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

to be taken upon some future visit?

Stifling an impulse to hasten down the trail, and aware that one, or even more, of the natives might have been left concealed upon the place, to ambush himself and Elaine, or anyone else suspected of being present on the rock, he remained behind his barrier of stones, no less cautious than before.

The fact that the entire morning passed in apparent security, with never the flicker of a leaf below to advertise a lurking menace, could not suffice to render Grenville careless or overconfident. He had told Elaine of their loss—which worried her less than himself. Together they maintained an all-day vigilance, half expectant of the sailing-craft's return and keyed to the highest tension of expectancy at every stirring of a shrub below them in the jungle.

Grenville finally armed himself with his bow and straightest arrow, to descend the trail, go quietly over to the spring, and then to the spot from which his boat had vanished. About the pool of crystal water there was not so much as a track of human boots or feet, other than his own. There were none to be seen about the foot of the trail, where there was ample dust in which they might have been recorded.

Where his boat had lain, with its end on a rock, there were far fewer footprints in the ash and soil than Sidney could have believed possible, judging the visitors at only four in number and their task not particularly light. Apparently, however, they had landed down beyond the jungle, proceeded straight to the log, and, wasting no time in wondering how it chanced to be covered with clay or hollowed to a shell, had taken it up, to depart with it as swiftly and directly as possible.

Even his tools still lay beside the hollow tree utilized for a smelter. The one explanation that addressed itself to his mind as being plausible was that the visitors, knowing of the log and having planned to secure it, perhaps in merely passing by the island, had come ashore so soon as the first faint gray of dawn broke the shadows of the jungle, when they had taken their prize and halted for nothing, not even a search for whatsoever tools they must have seen had been employed.

Once more his original theory of their superstitious fright of the island's "haunt" seemed to Grenville to be confirmed. He felt the natives had sneaked ashore—not in fear of himself, since they could not have foreknown his presence on the hill, but in possible fear of some spirit of the place whose wailing filled them with dread.

Barely less cautiously than heretofore, he followed the faintly imprinted trail of the boat's mysterious abductors, where it led across the clearing. He was certain now that a cleared path did exist where he had partially explored the previous morning. But branches and shrubbery had been freshly cut, as if to insure the silent passage of the log.

The lane thus created through the thicket led directly down an easy slope to a broken bit of seawall at the bottom. This, at high tide, would be scarcely a foot above the water. Here the log had undoubtedly been rested. Both broken clay and a charcoal smudge recorded the unseen fact.

The entire inlet was no more than twenty feet across. It was bounded on either side by pitted walls that permitted no access to the jungle. The last faint hope of again beholding his precious boat now vanished from Grenville's mind. It had not been moored, nor probably even towed, but doubtless loaded bodily on the visitor's deck, to be taken to parts unknown.

But, if this heavy fact sunk home in his breast, the man was somewhat relieved, at least, concerning a probable native left behind. He felt practically certain that none of the crew of the native craft had stepped beyond his clearing. How much they might guess as to who had hollowed the heavy log was another matter altogether. He knew that their tale would be widely told—and felt that developments would follow.

He went to Elaine, to whom he owed a report.

"I think we're alone on the place," he said, and related all he had discovered. "We may as well re-light our fires," he added, in conclusion, "and eat the best our sunny possessions afford."

Elaine could not so promptly recover from all she had undergone. She still sat staring at his face, a prey to confused emotions.

"Suppose they had really been friendly, after all—and we let them go and leave us here like that?"

"In that event they may return, since the boat will excite a bit of wonder."

"You mean they will know, of course, that someone must be here who made it?"

"It certainly tells that story rather plainly."

She was thinking rapidly.

"Then—if they shouldn't happen to be friendly, they would know it all just the same—and may still come back to—look us up?"

Grenville nodded.

"I shall certainly go to work with that chance in view."

"Yes," she agreed, "we'll certainly do all we can. But another boat would take you weeks! After all your patient, tedious work—to have it stolen like that! Oh, I could cry, if I weren't so vexed and sorry!"

Grenville smiled despite his sense of loss.

"Perhaps I can rig some sort of a catamaran," he answered. "But for day and night sailing, such as we would doubtless have before us, the best of boats would be none too comfortable."

"And we don't know where to sail."

"Well—not precisely."

"Then—what is the first thing to do?"

"Cook and devour a hearty dinner."

"But after that—to-morrow?"

"Thank God for peace—and prepare for war, meanwhile praying it may not come."

Elaine was grave, but her voice was clear and steady.

"You think it will—that a fight will come? ... I'd much rather know the worst."

"So would I!" said Grenville, cheerfully. "We can't. We can only get ready to acquit ourselves like—well, like gentlemen, and keep out an eye for a steamer.... Would you mind retreating to the cave I found, if dire necessity arose?"

