hidden by the ledge, and descended more at leisure, climbing inside the ladder presently, where it hung well out from the overhanging shelf, and so coming down upon his platform, with little or no exertion.

Immediately on landing under the mouth of the cavern, he lifted the platform bodily, disengaged the hooks from the ladder's lower rung, and drew it behind him to the cave. The ladder itself he could not remove without climbing up to the terrace and issuing forth at the hidden door, which would doubtless prove fatal to his plans.

He proceeded at once to his supplementary firebrands, in the larger spread of the gallery. Here all was going well. He extinguished one or two branches of the smoldering wood, to conserve the limited supply. After that it was simply a matter of waiting.

How long it would take for the boat crew to land, inform their fellow head-hunters of what they had seen, and fetch the entire company to capture him, here in the chamber, was not a matter for easy estimation. He hoped it might happen soon.

In this he was doomed to disappointment. The Dyak sailors had seen him, clearly enough. They had hastened back to report this eminently satisfying outcome of their tactics, and the nine eager fiends had then and there commenced their counter scheming. But they meant to commit no errors, assume no unnecessary risks.