CHAPTER X

THE TERRORS OF THE DARK

I

From the topmost summit of that range of pointed hills which held the caves and the cave-mouth fires of his people, Grom stared northward with keen curiosity. To east and south and west he had explored, ever seeking to enlarge the knowledge and strengthen the security of his tribe. But to northward of the pointed hills lay league on league of profound jungle--grotesque and enormous growths knitted together impenetrably by a tangle of gigantic, flame-flowered lianas. And in those rank, green glooms, as Grom had reason to believe, there lurked such monsters as even he, with all his resources of fire and novel weapons, had so far shrunk from challenging.

But beyond the expanse of jungle stretched another line of hills, their summits not saw-toothed like his own, but low and gently rounded, and of a smoky purple against the pure turquoise sky. These hills Grom was thirsting to explore. They might contain caves more roomy than those of his own hills--s.p.a.cious and suitable to give shelter to his tribe, which was now finding itself somewhat cramped.

Moreover, it had always seemed to Grom that there might be a mystery behind those hills, and to his restless imagination a mystery was always like a stinging goad.

In all this neighborhood the crust of earth was thin as plainly appeared from the fringe of wavering volcanic flames which, during all the five years since the coming of the tribe, had been dancing from the lip of the narrow fissure across the mouth of their valley. Night and day, now high and vehement, now low and faint, they had danced there, guarding the valley entrance--until just one moon ago. Then had come an earthquake, shaking the hearts of all the tribe to water. The dancing flames had died. The fissure had closed up, and its place had been taken by a pool of boiling pitch. And one of the caves had fallen in, burying several members of the tribe, who had been too stupefied with panic to flee into the open at the first alarm. For some days after this catastrophe the tribe had camped in the open, huddled about their great fires. Then, but with deep misgivings, they had all crowded back into the remaining caves.

But now there was not room enough, and Bawr, the wise Chief, had taken frequent counsel upon the matter with Grom, whom, loving him greatly he called sometimes his Right Hand and sometimes the Eye of the People. At last, it had been settled that Grom should lead a party through the jungle land to those other hills, to spy out the prospect.

And Grom, like the foresighted leader that he was, had spent many hours on the mountain-top, planning his route and studying the luxuriant surface of the jungle outstretched below him, before plunging into its mysterious depths.

As was his custom when on a perilous venture, Grom would have few followers to share the peril with him. He took A-ya, not only because of her oft-proved courage and resourcefulness, not only because he wanted her always at his side, but, above all, because he knew he could not leave her behind. Had he tried to leave her, she would have disobeyed and followed him by stealth--and perhaps fallen a prey to prowling beasts. He took also A-ya's young brother, the hot-head Mo; and Loob, the s.h.a.ggy, little sharp-faced scout, who could run like a hare, hide like a fox, and fight like a cornered weasel. This he would have accounted, ordinarily, a sufficient party. But the present enterprise being one of peculiar difficulty, he decided at the last moment to strengthen his following by the addition of a dark-faced, perpetually-grinning giant named Hobbo, who was slow of wit, but thewed like a bull, and a mighty fighter with the stone-headed club.

This little but greatly daring band, which Grom, one flaming sunrise, led down into the unknown jungle, was well armed. Besides the spear and the club, each member of the party but Hobbo (who had displayed no apt.i.tude for its use) carried Grom's wonderful invention--the bow.

Hobbo, however, because of his immense strength, bore the heavy fire-basket, wherein the smoldering coals were cherished in a bed of clay. As a food reserve, everyone carried a few strips of half-dried meat; but their main dependence, of course, was to be upon the spoils of their hunting and the fruits that they might gather on their march.

The forest into whose depths Grom now led the way was in reality a survival from a previous age, into which the forms, both vegetable and animal, of contemporary life had been gradually infiltrating. The soil, of incredible fertility, still poured forth those gigantic tree gra.s.ses, and colossal, sappy ferns and psuedo-palms, which had flourished chiefly in the carboniferous period. But here they were mingled with the more enduring hard-wood growths of the later tropical forests; and only these were strong enough to support the ma.s.sive, strangling coils of the cable-like lianas, which wound their way up the huge trunks and reached out in aerial, swaying bridges from tree-top to tree-top. On every side, high or low, the deep-green gloom was splashed with color from the gorgeous orchids and other epiphytes, which flowered out into grotesque or monstrous wing-petaled shapes of vermilion and purple and orange and rose and white, eyed with velvet black or streaked with iridescent bronze.

