JAN OF THE JUNGLE & Its Sequel, Jan in India. Otis Adelbert Kline
above the matted jungle growth that fringed the beach, three coconut palms reared their crowns, dangling their fruit invitingly. With a wordless cry of delight, Jan plunged through the undergrowth toward them. He was about to spring up the nearest tree, when two powerful brown hands, reaching from behind him, suddenly gripped his throat.
Unable to cry out because of the strangling pressure on his windpipe, Jan was dragged, kicking and struggling, back into the dark depths of the South American jungle.
Chapter 7. Brown Men’s Prize
Jan’s struggles presently grew less as the pressure of the powerful fingers on his throat continued. Then his arms were seized and tightly bound behind his back. For some time he lay on the ground, panting for breath with rattling palate, and staring defiantly up at the strange creature whose prisoner he had become.
The man was short and powerful, and naked save for an abbreviated loin- cloth. His straight black hair was cut in a soup-bowl bob, and his coppery skin glistened with perspiration from his recent exertions, for, despite his youth Jan was stronger than the average man and had given him a good tussle.
Jan watched the native suspiciously as he took up a bundle of long sticks —as long as he was tall—from the ground. One of these sticks was curved, with a string stretched across the curve from tip to tip. The others were sharply pointed at one end. To Jan, a stick had always meant a potential beating, and a low growl rumbled from his throat as his captor made a step toward him.
Puzzled by this unusual sound, coming from a human being, the tall savage paused for a moment, looking quizzically down at his prisoner. He took a second step, and a louder growl resulted. Then he uttered a few words. The youth’s only answer was a snarl and a quick leap to his feet. Then he darted into the jungle, his hands still bound behind him.
As he dashed away through the forest, Jan heard a quick grunt of surprise. Then there was a_ twang, and one of the long sticks whizzed past his ear, burying its point in a tree trunk, where it quivered for a moment as if alive.
Sprinting, leaping, stumbling, dodging first one way, then another, and constantly goaded to his utmost speed by the unmistakable sounds of pursuit behind him, the youth ran on and on until his breath came in great sobbing gasps and there was a terrific pain in his side: But still the sound of those menacing, footsteps followed him relentlessly, doggedly.
Suddenly there came to his nostrils an odor that was hatefully familiar to him. It was the smell of burning wood, and he instantly associated it with Dr. Bracken and his years of captivity. The cook always burned wood in her kitchen stove, and at some time during the day there was always a puff of wind to carry it into the menagerie.
Jan halted for a moment, suspicious of the acrid odor, but a shout from his pursuer sent him running forward again. The shout was instantly answered by a voice directly ahead of him. Soon there were more yells on his right and left, and more answers from the man who, pursued him. Accompanying the yells were the patter of footsteps and the rustling of underbrush, warning him that he had been surrounded.
Looking about for a place to hide, Jan selected a clump of huge begonias, which spread their immense leaves nearby. Plunging into this clump, he squatted down, and peering through a space between two gigantic leaves, watched for the approach of the numerous enemies his ears told him were closing in on him.
As he sat there with perspiration streaming from him, endeavoring to keep his labored breathing as quiet as possible, two bronze-skinned savages suddenly came into Jan’s line of vision. They passed on, but were succeeded by three more, the last of whom stopped as something caught his attention. It was one of Jan’s footprints, and it told this trained hunter as plainly as words that the youth was hidden behind the broad leaves of the begonia. With a loud whoop of exultation, he sprang upon the crouching Jan and dragged him forth.
In an instant, Jan was the center of a ring of curious savages, who plucked at his shock of red hair, pulled at his jaguar-skin garment, and poked at his sunburned body as if he were a strange being from another planet, chattering excitedly to each other the while with many grunts and exclamations of amazement.
His spirit unbroken and his anger aroused by this manhandling, Jan voiced his disapproval in the only manner he knew—by alternately snarling and growling at his captors. This demonstration seemed to amuse them hugely, and several of them took to baiting him for the purpose of entertainment.
One huge fellow took it upon himself to poke Jan’s tender, sunburned nose with his forefinger. He instantly withdrew the hand with a howl of pain, for Jan, with a quick snap, had bitten it nearly through at the second joint. Enraged, the wounded savage whipped out a machete and would have cut off Jan’s head, but two companions seized and dragged him away, while the entire party laughed at his discomfiture.
Then Jan’s original captor took him by one arm and one of his fellows seized the other, after which they hustled him along between them into a cleared space where a fire was burning and many hammocks were swung. Here Jan’s feet were bound, and he was thrown to the ground with one man watching him. Several others gathered around the fire, which they replenished, and over which, when it was going well, they suspended the carcasses of six monkeys, a capybara and two peccaries to roast.
Despite the ache of his bound hands and feet and the stinging bites of numerous tiny black flies, Jan kept every sense alert, listening to the strange chatter of the bronze-skinned men and watching their every movement. All were naked except for their abbreviated loin-cloths, and all were well armed. Some, he observed, had the bent sticks with strings stretched across, and the bundles of sharp-pointed sticks which could fly from them. All had either machetes or knives, familiar to Jan because of the assortment of cutlery which Dr. Bracken had used in cutting up meat. Some also carried short, heavy sticks with sharp stones lashed to their thick ends, and some had very long sticks with sharp points.
As soon as they finished eating, the savages, one by one, wandered to their hammocks, which were slung in the smoke of the fire to keep off insect pests and went to sleep.
Jan’s original captor brought him some gnawed monkey bones with a little meat left on them, and unbound his hands so he could eat. His fingers were first numb, then filled with a sensation that resembled the pricking of a thousand needles as the blood began to circulate freely in them. He ate a few bites of monkey flesh, took a long drink from a gourd which his captor proffered, and submitted to having his hands bound once more, for he saw that resistance would be useless.
The black flies, which Jan was powerless to brush away, disappeared at nightfall, but their place was taken by hordes of mosquitoes. For hours Jan lay awake squirming and tossing in fruitless endeavor to rid himself of his tiny tormentors But at last he slept.
Awakened at daybreak by a stir in the camp around him, Jan was fed, given a drink of water, and left to watch the preparations for departure. All camp equipment was loaded into a half dozen large baskets, which were carried on men’s backs, suspended by broad straps that went around their foreheads. When all was in readiness, Jan’s feet were unbound and he was forced to march away with the others.
For five days Jan was taken deeper and deeper into the jungle by the band of hunters. Near the end of the fifth day they suddenly emerged into a circular clearing, in the center of which was a large round communal hut or malocca, flanked by two crudely constructed lean-tos.
A dozen yapping mongrel dogs rushed out to greet them, instantly followed by more than a score of pot-bellied naked children whose clamor equaled that of the canines, and then by women wearing nothing but small square or triangular aprons.
Jan was dragged to a strong stump about five feet tall near the entrance to the communal hut, and bound to it by strips of fiber passed around his body. Then his hands and feet were unbound and he was given a drink of water. Dogs, children, and women crowded around him, all apparently more curious than the men had been. A dog nipped him on the shin, and Jan promptly kicked it over the heads of the children standing in front. Then a youth of about Jan’s age, apparently its master, attempted reprisal