Steering now for the bank which was just below the upper rapids, and appearing to row with all possible haste, I had the extreme satisfaction of seeing our mad pursuers swarming toward the rocks where the stream could be leaped at a bound. So eagerly did they push and crowd, when they came to the place, that some, who paused undecided at the brink, were shoved headlong into the angry current. But no sooner was I sure that the ruse had succeeded than I swung the boat, as if she had been on a pivot, and sent her shooting down the stream with might and main.
Shrieks of rage and dismay burst from a hundred throats as the baffled demons suddenly comprehended my game. With all their speed, and in a frenzy of fury, they came running and climbing and swinging back. But this time I had the double advantage of a shorter, straighter route and the force of all the current to sweep me along. I rowed like an engine; the race was a race for life or death. Every muscle was strained, every volt of the superhuman dynamic, developed by the peril of our position, surged upward to drive us onward, toward that narrow gate of safety.
We neared it; we were far ahead of the mob; I saw victory smiling in the sun-lit jungle beyond. Like a hideous black comet, then, athwart my line of vision, a Link suddenly swung across the river, on one of the creepers that spanned the space between the banks. He reached the branches on the opposite side. Instantly another one followed. I groaned, for evidently they had been left there to guard the pass. Another and yet another swung across. They quickly formed a “monkey-bridge” and hung suspended above the water like a sagging hammock—not from the creepers, which would have broken, but each from the arms of his neighbour. In less than half a minute their line was complete. We were still driving toward them.
“Oh, the horrible old woman!” cried the girl, in affright.
I realised then that more than half the creatures in the bridge were females; and out across them came swinging that she-devil who had caught me with the gold, and whose fingers I had severed, and whose ribs I had skinned—the harpy who had watched the goddess like a hawk.
She meant to lean down over the ones in the bridge and clutch the girl, as we shot beneath their bodies. Then others quickly joined her who intended to snatch for Fatty and myself. It was diabolically clever. If ever they reached us with those powerful arms, they could hold us against a team of pulling horses.
To turn now meant to abandon all hope; the Links who were tearing after us behind, once fooled could be hoaxed no more; and all would be more than ever infuriated and likely to swamp the boat. It looked like a swift and awful death.
In a heat of uncontainable rage myself, I stood up, as we swept toward the rapids, and grabbing my bow, strung an arrow in desperate haste and drew for a shot, which fury made vicious and fierce. I had become so angered that I seemed to care nothing for what could happen. The arrow sprang away like a streak of light. Just at that second the line of Links slipped down a foot. In the brief time before the shaft could arrive, my heart sank with dread—the slip of the target had ruined my shot.
But like the angered messenger of hate which it was, the arrow struck where it had not been aimed—in the forearm of a Link who supported the weight of all the line. It stabbed clean through, tearing the muscles savagely as it plowed. Down swung the whole living bridge of demons, with the shrieking “old woman” in the melee, for that supporting arm let go as if it had been slashed in twain.
Instantly the dropping fiends struck the stream where the current boiled like a mill-race. Splashing, battling, screaming in fright, the intertwisted monsters went swiftly down, every one trying to climb out on his neighbour, all of them fighting, rolling like rags of waste and gurgling as they attempted still to yell, with mouths full of water.