The Burning Bridge - Philip Verrill Mighels (best books for 8th graders TXT) 📗

to feel about its crest. There he found one end of the fuse he sought—but it proved that the length had been broken! He held the useless end!

One despair after another had seized him within an endless minute. More recklessly, in a burning fever of impatience, he pawed about and moved even closer to the tiger—whose sounds were horribly near.

He could almost have uttered a cry of joy when the severed fuse was discovered. He waited for nothing, but immediately pressed his brand against the sun-dried substance.

There was no powder there. It had spilled when it broke, and it harmlessly smoked as it burned.

Why a groan did not escape him, Sidney could never have told. He broke off the tough, resisting substance six inches further along and again applied his spark.

It seemed as if in all its length there could be no powder remaining. He was savagely grasping the fuse once more, to break it at a fresher place, when a fiery-red line, some four feet away, seemed creeping like a snake out beyond him.

The spark that was racing along to the bomb had been started while still he was sweating there with baffled and excited impatience.

He took no time for further caution, but sprang away to the shelter of the tree and caught at a lungful of breath.

There was not a sound in all the place. This much he knew in that second, as he hugged up close to the trunk. The tiger had ceased to lap at the meat, and perhaps was poised for a spring.

It seemed to Grenville, waiting there, that nothing would ever happen. A thousand doubts went darting through his brain. The fuse had failed! It was broken again. Or, perhaps——

A low growl broke the stillness. There was a sound of something moving towards the tree!

Instantly a frightful red-and-yellow glare leaped upward from the earth. A deafening, crashing detonation rent the intimate universe and shook down incredible stars. The air was filled to overcrowding with rushing billows of concussion that rocked the trees as in a storm.

Grenville went down, dazed and helpless, unable to think, so jarred to chaos were his senses. But, beyond being stunned for a moment, he was totally unhurt.

He leaped to his feet, aware of some mighty disturbance in the curdled, heavy darkness that had followed.

The tiger it was, in some extravagant activity, moving towards Grenville and the thicket. He was almost upon the staggering man before he could move to escape. Then Grenville stumbled towards the ladder.

The jar to the limb, as he tugged at a rung, brought something down from above. This was the creature that had hidden in the tree. It had partially fallen, earlier stunned by the huge concussion. It dropped upon Grenville leadenly—and down he went in a heap.

The three sworn enemies—tiger, man, and jungle-cat—were embroiled on the earth together. Before the man could sufficiently recover to stagger from his knees to his feet and grasp his club, the tiger flung out a mighty paw, that struck him a blow upon the chin.

Without a sound he sank limberly down, inert and helplessly unconscious.

CHAPTER XIX GRENVILLE'S RADIANT STAR

Even had sleep overcome Elaine, the explosion must have startled her awake like a wildly fluttering bird.

All her life she had known the sound of guns, but never before had her ears received such an air-splitting shock as this.

Her alarm could know no bounds. It had come so suddenly and unexpectedly; it had been such a cataclysmic destruction of the island's haunting calm! She was certain some hideous blunder had occurred—that Grenville, too, had perished by the thing he had fearlessly dared to create.

She had seen for an instant that fan-like glare, as she gazed far out across the jungle. And now, as she stood there, rigid with fears and fixedly staring at the formless gloom—why did she hear no sound?

"Oh, he might—he might call!" she said, and she tried to halloo, but in vain.

She waited a time that seemed endless for some little sign from the jungle. He had promised before that, if all went well, he would hasten home at once. Surely this promise held good to-night—especially after that explosion!

Perhaps it was not yet time; perhaps it was farther away than she had thought. The glare had seemed near, but he had no torch, and must walk but slowly through the thicket. How dark it must be along the trails, in that tangle growth, with nothing for a light! How could he possibly hasten?

She was standing out on the brink of the wall, staring down at the gloom of the clearing, convinced that her ears, if not her eyes, would detect the first sign of his coming. Just the merest red gleam from the firebrand was all she would ask of the darkness—just that dull little star in the firmament of black!

But the ebon remained unbroken. That he might be lost occurred to her mind, but again she thought it was yet too soon for his return. She stumbled swiftly to the fire again, to stir it to brighter refulgence. It would seem to him a beacon against the sky to guide his footsteps home!

She thought of a blazing brand she could carry to the brink of the wall. With the largest limb afforded by the fire she returned, in haste and eagerness, to wave him a signal of welcome. And still nothing came from the clearing.

"Sidney!" she cried through the stillness, at last. "Sidney! Are you there?"

The night surrendered no response, save some animal cry far off where the barque was rotting.

"If he's dead!" she moaned. "If he's dead!"

But he might be wounded and helpless, she thought, with no one to come to his side. He might not be hurt unto death itself—if aid could reach him now!

If he died—if he left her thus alone—— A thousand times she preferred to die beside him!

"Sidney!" she cried, as before.

With a strange dry note, choked back between her lips, she fled once more to the fire.

