Seeing the advantage of a club, I clutched up one which an overmastered Link had dropped, and swung it madly. With this and the knife, I not only defended myself but became a champion of the Links as well. The fight, with its din of thuds and animal shrieks and screams of agony, began to concentrate about three Links and myself. A long, hairy arm, with an iron-like hand, was thrust across my shoulder and my throat was in a deadly grip. I dropped the club and slashed my blade across the wrist, severing the stiff, white cords. Then I swung in a blow that buried the steel to the hilt. The brute fell heavily, dragging the knife from my hand. Instantly two more great animals were upon me and over I went, already scratched and slightly bitten. For a moment I struggled in desperation; then a horrible black face came down toward my own, the jaws awide for a fastening on my neck.
Down swept a gleaming streak. The rock-crystal club knocked the face, head and all, away, as if it had been a potato on a stick. Another blow killed my second assailant like a fly might be killed on a window. I bounded up with a club in my hand. The giant Link was beating his way through the foe like a doomsman. With a cry of hatred and fear, the remaining ourang-outangs, and many of the wounded, suddenly turned and fled. The battle had been brief and bloody; it had demonstrated a fierceness and power incredible in the Links, a power which, if concentrated and properly employed, would excel that of twice the number of human savages.
I found my knife and pulled it forth from its sheath of flesh. Collecting his following about him with a word, the giant leader touched me on the arm and pointed toward the jungle. The wounded of “our” force limped from the scene; our dead, who were three in number, were carried by those who were still unhurt. With the albino mate of the chief I walked away, surrounded by the chattering Links, whose conduct toward me, I was sure, was that of a friendly “people.” The fat fellow was next to idiotic in his gratitude for the stroke which had saved his life.
I had fought with them, bled with them, eaten of their food and endeavoured to show them my good intentions and wishes toward themselves. They were manifestly aware of all. I felt strongly drawn to the singular beings, alone with them and dependent upon them; I felt that for weal or woe I was at least a temporary companion to, if not an integral part of, a band of Missing Links.
CHAPTER III
THE HOME OF THE LINKS
Filled with strange sensations, thus to find myself in the midst of a company so extraordinary, I kept my appointed place in the march, looking about me in an effort to discover what manner of country it was into which I had dropped. I wondered what I should do to get back to civilisation, and how this could be accomplished, and when.
About us the jungle closed in thickly. Huge trees, gigantic flowers and creepers, hanging like intertwisted serpents, and with others like the cables of incompleted suspension-bridges, convinced me at once of the tropical nature of the land. We were walking in a rude sort of trail, which I concluded had been formed by some ponderous animal, for the growth had been smashed down or beaten and trampled aside.
This trail became uncertain, in the gloom, for soon the light was almost entirely obscured by the super-abundant verdure. Had any of the Links meditated treachery, or to take advantage of me while unprepared, this jungle darkness would have afforded an exceptional opportunity; but on the contrary my fat friend waddled actively before me, clearing the way of branches, and the “person” next behind me was the albino female herself. Nevertheless I was grateful for a glimpse of light, now and again, which gave a promise that beyond we should find something less forbidding. During this march I noted how silently the Links glided onward, how lightly they stepped and how alert they were at every sound, in that silent region of growing and prowling things.
Thus we finally emerged from the forest, into an opening of limited extent. Here I noted fruit-trees and evidence of former occupation on the part, I thought, of the Links, but they left the place behind, to plunge again through the jungle. A shorter trudge brought us out of the trees once more, at the foot of a hill of no considerable height. This hill we commenced to ascend.
At last I could see for a distance about me. The prospect was disappointing, almost bewildering. Instead of a glimpse of the ocean, which I had thoroughly expected to get, I saw nothing but hills and valleys, clothed endlessly with the dense, luxuriant growth peculiar to the equatorial zone, all of it seeming to breathe of heavy blossoms, heat and the moisture from the universal green. The solitary exception to this condition of verdure was a bare hill, not half a mile away, green in spots, but evidently volcanic in origin.