“Looks promising!” smiled the curator, getting out another pellet to give Sadok. “We can thank the rain for that! No arrow can stay virulent long in this weather! Raise him to his feet and we’ll try to make him walk.”
They propped Sadok up and, half carrying him, half leading him, they set out again. He staggered along as if walking in his sleep, leaning heavily against first one and then the other of the boys. Gradually the rain abated and the lightning flashes grew less frequent, so that it was necessary for the curator to stop and crouch in the jungle to light up the compass with his flasher concealed under the tent robe. Then came pitch blackness, and the dripping silent jungle hid them like a shroud.
“I’m afraid we’ve lost Baderoon, boys,” whispered the curator during a stop to take a bearing. “He had plenty of chance to locate us, back there in the storm, we did so much firing. I’ve had to reload entirely, once. You can’t have more than six shots left, Nick.”
“I’ve got a clip and a half, sir,” interrupted Dwight, cheerily, “and what is more, Sadok will be in shape again soon. I’ve noticed his muscles flexing occasionally, of their own steam, while helping him walk. Let’s go. We’ve got two good hours of this yet!”
His artificial buoyancy and untiring energy were a great asset to the tired party now, and they pushed on faster, with Sadok walking almost normally. Mile after mile was passed, and then a glimpse of the stars showed occasionally through the tree tops. They were tired to the limit, but Dwight, under his strange stimulant, pushed on as fresh as if just out of his sleeping bag. Dawn came at length, to sift its dim light through the jungle. It found them still on the march, with Sadok walking unaided, occasionally muttering an incoherent word of Malay.
Then came the murmur of a brook and they burst out of the jungle, to splash across it into the open glades, with the mountains towering all around them, their tops hidden by the rising mists of early daylight. The party heaved a huge sigh of relief as they stepped out into the deep wet saw grass. They were about a mile above Cassowary Camp, and it was their own stream that they had crossed. The country looked like home, indeed, to them, for half a day’s march farther lay their base camp, the canoe, and freedom.
XII
THE ESCAPE TO ARU
SUDDENLY Sadok began to run. The boys attempted to restrain him, but the curator held them off.
“Let him alone, boys. His mentality’s coming back—it’s a good sign. Wait.”
They watched the Dyak, who was now running in a crouching position, his long sumpitan trailing over the grass in his left hand. As he neared a clump of trees out in the swales he dropped from sight in the grass, his progress only marked by the waving of the blades. They searched the tree carefully, but only what appeared to be a large black mass, well hidden in the dense foliage, offered any possible mark.