Meantime the man by the tiger's kill continued to lie without motion on the earth. Not even the glow of his cheering brand remained like a sign of life in that silent theater.

The jungle cat, smitten and addled in its brain, had dragged itself painfully away to the cover of the thicket, its instinct feebly alive. There was not a sound in all the place, where crash and roar had been so tremendously expended for one prodigious second.

A vague, weird dream came finally creeping intangibly through Grenville's brain, resuming an intermittent function. When at length it began a little to clear, he dreamed he was trying his utmost to rise, but something held him down.

Consciousness poured a trickle through his being, and he felt he was partially awake. Then a flood, a cataract of surging life, rushing back to its centers, brought confusion and tumult to his thoughts. He was still only partially aroused.

His eyes at length were opened. The darkness which their gaze encountered seemed more complete than that of his region of dreams. He attempted to rise, but his muscles and nerves refused their customary obedience to his will. He tried to remember what had happened, but the glancing blow sustained on his chin had blotted him out, temporarily, like a stroke of death itself. And, had the stroke been more direct, his jaw or his neck must have broken.

When he raised his head a bit from the ground and propped himself up on his elbow, the sense of dullness and leadlike weight in both his feet and legs continued unabated. He was battling to retain his consciousness.

He began to remember, slowly. The process was only well started, however, when it was singularly interrupted. He was staring blankly through the jungle, which he partially recollected. It was funny, he thought, how a star should fall and wander through all those aisles of trees.

It was a star, he was fully convinced, coming haltingly through the gloom. Its course was erratic. He lost it at times, but still it persisted in approaching. How beautiful it was—the largest star he had ever known—with its flames divinely ascending.

He sat up stiffly, his will momentarily gaining strength to resume the sway of his body. Some mantle partially fell from his brain, to accompany his physical rousing. Then he knew, not only what had happened, but also what was happening.

"Elaine!" he tried to call aloud, vainly striving to rise or regain the use of his limbs, then once more he sank in oblivion.

A strange, wild note broke from her lips as Elaine came plunging along the trail with a torch redly blazing in her hand, held well above her face.

She saw, before she could reach his side, that the tiger lay lifeless upon him. She feared the man was dead, but, with wits exceptionally clear and ordered, she thrust her torch-end firmly in the earth, laid hold of the huge, limber beast she so fearfully dreaded, and tugged and dragged it feverishly off with all her fine young strength.

The face of the inert man beside the tree was redly smeared with blood. He lay horribly loose and still upon the grass. She knelt at his side and placed her hands upon him, feeling above his heart.

"Sidney!" she said to him. "Sidney! You cannot—you shall not die! I never meant the things I said—or thought—or anything! Oh, please, please don't—don't look like that! You've got to come back—you've got to!"

She tore at the band about his neck and lifted his head on her knee. She wiped the red from his pallid face with the hem of her briar-torn skirt.

"I'll find the spring!" she told him eagerly, starting as if to rise, but the still form moved, and, dully at first, the two heavy eyes were opened.

"Oh!" she said. "Oh, you're hurt. Don't try to do anything but rest.... You didn't come—you didn't come home!"

Despite her entreaty, Grenville weakly raised his head and propped himself, half sitting. The weight being gone from his outstretched legs, his normal circulation was returning. He regained his strength with characteristic swiftness.

"Hurt?" he said. "No—I don't believe—— I must have got a knockout blow. The tiger? Did I get the tiger?"

He sat up uncertainly and, glancing about, saw the huge striped form where Elaine had dragged it from his body. She still remained on her knees, fixedly gazing on his face. Her strength was ebbing rapidly, as Grenville's now returned.

"You didn't come home," she repeated, by way of explaining her presence at his side. "I couldn't live here alone."

Grenville arose and assisted her weakly to her feet. She stumbled to and leaned against the tree.

"By George!" he said, "I'll bet a hat you could!"

He knew what courage had come to her aid before she could make her excursion. "I went down like a dub," he added, in his customary manner. "No good excuse, but I do apologize. Better get out of this, I'm thinking."

He took up the torch she had planted in the earth, to examine the tiger, dead and mangled in the grass, One of the creature's great front paws had been rudely torn from his body. He could only have escaped instantaneous death by having moved from the bomb at the moment of its explosion.

"Your robe looks mussed," Grenville continued, with a gesture towards the animal's motionless body. "But I think it can be washed."

Elaine slightly shivered at sight of the frame now done with life.

"You've killed him," she said. "I'm glad!"

He took her firmly by the arm and led her away through the thicket.

When they reached the camp, Elaine was not yet fully convinced that Grenville was uninjured. She brought him a rag she had torn from some of her clothing and begged him to wash his reddened jaw. Even the restoration of his former stubbled complexion could not suffice to bring her that sense of certainty and calm essential before she could sleep.

She remained beside him at their fire till long past the midnight hour. Indeed, she