To men of to-day this jungle would have been impenetrable, except by the incessant use of axe or machete. But Grom and his party were Cave-Men, and had not yet forgotten all the instincts and capacities of their tree-dwelling ancestors. Sometimes, where it seemed easiest, they forced their way along the ground, or followed the trodden trail of some great jungle beast, so long as it led in the right direction.

But here they had to be ceaselessly on the watch against surprise by creatures whose monstrous tracks were unlike any that they had ever seen before. Whenever possible, therefore, they preferred to journey, after the fashion of their apish ancestors, by way of the high branches and the liana bridges. Hampered as they were by their weapons, their progress by this aerial way was slow. But it was comparatively secure. And it was also comparatively cool; while down at the ground-level the steaming heat and the stinging insects were almost beyond endurance.

Yet before the end of that first day's journey they learned that even in tree-tops it was necessary to be always on the watch. Once the little hairy scout, Loob, who traveled always on the outskirts of the party, was struck at suddenly by a huge black leopard, which lay ambushed in the crotch of a tree. Loob, however, who was so quick-sighted that he seemed to see things before they actually happened, leapt to a higher branch in time to escape the deadly paw. In the next instant he struck down furiously with his spear, catching his a.s.sailant between the shoulder-blades and driving the stroke home with all his strength. With a screech, the beast stiffened out, and then, somewhat slowly, collapsed. As Loob wrenched his weapon free, the great animal slumped limply from its branch. For a moment or two it hung by the fore-paws, coughing and frothing at the mouth. Then this last hold relaxed and it fell, b.u.mping with a curious deliberation from branch to branch. It vanished through a floor of thick leaf.a.ge, and struck the ground with a dull crash. It must have fallen under the very jaws of an unseen waiting monster; for there arose at once a strange, hooting roar, followed by the sound of rending flesh and cracking bone. Loob grinned over his feat, and Grom, glancing at A-ya, muttered quietly: "It is better to be up here than down there." As he spoke, and they all peered downwards, a dreadful head, with the limp body of the leopard gripped like a rat between its long jaws and dripping yellow fang, thrust itself up through the floor of leaf.a.ge and stared at them with round eyes as cold and black as ice.

Grom itched to shoot an arrow into one of those unwinking, devilish eyes. But arrows were too precious to be wasted.

That night they slept profoundly on a platform which they wove of branches in one of the tallest and most unscalable trees. They kept watch, of course, turn and turn about; but nothing attempted to approach them, and they cared little for the sounds of strife, the crashings of pursuit and desperate flight, which came up to them at intervals from the blackness far below.

On the morrow, however, as they were pursuing their aerial path along the borders of a narrow, sluggish bayou, they were suddenly made to realize that the tree-tops held perils more deadly than that of the lurking leopards. They were all staring down into the water, which swarmed with gigantic crocodiles and boiled immediately beneath them with the turmoil of a life-and-death struggle between two of the brutes, when harsh jabbering in the branches just across the water made them look up.

The tree-tops opposite were full of great apes, mowing and gibbering at them with every sign of hate. The beasts were as big and ma.s.sive as Hobbo himself, and covered thickly with long, blackish fur. Their faces, half human, half dog-like, were hairless and of a bright but bilious blue, with great livid red circles about the small, furious eyes. With derisive gestures they swung themselves out upon the overhanging branches, till it almost seemed as if they would hurl themselves into the water in their rage against the little knot of human beings.

The girl A-ya, overcome with loathing horror because the beasts were so hideous a caricature of man, covered her eyes with one hand. Young Mo, his fiery temper stung by their challenge, clapped an arrow to his string and raised his bow to shoot. But Grom checked him sternly, dreading to fix any thirst of vengeance in the minds of the terrible troop.

"They can't come at us here. Let them forget about us," said he.

"Don't take any more notice of them at all."

As he led the way once more through the branches along the edge of the bayou, the apes kept pace with them on the other side. But presently the bayou widened, and then swept sharply off to the west. Grom kept on straight to the north, by the route which he had planned. And the mad gibbering died away into the hot, green silence of the tree-tops.

The adventurers now pushed on with redoubled speed, unwilling to pa.s.s another night in the tree-tops when such dangerous antagonists were in the neighborhood. The hills, however, were still far off when evening came again. Not knowing that the great apes always slept at night, Grom decided to continue the journey in order to lessen the risk of a surprise. When the moon rose, round and huge and honey-colored, over the sea of foliage, traveling through the tree-tops was almost as easy as by day, while the earth below them, with its prowling and battling monsters, was buried in inky gloom. When day broke, there were the rounded hills startlingly close ahead, as if they had crept forward to meet them in the night.

