Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 204: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

202 left hand I tore a way beneath those growths. A tropical storm was indeed afoot. I snuggled, prone, beneath those growths and against that trunk of tree for protection from that tropical storm. And then came the rain—a black vomit from the heavens which fell steadily, un- ceasingly, with a great hollow booming sound, with an immense brooding patience and persistency. The black bowl of sky gushed water as if those jagged swords of lightning had, indeed, cleft it in twain; the torn and stripped overgrowth of jungle dripped like a sieve; and the tree-trunk be- side me, even the heavy growths above and about turned damp, soggy. The very earth ran in rivulets, in washouts, from be- neath me. So through the blackness, as squall after , squall struck the mountainside, shattering with hum and din that monotonous boom- ing of the rain, tearing asunder the over- growth, ripping up massive trees by their huge roots and seemingly shaking the whole round world, I lay under the wet growths beside that soggy tree, sinking into the jellied earth, wetted through and through. Only once did I move. I scooped up the black mud beneath me and plastered it about my waist, thus roughly poulticing my lacerated middle, and stopping the bleeding. When the gray light of dawn was seeping through the wide gaps in that torn arcade overhead the squalls ceased, though the rain still continued to downpour with that great hollow booming. Stiff and pain-racked, and thoroughly soaked I was then, yet I thought only to appease the gnawing of my famished stomach. I crawled out, picked up an almost green durian orange and, because I had no knife and was unable to burst its thick coat with one hand, I broke that thick coat by dint of a deal of hammering against that soggy trunk of tree. Then amid all that drip and boom of the rain, I ate. » That strengthened me—I got afoot. Stumbling, and sometimes falling, but al- ways, somehow, pickgng myself up and dog- gedly going on, I made through that drip- ping chaos of growths down the slant of the - slope. And I only hoped that I could make some camp of men—orchid-hunters, big- game-trappers, explorers or what-not—or even the old deserted camp where I had parted from my Dyak boys. If my boys only had left a tarpaulin or blanket behind Adventure them I knew I could improvise some sort of temporary shelter against the rain. 4p») I DO not know how long it was that W I wandered. My head felt light from the loss of blood, and every- thing seemed whirling ’round and ’round. I fervently hoped that I would not walk ’round and ’round in a circle, as I have known men, alone and lost in jungles, to have done. pointed the way for me; it sloped down, ever down. I followed it blindly, stupidly. Quite suddenly, it seemed, I made out about me what appeared to be a vast circle of dancing lights. I knew it was only one light; but with the lightness and whirling of my brain my eyes were seeing things not only double, but a hundredfold. I made toward one light in that circle of lights. Amid all that brooding boom of the rain I shouted madly for assistance. ; There was no answer; but I did not pause. | Frenziedly breaking through drip- ping creepers and growths and overthrown trees I stumbled upon a fire blazing under the protection of a framework. of bilian stakes and a roof of bark. To either side were little shelter-tents, brown and small, and exactly like the shelter-tents used by armies. I could swear, on those shelter- tents there was the black-painted name of Willyum Hyde. » But Iwas not sure. With the insane hope surging in my breast that I had stumbled upon my own camp'‘I called and called again. At last, from one of the little tents an earringed Dyak boy looked out. He was one of my own Christian boys, surely enough; but at sight of me, torn and man- gled and muddy, and standing out there in the rain, he threw up his hands in terror and ducked back behind the flap of the tent. “Come on out, you fool!” I shouted, though I suppose my voice was little better than a sob. “I’m no bad antu of the Poo- nan, no damned Green, Green God. I’m only Willyum Hyde, Willyum Hyde. I’m only Willyum Hyde who has lost his bride —his all—his Golden Feather of Flame!” And, my voice trailing off weakly, I pitched forward, almost upon the fire; and I lay there weeping as only a man weeps when his nerve and strength are gone and help is at hand at last. When I came again to a knowledge of my- self I found I was in one of the shelter-tents, 4 But that slant of the slope - Gomichbooks (GO)