"I'll go wherever you tell me," she answered, with a smile that went to his heart. "But of course I can't help wishing that a steamer would really come."

CHAPTER XXVII A FATEFUL EXPLOSION

With feverish energy Grenville was at work, attempting to achieve a dozen ends at once.

Nearly a week of high-pressure application appeared to have accomplished so little. Yet a hundred pounds at least of his liveliest powder had been mixed and stored away, either loosely or packed in the bamboo bombs, of which he had a dozen; much extra bamboo had been cut and brought to the terrace; a new lot of jugs had been molded of clay and were finally being fired in his former smelter; baskets were made and ready for fruits, should retreat to the cave be rendered expedient, and his first small raft, or catamaran, for gaining the exit to the cavern, was all but ready to launch.

He had taken the bowsprit of the barque and three large stems from the bamboo growth as a basis for this craft. The bamboo stems were firmly lashed together, to act as a mate for the bowsprit. They were held away from the latter at a distance of about three feet by some of the few unrotted bits of board he had torn from the old vessel's cabin, plus more bamboo, split and employed for his platform.

Two half-cylindrical sections of this useful plant he had lashed to eight-foot poles of considerable stiffness to complete a pair of oars. His rowlocks, saved from the smelting processes, he finally tested in their sockets, where a rigid bridge had been stoutly secured across his raftlike contrivance, and found them all he could desire. The seat he had planned to occupy in rowing he abandoned now as quite superfluous.

He felt he must lose no time in draining the cave, for possible use in a siege. There was no other task that had been altogether neglected. The flagpole was once more standing on the terrace; abundant fuse was made, dried, coiled, and safely stored from damp or accident, and a mold was hardening in the fire for running lead slugs that would make the cannon effective.

For this latter need he meant to sacrifice his hammer. It, with the lead he had saved before, would supply some six or seven pounds of this needful ammunition. Now, as he swiftly braided three slender creepers in a "painter" for his crudely fashioned catamaran, he glanced at the tide inquiringly, and likewise up at the sun. There was over an hour in which to get to the cave, lodge a bomb in the ledge, and blow out the dam that held back the water, but the tide was still running against him.

With ten feet only of his mooring-line completed, he abandoned the braiding impatiently, secured one end to his raft at the estuary's entrance, and, wading in behind the clumsy structure, launched it with one impetuous heave across the sandbar to the sea. Boarding immediately with his oars, he rowed it far enough only to prove he could drive it against the tide, and then brought it back to the shore.

"One bomb and a torch," he meditated, aloud. "I can hang the bomb across my shoulder to keep it out of the wet."

The catamaran having been made thoroughly secure, he hastened away to the terrace. He missed Elaine. She was down at the "smelter," attending the fire that was roasting the new clay vessels.

With a bomb and his lighted torch in hand—held well apart and not for a moment handled carelessly—he hailed Elaine from the edge of the thicket by the wall.

"Just thought I'd drop around and drain out that water from the cave," he announced. "Everything's ready—and I've nothing else to do. When you hear the salute, you'll know it's a commonplace affair."

"Oh!" said Elaine, who had her doubts concerning his various explosions. "I'll watch to see you from the cliff."

"Well—er—I wouldn't stand just at the edge, you know—not till you know it's all over."

"You're not going to blow down the hill?"

"Hope not, I've taken a baby bomb, but I didn't wish to let it off till I'd told you what to expect. I'd keep away, in case of flying pieces."

"I will," said Elaine. "But I'll go up now, and perhaps you can call to let me know how well you have succeeded."

"I'll send you a wireless."

Grenville hastened to his raft. "Please God she may never have to hear me fire another!" he thought, as he went, reflecting on things that might happen. He could not have known that only a mild beginning had been made on their programme as scheduled by the Fates.

He was soon rowing eagerly and vigorously against the current of the tide, which would run with lessening velocity for perhaps another hour. When he came to the cave, he promptly discovered why the injunction to enter its mouth at high water only had been made a point in the mystic directions found with the map in the tube.

The ledge whereon he had landed before was deeply undercut. During a tide no more than two or three feet lower than this that would serve him to-day, the place could scarcely be approached, and could never be entered at all. The swirl, which was rarely ever absent from the place, increased in violence steadily with the lowering levels of the water.

It was not without some chance of catastrophe that he presently landed on the shelf. He lost little time in securing his painter to the rocks, the line so adjusted he could readily slip it from the crevice should a hasty retreat seem wise.

The task of blasting out the ledge was not a simple matter. To lodge the bomb where its energy would be directed almost wholly against the dam, or rock, and yet protect it from the trickling stream that could readily render it useless, involved an extra toil of piling rocks, on which he had not reckoned.

Fortunately,