And now the hills looked different. Between the nearest--a long, rolling, treeless ridge of downland--and the edge of the jungle lay an expanse of open, gra.s.sy savannah, dotted with ponds, and here and there a curious, solitary, naked tree-trunk, with what looked like a bunch of gra.s.s on its top. They were like gigantic green paint-brushes, with yellow-gray handles, stuck up at random.

Far off they saw a herd of curious beasts at pasture, and away to the left a giant bird, as tall as the tree by which it stood, seemed to keep watch. A little to the right, where the treeless ridge came abruptly to an end, gleamed a considerable stretch of water. It was toward this point, where the water washed the steep-shouldered promontory, that Grom decided to shape his course across the plain.

By the time the sun was some three hours high they had arrived within a couple of hundred yards of the open. Sick of the oppressive jungle, and eager for the change to a type of country with which they were more familiar, they were swinging on through the tree-tops at a great pace, when that savage, snarling jabber which they so dreaded was heard in the branches behind them. Grom instantly put A-ya in the lead, while he himself dropped to the rear to meet this deadliest of perils. There was no need to urge his party to haste; but it seemed to them all as if they were standing still, so swiftly did the clamor of the apes come upon them.

"Down to earth," ordered Grom sharply, seeing that they must be overtaken before they could reach the open, and realizing that in the tree-tops they could not hope to match these four-handed dwellers of the trees.

As they dropped nimbly from branch to branch, the foremost of the apes arrived in sight, set up a screech of triumph, and came swooping down after them in vast, swinging leaps. In the hurry Hobbo dropped his fire-basket, which broke as it fell and scattered the precious coals.

Grom, guarding the rear of the flight, made the mistake of keeping his eye too much on the enemy, too little on where he was going. In a moment or two, he found himself cut off, upon a branch from which there was no escape without a drop of twenty feet to a most uncertain foothold. Rather than risk it, he ran in upon his nearest a.s.sailant at the base of the branch, thrusting at the blue-faced beast with his spear. But his position being so insecure, his thrust lacked force and precision. The great ape caught it deftly; and Grom, to preserve his balance, had to let the spear be wrenched from his hand. At the same moment another ape dropped on the branch behind him.

For just one second Grom thought his hour had come. He crouched to steady himself, then darted forward and hurled his club straight at his foe's protruding and s.h.a.ggy paunch. Again the beast caught the missile in its lightning clutch; but in the next instant it threw up its long arms, without a sound, and fell backwards out of the tree.

A-ya, who had been the first to reach the ground, had drawn her bow and shot upwards with sure aim. The shaft had caught the great ape under the center of the jaw, far back at the throat, and pierced straight up to the brain.

Surprised at seeing their leader fall with so little apparent reason, the other apes halted for a moment in their onset, chattering noisily.

In that moment Grom swung himself to the ground. As he reached it both Mo and Loob discharged their arrows. Another ape fell from his perch, but caught himself on a lower branch and hung there writhing; while a third, with a shaft half buried in his paunch, fled back yelling into the tree-top. Then the adventurers s.n.a.t.c.hed up their fallen weapons from the ground and made for the open as fast as they could run. And the apes, with a h.e.l.lish uproar of barks and screams, came swarming after them through the lower branches.

At this point, fortunately for the travelers, the jungle was already thinning, and they had a chance to show their speed. The raging blue-faces were speedily distanced, and the fugitives ran out breathless upon the sunny savannah. Here, feeling themselves safe, they halted to look back. The lower branches all along the edge of the gra.s.s were thronged with leaping brown forms, and gnashing blue masks, and red-rimmed, devilish eyes. But not one of the great beasts, for all their rage, seemed willing to venture forth into the open.

"There must be something out here that they fear greatly," commented Grom, peering warily about him. But there was nothing in sight to suggest any danger, and he led the way onward through the rank gra.s.s at a long, leisurely trot.

II

For the most part the gra.s.s grew hardly waist high; but here and there were patches, perhaps an acre or so in extent, where it was more cane than gra.s.s and rose to a height of twelve or fifteen feet. To such patches, which might serve as lurking-places to unknown monsters, Grom gave a wide berth. He had a vivid remembrance of that colossal head, with the awful dead eyes, which had reared itself through the leaf.a.ge to stare up at him.

In spite of the strange and enormous trails which crossed their path at times; in spite of occasional ma.s.sive swayings and crashings in the deep beds of cane, the adventurous party accomplished the journey across the savannah without encountering a single foe. The mid-noon blaze of the sun upon the windless gra.s.s, which was almost more than they could endure, was probably keeping the monsters to their lairs; and the only living things to be seen, besides the insects and a high-wheeling vulture or two, were a few shy troops of a kind of small antelope, incredibly swift of foot.

Grom drew a breath of relief as they reached the foot of the hills.

