As It Was in the Beginning

by Philip Verrill Mighels

THE ISLAND

The ascent was steep and difficult, so unbroken was the undergrowth, except where jagged and pitted rocks rose grayly on the slope. Bananas, nut palms, and mangoes Grenville promptly noted. Indeed, every tropical tree, shrub, and fruit of which he had ever learned was represented in the thicket, together with long, snake-like creepers, huge ferns, and many plants with which he had no acquaintance.

There was abundant life in all directions. Here, with a grunt, and beyond with a bound of startled surprise, some animal scuttled to cover in alarm at their approach. A small flock of parrots abruptly arose, flashing their brilliant plumage in the sunlight and screaming raucously. Half a dozen leeches, clinging firmly to the fat, green leaves next the ground, where all was moist and shaded, attracted Grenville's notice as they lifted their heads and groped about for flesh upon which to fasten.

Here and there in the tree tops a monkey obscured a patch of sky for a moment and chattered or squeaked a warning to his kind. Grenville, almost wholly convinced that man seldom or never visited the place, and puzzled to account for a fact so extraordinary, now emerged at the edge of a natural clearing and promptly discovered a small patch of sugar cane, reared above the grass and vines. He was certain that man had brought it to the island.

A half minute later he underwent a decidedly complex set of emotions. He was barely five feet ahead of Elaine, who was following blindly in his trail, a prey to new dreads of all the sounds about them, when he halted in a tense and rigid attitude of alertness. Elaine glanced quickly ahead.

Apparently a patch of orange sunlight was lifting from the grass. Then Elaine, too, saw the black, irregular stripes, the huge, topaz eyes, and the lazy movement of a mighty shoulder muscle, as the beast before them arose and blocked their path.

It was not the fact that he had rarely if ever seen a tiger so large that most impressed the man, thus unexpectedly confronted by this unfrightened monarch of the island—the brute bore a collar about his neck, gleaming with gold and the facets of some sort of jewels!

He had obviously once been a captive! He knew the form of man, if not his nature!

For a moment or more there was absolute stillness in that grassy arena, where two world-old enemies stood face to face in their first, preliminary contest of courage. A certain arrogance, a contempt of all possible adversaries, here in his undisputed realm, shone unmistakably in the eyes of the motionless brute. His paunch was rounded significantly. He had recently dined.

Grenville could think of but one thing to do, unarmed as he was, and unwilling to compromise an encounter so vitally important.