I was of precious little account to myself, or to any of the tribe, that day, but on the morrow I was mending rapidly again, and beginning to pick up various threads of the plans I had fashioned before our fateful day of battle with the Blacks.
It was long since anyone from the camp had visited the boat, but my thoughts had been there much of the time. I had feared, daily, another invasion by the enemy, whom I knew to be revengeful and who now understood the nature of our fortifications and means of defense. This feeling of alarm increased. Should they come, with a force still greater than the last, and find us armed with blunt arrows only, our resistance would be short indeed. I dared not contemplate undertaking my exploration of the lake, much less my escape, while we were possibly threatened with another attack and while I was weaponless myself, excepting for my trusty knife.
Being almost wholly fit again I determined to make an immediate excursion to our old cave-camp for the purpose of securing a supply of chalcedony pebbles.
CHAPTER XXIII
NEEDED MUNITIONS GATHERED
My preparations consisted merely of acquainting a score of the Links with my desire and of selecting six of the most suitable of our baskets for use in bringing the flints to our village. More of the fighters than I wanted were eager to be of the party, but I deemed it advisable to leave a number at home with the females and children.
We got an early start and headed in what I had calculated to be the right direction. In this calculation I had been guided solely by my memory of our camp and its position, relatively to the lake, as seen that day from the top of the old volcanic peak. Pushing ahead as rapidly as possible, and spending no time on the game which we naturally encountered in the jungle, we traversed several miles without coming upon anything with which my friends were familiar, so that I soon gave up hoping that they would be of much assistance in finding the former dwelling place. From what I knew of them now, I was convinced that none ever proceeded far from camp in any direction. Their longest marches were accomplished when they felt obliged to abandon a settlement, and I believe that even then they rarely travelled more than five or six miles at the furthest.
After another hour of pushing along we emerged from the forest into a small, low valley which was nearly all a swamp and at the head of which was a mountain of considerable height. This place discouraged me deeply for I had believed I should really discover some guiding landmark, on clearing the woods. That we had gone somewhat in the wrong direction there could be no doubt, for I was sure we had travelled far enough, by this, to have passed the old cave, had it been on our line of march.
The day was excessively hot and I was weary and sleepy, being still a bit soft after my troubles, but I was annoyed at the thought of being baffled. I determined to climb the mountain, for the sake of the enlarged prospect to be had from its summit, and therefore we toiled up, slowly, through a dense growth that covered the lower part of the slope.
Upon reaching the summit, I gave a cry of delight. I had recognised the elevation as being the very same volcanic peak which Fatty and I had ascended together, and which the party of us now had approached from the opposite side. This gave me my bearings at once. I could all but see the old camp below, when we had crossed the ancient, filled-in crater. I pointed out the lake, and I made out the true direction of our fortified settlement far away on its miniature hill. We started down in a hurry, for even the Links knew the way after this. I might have thought of nothing but the flints we were after had I not fairly stumbled against the out-jutting ledge of sulphur which I had discovered on the previous visit.
“Why here,” I said aloud, unthinkingly, “I believe I’ll take a load of this to camp. By jingo, boys, I’ll make a lot of gunpowder!”