“Those fools of Links have got plenty of fire,” I grumbled, spitefully. “For about two cents I’d kick them all out of their camp and take all the torches I could carry.”
This bit of pleasantry somewhat restored my humour. I started up from where I was sitting on the rocks, abruptly, possessed of a great idea. Why not make the trick worth the winning; why not steal their fire to light myself in robbing their cave?
In my haste to clamber down from the pile, I fell forward and struck my hand smartly on something which felt like a collected lot of wood. I was ready to kick this thing, for bruising my fingers, when I comprehended that wood was exactly what I required. Grasping one of the branches I lifted a whole bundle of sticks, all dry, cut neatly of an equal length, and tied about with some sort of cord. Instantly I thought of the gilded skeleton—the man who had lived in this place. I believed he had come to the cavern often, and that doubtless these faggots had been gathered by himself for torches.
This discovery gave me new enthusiasm. I was calmer, also, and I therefore resolved to proceed carefully, do nothing rash, and to wait until the time was propitious before attempting to steal my fire. Nevertheless I was determined not to give up the game until flatly beaten. Much luck in the past had made me bolder than I was when I arrived in the country.
During the half hour following, I crept through the woods, toward the spot where I had waited for the goddess. I thought it would bring me bad luck to try any other location. My clubs and the sack, I had left at the cauldron, along with my bundle of wood. Thus I had nothing to impede my progress; but the skin in which I was clothed hampered every motion.
Throughout the jungle, various sounds had commenced, for the darkness was rapidly becoming that of full-fledged night. Through the trees, when I approached their clearing, I caught the gleam of the fires about which the Links were cooking their dinner.
Knife in hand, I edged and pushed through the creepers and vines until I dared go no further. From where I was, I could see very much the same sort of groups about the fires which had made the picture weird on the former occasion. But I was actually more excited and eager over the present enterprise than I had been before, when a fellow-being was in the game. Doubtless this arose from the greater risk I expected to take.
Impatient as I was, the Links seemed to require an interminable time to get ready for bed. I selected one and then another of the fires as the one from which I would filch a brand, but was finally obliged to wait and see which would be the most favourable to my task. I desired to select the one furthest from the sleeping places, and yet not too far from my cover. The one first abandoned by the Links would have answered well. I watched it narrowly and kept an eye on the Blacks, who were still lingering about. Long before the fellows had all retired, the fire became hopeless, so few were the embers left aglow. I was obliged to fix upon another.
I waited all of two hours, by the end of which time the Links were all safely asleep, save that watchful old fiend whose acquaintance I had made on my former visit. When at length he laid himself down for the night, his position was such that my intended deed had been rendered far more difficult than I had expected. It became necessary for me to make a long detour, for I deemed it wise that I should be able to make a bee-line for cover the second I procured my bit of fire.
In crawling and walking carefully about the tangle, I consumed a lot of time. My position then was such that by creeping bear-like from the vines and going straight for my original hiding place, I would pass the remains of a fire, in which only one or two blazing pieces of wood remained. Again I drew my knife. With a thumping heart, high up in my neck, I began this desperate experiment.