JAN OF THE JUNGLE & Its Sequel, Jan in India. Otis Adelbert Kline
for which he could not account. He was not content to make short journeys from the hut, returning at nightfall, but took to wandering farther and farther away, sleeping in the trees at night. He was always discontented—searching for something, he knew not what, but always searching, always going farther and remaining away longer.
One morning when he was four days’ journey from the hut, he suddenly emerged from the jungle into a grove of trees that appeared most strange and unnatural to him. They grew in straight rows, evenly spaced almost to the very edge of a broad river. There was little undergrowth beneath them, and no rope- like lianas were draped among their branches.
Jan was puzzled. Stealthily he moved forward among the slender, straight trunks to investigate this unusual place. But he had riot gone more than a few steps before he saw something that caused him to stop and hastily dodge behind one of the tree trunks. To Jan, all strange humans were enemies, and he instinctively fitted a long arrow to his bowstring. But as he gazed at the creature coming toward him, something held his hand. This being was unlike any he had ever seen before and more lovely than the fairest jungle flower that had ever charmed his innate sense of beauty.
He gazed, spellbound, while the wonderous creature sat down on the moss beneath one of the trees, and leaning against it, opened what he thought was a basket of white leaves on which there were many strange little black tracks. Curious as he was about the basket with white leaves, he could not keep his eyes off the face above it. The being had dark-brown hair, as curly as Jan’s own, tumbling just below the nape of a snow-white neck. The big brown eyes were half-veiled by the long, curling lashes, pink cheeks, and a tiny red mouth.
This creature, Jan thought, looked altogether too fragile to be dangerous and was, moreover, too beautiful to be destroyed. He relaxed his bowstring and was about to lower his arrow, when he suddenly caught sight of something which caused him to bring the arrow quickly back to the firing position. It was the flash, through a brilliant patch of sunlight, of a tawny, stealthily moving creature, larger than a jaguar and more formidable. The only beast in the menagerie which had resembled it was Terrible One, the lion, so Jan instinctively thought of it in those terms.
As the puma, a giant of his species, crept closer and closer, Jan, who had watched the hunting of these great cats many times in the jungle, became aware that it was stalking the lovely human he had been admiring. He could see the tip of the long, yellow tail twitching, the mighty muscles preparing for the swift charge which even the fastest of the jungle creatures seldom escapes. Jan foresaw the outcome—a lightning leap, a rending, bone-crushing blow from the huge paw, a crunch of the mighty jaws, and a limp and bloody victim being dragged away to some jungle lair to be devoured.
Many times Jan had seen these great cats bring down their prey, and never had he intervened to save the victim. But this victim was different. He could not bear to see that beauty marred—that frail body mangled and bleeding. Drawing the arrow back with all his strength, he took careful aim at the tawny shoulder, and let fly.
The arrow flew true to the mark, and the great carnivore, with a terrific roar of rage and pain, sprang out of its hiding place, straight for the girl it had marked for its prey.
But quick as was the puma, Jan was there before it, barring the way. His bow and arrows he had tossed aside, and his keen machete gleamed in his hand. Snarling furiously, the immense beast reared up on its hind legs—taller by a head than Jan—and slapped at him with a mighty paw. Jan dodged to one side, nearly severing the paw with his machete as he did so; and he would have been temporarily out of danger in another instant, had not his toe caught on a root, sending him sprawling.
Before he could make another move’ the puma pounced upon him, sinking its great teeth into his left shoulder, shaking him as a cat shakes a mouse, and raking and gouging him with its terrible, sickle-like claws.
The youth felt his strength waning fast. He tried to use big machete, but his efforts seemed feeble, futile. He backed at the side of the monster’s head again and again, cutting off an ear, blinding an eye, leaving nothing on one side but a bloody mass of mangled flesh and bone. But the powerful jaws would not relax their hold. The bulging; muscular neck continued to pivot that gory head as it swiftly shook Jan’s limp body.
Jan had reached the limit of human endurance. It seemed to him that a great weight was crushing him, forcing the breath from his body. His machete dropped from his nerveless fingers, and merciful unconsciousness crept over him.
Chapter 10. Outside the Walls
At sixteen Ramona Suarez was still something of a tomboy. She loved to mingle with the dark-skinned children and mongrel dogs of the laborers on her father’s great rubber plantation. She took great delight in climbing trees, scaling walls and exploring thickets, to the despair of her doting old duenna, Señora Soledade. Her duenna scolded her, her mother, Doña Isabella, tried to reason with her, and her father, Don Fernando, who secretly chuckled over her escapades, tried to look stern when required to lecture her.
But they might as profitably have scolded the wind, reasoned with the rain cloud, or lectured the lightning. Ramona would listen dutifully, then, with a flash of white teeth and a shake of her dark brown ringlets; would romp away to hatch up some new deviltry.
Señora Soledade, corpulent and dignified, was of the opinion that the big patio, with its flowers shrubs and trees, winding walks; vine-clad arbors and bubbling fountains, was a large enough world for any girl. Charged with the duty of keeping Ramona always in sight, and taking the task in all seriousness, she was really able to do so only about half the time.
One day the old duenna was seated in the shade of an arbor in the patio, working on a bit of lace, and Ramona was busily engaged beneath a nearby orange tree with her English tutor, Arthur Morrison. Quite positive that her charge would not get away so long as the tutor was about, and drowsy from the mounting heat, the señora settled back comfortably in her chair, and with her hands folded over her ample equator, dozed.
But scarcely had she fallen asleep when the tutor, with a final charge to his pupil to study diligently, strolled away.
Ramona waited slyly until the tutor had entered the house. Then she peeked at the old lady, and saw that the coast was clear. Leaving her text- books, pencils and rulers beneath the orange tree, she picked up one of her favorite story books and climbed the tree.
At first it had been Ramona’s intention to read the book in the tree, thus dumfounding the duenna when she should awaken; yet one side of the tree overhung the patio wall, giving her a new idea. Softly she let herself down from, a branch to the top of the wall, then, with the book gripped between her teeth, suspended herself by her hands on the other side, and dropped. She had attained the freedom she craved and she meant to make the most of it.
Tucking the book under her arm, she wandered off between the tall straight trunks of one of her father’s young rubber groves until she came to the river bank. Then she sat down, leaned against a tree, and immersed herself in her book.
Ramona was an avid reader, and soon forgot her surroundings. But she was brought sharply back to reality by two sounds, one following the other in rapid succession: the twang of a bow-string and the roar of a mountain lion. For a moment she was paralyzed with fear and in that moment the great beast charged:
But quick as the puma had been, there was one who was quicker. Ramona was conscious for an instant of the lithe, auburn-haired youth who put himself between her and the charging death. Then for a moment things happened so swiftly that she could scarcely follow them—the roaring beast, the youth’s swift and skillful slash that crippled one of the great paws, and his leap for safety, blocked by the projecting root.
The girl uttered a single, piercing scream as she saw her champion go down. Then she leaped to her feet, undecided for a moment whether to run for help or go to the assistance of her champion. She decided on the latter course, and looked around for a weapon.
Jan’s bow and arrows lay where he had thrown them, and she caught them up. Fitting an arrow to the string, she aimed