He let out a shout such as a demon might have uttered, and, rushing madly forward, with his club upraised, yelled again and again, his aspect one to strike terror to the heart of a giant. He was almost upon the astonished tiger when the brute abruptly fled. The roar the great beast delivered, as he bounded from sight in the jungle, was the sullen note of a creature that obeys, reluctantly, the command of one superior to himself.
"Now, then, a little discretionary haste," said Grenville, quickly returning to Elaine. "I prefer the top of the rocks."
But she did not move, so helpless was her will and so rigid all her being. Once more, with his arm about her waist, Sidney firmly urged her forward, on a beaten trail he took no time to study.
It led in a tortuous manner up the last steep acclivity, where, with every rod, the growth became less luxuriant, and the rocks more thickly strewn. Thus they presently came upon a second natural clearing, a sort of uneven terrace, some fifty feet lower than the dominating headland crowned by the solitary tree.
The trail to this final eminence was plainly scored along a narrow, crumbling ledge, where the volcanic tufa, comprising the ancient upheaval, had for years disintegrated in a honeycomb fashion that left all the bowlders and even the walls deeply pitted.
When they turned about together on this dominating mount, the island lay mapped irregularly beneath them in the purple sea, revealed well-nigh in its entirety.
In all its expanse there was not a sign of a human habitation.
They knew, without a word of argument, they were absolutely alone on this tropic crumb of empire, sole survivors of the frightful wreck, completely ignorant of their whereabouts, and surrounded not only by savage and inimical jungle brutes, but also by some mystery that was not to be understood.
"Well," said Grenville, presently, "such as it is, it's ours."
"Ours," said Elaine. A cold little shiver ran along her nerves, at thoughts of her plight between the man she had called a brute, and the still more savage creatures of the jungle. "Where are you going?" she added, as Grenville moved away.