The Crystal Sceptre: A Story of Adventure

by Philip Verrill Mighels

I loosened a thousand tense muscles the second she disappeared, and lay limber and all unstrung on the earth. I had not been seen by any Links. It had perhaps been foolish and a waste of time to kill the bear and adopt his hide after all. But it had given me the courage to come—and great Heavens! what a find I had made!

A woman!—among these monsters! No wonder there were no new houses, no ovens, no weapons of war of her making. I had been profoundly stupid. I should have been able to guess it was not a man—that soft, clear voice, the absence of mannish contrivances, and then that suggestive little line of her washing—these should have been enough to tell me the story. A woman—a helpless, beautiful woman—and I had almost thought of giving up the effort to rescue this friend!—this fellow human!

“Gee whizz!” said I to myself, for the thing was tremendous.

Then I wondered what would happen next. Would she come—return to the place where she had heard my voice? Would she wait till all the Links were safely asleep and then place her trust in a stranger? At what time were these black beasts likely to retire? Would they wake and catch her in the act? Could we find my boat in the dark? But everything else was as nothing compared to the question, which I repeated over and over, would she come?

I believed she would. I intended to wait, whatever might occur, and to wait until morning, if she did not sooner appear. A thousand times I wished we were already in my boat and away on the lake.

“All these days gone to waste for a bear-skin,” I muttered, “and all the time it was easy to sneak into their place under their very noses.”

I was glad now, however, of the warmth of the skin, for the ground was moist. In the clearing the night had descended like a curtain, but five or six fires somewhat illumined the place. The scene presented was strange. About the centres of ruddy light were groups of these weird, semi-human creatures, standing and squatting, eating like so many apes. Their long, thin arms made their appearance most grotesque, silhouetted as they were against the light. Here and there the red glow lighted up a negro-gorilla countenance, flat-nosed, big-jawed and large-eared, till it seemed like a region where the imps of darkness breed. And back of all this, the play of the flames threw monster shadows, on the background of trees and creepers, till it all had a strange appearance of life, as if incredible snakes and incongruous animals weaved an endless woof of mystery into the warp of night.

An hour passed and I had hardly moved. By groups the creatures slunk away to their huddling places. The groans of many wounded, unnoted before in the chatter, arose to chorus with the distant sounds of the jungle. Regularly, like a marker of time, came the rumble and grumble from the cauldron of gold.

Around the largest fire, a grim old warrior hovered for an interminable time, after all the others had departed. I had no patience with his pretence of cogitating over all the problems of the universe; I wished him safely abed and snoring. He pothered about for an age, and finally stretched himself near the embers and went to sleep.

I waited and waited, expecting every moment to be rewarded by a vision of the prisoner, gliding toward me. The moon arose above the trees behind me and made the place altogether too bright for any good. To allay my impatience I watched the matchless orb sailing above the jungle. Turning at last from the brilliant picture, my heart leaped wildly. The goddess was almost there!