But just here it was impossible to climb them. A range of high limestone downs, they were fringed at this point by an unbroken line of cliff, perpendicular and at times overhanging, from forty or fifty to perhaps a couple of hundred feet in height, and so smooth that even these goat-footed cave-folk could not scale them. The rich plain-land at their feet had once been a shallow, inland sea, and now its gra.s.ses washed along their base in a gold-green, scented foam.

Turning to the right, Grom led the way close along the cliff-foot toward the water, which glowed like bra.s.s about a mile ahead. Along the right of their path the ground sloped off gently to a belt of that high cane-like growth which Grom regarded with such suspicion. Before they had gone many hundred yards his suspicion was more than justified.

From a little way behind them there arose all at once a chorus of explosive gruntings, mixed with a huge crashing of the canes. Glancing over their shoulders, they saw a great rust-red animal, about the size of a rhinoceros, which burst forth from the canes and stood staring after them. Its hideous head was larger than that of any rhinoceros they had ever seen, and armed with a pair of enormous conical horns, each more than a foot in diameter at the base and tapering to a keen point. Set side by side, at a moderate angle, upon the bridge of the snout, they were far more terrible than the horns of any rhinoceros.

Their bearer lowered them menacingly, and charged down upon Grom's party with a sound that was something between the grunting of a hog and the braying of an a.s.s. Immediately upon his ma.s.sive heels a whole herd of the red monsters surged forth from the canes, and came charging after their leader at a ponderous gallop which seemed literally to shake the earth.

For a moment or two Grom's party had paused, confident in their own fleetness of foot, and wondering at that pair of amazing horns on the monster's snout. But when the rest of the terrific herd came thundering down upon them, they fled in all haste. To their amazement, they found that their speed was none too great for their need. The red monsters, in spite of their bulk, were disconcertingly swift.

As he neared the swift promontory which terminated with the range of downs, Grom began to fear that he and his followers would have to take refuge in the water. This water, as it chanced, was the brackish estuary of a river which, sweeping down from the east, here made its way to the sea through a long, slanting break in the limestone hills.

It was now near low tide, and there opened before the hard-pressed fugitives, as they approached the sh.o.r.e, a strip of damp beach running around the base of the bluff. As they left the gra.s.s and ran out upon the beach they were astonished to find that the thundering pursuit had stopped short. Just at the turn of the cliff they halted and stared back wonderingly. Their pursuers, though swinging their great horns and braying with rage, were evidently unwilling to venture so near the waterside. They drew back, indeed, as if they feared it, and at last went crashing away into the canes. The fugitives, glad of an opportunity to rest their laboring lungs, squatted down with their backs against the cliff and congratulated themselves on having got rid of such perilous attentions. But Grom's sagacious eyes searched the cliff face anxiously, without neglecting to watch the unruffled water.

If that water was so dreaded that even the mighty herd of their pursuers durst not approach it, surely its smiling surface must hide some peril of surpa.s.sing horror.

For the next few hundred yards, till it vanished around the curve, the strip of naked beach was not more than twenty or thirty feet in width.

Not without some apprehensions, Grom decided to push forward. There seemed nothing else to do, indeed, seeing that the cane-beds behind them were occupied by that irresistible red herd. Somewhere ahead, he argued, there must be a break in the cliff which would give access to the rolling downs above, where they might travel in safety.

Disguising his growing uneasiness that he might not discourage his followers--who were now full of elation at having reached the foot of the hills--he led on again in haste, though there seemed to be no need of haste. Both Hobbo and young Mo, indeed, were for staying a while and sleeping in the shade of an overhanging rock. But A-ya, who sensed through sympathy her lord's disquietude, and the little scout Loob, who was always, on principle, ill at ease in any spot where there was no tree to climb, were as eager as their chief to push ahead; and the others would never have dared, in any case, to question Grom's decision.

As they rounded the next bend of the cliff, however, a clamor of excited satisfaction arose from all the party. Straight ahead, and not fifty paces distant, there opened before them a s.p.a.cious cave-mouth, with a somewhat wider strip of beach before it. Immediately beyond the cave the strip of beach came sharply to an end, and the tide lapped softly against the foot of the cliff.

But just then, in the moment of their elation, a terrifying thing happened. As if aroused by their voices, the still surface a few yards from sh.o.r.e boiled up, and was lashed to foam by the strokes of a gigantic tail.

"Run!" yelled Grom; and they all dashed forward, there being no chance to go back. In the same instant, an appalling head--like that of a thrice magnified and distorted crocodile, with vast, round, painted eyes--was upthrust from the water and came rushing after them at a pace which sent up a curving wave before it.