The Crystal Sceptre: A Story of Adventure

by Philip Verrill Mighels

I should quite have appreciated the use of several mirrors at this stage of my make-up, in order to see if sundry portions were on straight, but was denied this pleasure, having failed to provide myself with various articles of the toilet. It was only by crawling and lolling about on the ground, on knees and elbows that I was enabled to convince myself that I looked the slightest bit like the creature whose part I had essayed to perform.

I have never felt more warm in my life than I did in that skin. The day was hot, the hide was heavy, and I had laboured hard to get it on. The perspiration threatened to make the pelt insupportable. But now that I had myself fastened inside it, I dreaded the task of taking it off and putting it on again later. As an outcome of much agitated mental debate, I decided to be a bear until my work as a spy was concluded. I therefore sat me down, in the shade, near my boat, and waited for sunset.

The sun becomes very deliberate, I found, when it catches a man in a tight, hot place. It seemed as if the fiery ball intended to hang in the western sky for several centuries, for my particular delectation. At last it got weary of the game and departed.

A bear can perform several feats with comfort and ease to himself and with grace, perhaps, but rowing a boat is not among the number. I grew hotter, in several ways, directly. I think I wished fervently that my unknown friend, the prisoner, had never committed the indiscretion of being captured by the Blacks. It being necessary to proceed with caution, my torture was much prolonged. At length, however, I noted a snug retreat in which my boat could remain, undetected, and which I hoped would be readily accessible from the camp I was searching in the jungle.

Already the shadows had begun to be deep, so that I walked erect, in what I thought to be the right direction, moving with the greatest care, and alert every second for the smallest sound. I had made my way for a considerable distance in this manner, without being able to detect any disturbance in the forest, when presently a low rumble, as of something rolling over stones, beneath a muffling canopy, broke on the air. This sound increased. It seemed to come from a source not far away, and yet it was most uncertain and elusive. I was quite at a loss to determine whence it proceeded. Growing stronger it made a great ado of grumbling, reaching a sort of climax in less than a minute, after which it slowly subsided and was gone.

Standing where I was, I listened attentively, for the noise had puzzled me much. Then through the silence came another sound, which anyone could have understood, anywhere on earth. It was a moan. A second later I heard the rustle of leaves and saw a prowling form—one of the ebon Links.

Falling upon my hands and knees, noiselessly, I waited for the fellow to pass from sight and hearing, after which I crawled laboriously forward, nearing the sound where something was voicing its pain. My heart was beating so tumultuously that I felt obliged to halt frequently, in order to calm myself as much as the perilous situation would permit. Moving thus and keeping constantly in the cover of the vines and grasses, I glanced about me keenly.

When I came upon the clearing in which the Blacks abided, it happened so abruptly that I started, to find myself so near. Lying out full length, I endeavoured to quiet the thumping of my heart and to moisten my mouth, which had become dry and gluey. Then I looked about, through the friendly screen of creepers.

The shadows lay thick enough for all purposes, yet there was light enough to reveal several incongruous things. First I noted a dozen or more of the black Links, some of them moving about, some squatting on the ground, monkey-fashion, eating mangoes and melons, one lying flat on his back in the agony of death. He it was that moaned; he had received his mortal wounds in the great explosion. I saw that his arm was gone, and then I knew him—Grin.

At the back of the clearing was a wall of rock. In front of this stood a natural pillar of stone, and fastened up at the top was something which for a time presented the greatest mystery. It looked like portions of a skeleton, disconnected, but it gleamed, even in the twilight. I studied it closely for the thing compelled my undivided attention. Then I saw the skull and knew it had all been, upon a time, the frame work of a living creature, but astonishing fact of all things weird—it was plated all over with something precisely resembling gold!