  The pull was a long one, even in the cool of the night. I knew my way, by the stars, if necessary, but the moonlight made my steering easy. For half an hour the goddess was silent, sighing now and again, and crying a bit, as if deliverance had broken down some barrier to all her emotions, letting floods of pent up feelings free at once. “It doesn’t seem possible,” she told me finally. “What doesn’t?” said I, though I knew very well what she meant. “This boat,” she answered, “and you—a man—in this terrible place. It doesn’t seem really true that I have escaped from those awful creatures; I didn’t believe I should ever get away. Oh, how did you do it?” “Perhaps you’d better tell me first how you got there,” I made answer. “How long have you been in the place?” “I—don’t know,” she faltered. “It must be months and months. I lost all account, but it seems like an age. I didn’t seem to care about the dates, there have been such lots of awful things to think of all the while. What month is it now?” “Lord bless you, that’s more than I know,” I admitted shamelessly. “I couldn’t keep track; things have been too hot. I should say, though, it’s probably getting along toward summer.” Although she was deeply concerned with herself and all the troubles which for long she had endured, she realised that I too had been lost in this land of jungle. She made me tell my story first. I boiled it down to the bones, being anxious to hear how it was she came to be there. This she told me, brokenly, before we landed from the boat. She was a cosmopolitan sort of a girl, born and raised in Australia, educated partially in England and partially in Massachusetts. Her father was an Englishman, a scientist, her mother American, of fine old Puritan stock. This mother had died in Sydney. The father and daughter having spent much of their time together, had grown to be great companions. She had long been interested in all his work, in which she had learned to be of great assistance. Thus it came about that when he determined to visit certain of the smaller Banyac Islands, for the purpose of collecting flora and fauna for preservation, she accompanied him as a matter of course. From a private steam yacht, placed at the professor’s disposal, and also from the coast settlements, the two had made daily excursions, in a ship’s yawl in which they could make a careful survey of all the shore. Engaged in their work, one warm afternoon, they had moored the yawl among a lot of weed-covered rocks. This had been accomplished by securing the painter to one of the oars and wedging this oar down between a pair of boulders. The tide was ebbing when they landed. In a short time her father had secured a medium-sized anaconda, which having recently fed, was dull and half asleep. This serpent he had given to his daughter, who carried it back to the boat and nailed it in a box provided for any such emergency. Feeling slightly fatigued and unenthusiastic she had then sat down in the yawl, raised her sun-shade and taken out a book to read. She described the soporific effect of the heat and the lapping of the water about the boat, which had begun soon to affect her senses when she had settled down to rest. Before she knew it she had gone fast asleep. She believed that finally the tide had risen and floated the oar from between the rocks. Then doubtless a breeze had sprung up and the boat had been drifted away. “Anyway I know I must have slept for hours.” she said, “but when I did wake up—oh dear! The sky was black, and I couldn’t see any island, or anything but water, and a terrible storm was coming, and the darkness was all about me, and then—well, it was simply the awfullest wind in the world that commenced to blow!” The storm which she now described had probably been a regular monsoon. It lasted for hours, she said, and the yawl was driven wildly about on the angry sea. Like many a yawl, this craft had been broad of beam and it was therefore as seaworthy as a life-belt. It had ridden like a duck throughout the night. When at last the light returned, the girl had found herself stranded in a singular place. Not a sign could she see of the ocean, but the yawl had been driven inland on what had appeared to be a great lagoon. This water-way, the edges of which were bordered thickly with a dense, jungle-like growth, had become as calm as a mill-pond. While she still sat in the boat she had suddenly discovered a score of “horrid black brutes” descending upon the place. She had found the task of pushing off to be quite beyond her strength, in addition to which she had been so bewildered as not to know in the least where she had arrived. The creatures—the Black Missing Links—had appeared of threatening aspect, yet she had soon been made to realise that they were delighted to see her among them and that all regarded herself as a prize belonging to the tribe. With her snake, of which they had immediately manifested a fear, she had followed where these monsters led, although unwillingly. They had given her food, but they had appeared to have no thought or consideration of her weakened condition, nor even of the fact that she was a woman and therefore not as strong as themselves. In consequence of this, she had been obliged to march through the jungle till nearly ready to drop from sheer weariness of body. Her clothing had been torn to tatters on the brush; her shoes had been all but ruined, and her flesh had been scratched and bruised. “That is all there is to tell,” she concluded. “It has been a horrid, desperate existence ever since. The monsters have never been cruel, but I have been burned in the sun, and I have shivered in the rain and chill of night. I have been trembling at the thought of some terrible death, and then praying that I might really die and end all the wretched horror. I couldn’t tell where I was,—you say you don’t even know yourself,—and day and night I have been in a condition of dread bordering on insanity. It has all been so terribly hopeless—so loathsome. Oh how I have suffered! And that horrible old woman has watched me like a hawk, and I couldn’t have escaped if I had tried, and I didn’t know where to get a boat, and I couldn’t make anything—not even clothes,—and the horrid female creatures stole nearly all I had left, and I didn’t even have a needle, or a piece of soap, or a toothbrush!” “Perhaps I could make you a comb,” I suggested, to drive away her dreadful thoughts, if possible, but she appeared not to hear. “Poor Papa,” she resumed, “I don’t know what he ever thought, or where he is, or anything about anything.” “Oh well,” said I, “we’ll soon be getting away from here now, and perhaps the trip will turn out pretty well after all. You’ll probably be at home in a month, forgetting all about this expedition to the land of Missing Links.” She shook her head, the wild look in her eyes came back. “That is too good a dream to come true,” she said. “It doesn’t seem as if we can ever get away,—but oh, Mr. Nevers—I do hope you will never let them get me back,—oh if only you will take me away—if only you will!” and again she broke down and sobbed, as if it had been a thousand times too much to bear. “I’ll do it or bust!” I assured her with much enthusiasm. “I couldn’t say more than that if I tried. We’ll come out all right, don’t you worry.” |
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