As It Was in the Beginning. Philip Verrill Mighels
herself.
She hated him now more intensely than before, since he seemed, by some enormity of purpose, to have been in some manner responsible for the fate that had brought her here in his company, absolutely at his mercy. That his promptness of action had saved her life she willingly and justly conceded—but to fetch her here, all by herself, to an island unpeopled and awful, far from the track of ocean-going steamers—with his threat to compel her love still ringing in her ears—this seemed to outweigh any possible service he had done or could ever accomplish.
What would he do, she wondered, on the morrow? When would he speak of his passion again? What means, in this situation, might he presently adopt to coerce the love she knew she should never bestow?
There could be no answer to her questions—least of all from the man himself. He, too, had fallen into silence, and a study of the vast and merciless problems, not only of existence till their escape could be effected, but likewise as to how that escape could be attempted, in safety, and where they must steer their ocean course to come to a land which should not prove inhospitable.
He seemed, for the time, to have quite forgotten the presence of the girl at the cave. This she finally observed. She wondered, then, what sinister outcome his brooding might presage.
Keyed to a pitch of nervous sensibility she had never experienced before, she retired at length within her shelter like a child thrust alone in the dark. Much as she felt she disliked the man, she found herself most reluctant to move very far from his presence, or refuse his protecting care. She was certain her dread of all it meant to be hopelessly cast upon this island, with one doubtful human being only for comfort and companionship, would haunt her to sleeplessness throughout the night. Yet she fell into slumber almost at once, and only dreamed she was still awake and worried.
It was still quite early in the evening. Elaine was finally approaching a thoroughly restful oblivion, when a low, moaning wail, and then shrill screams, abruptly ushered once more into play that hideous chorus of the morning, produced by some phenomenon of the tides.
"Sidney! Sidney!" came an answering cry; and Grenville arose, to see Elaine running wildly towards him from her cave.
CHAPTER IX
THE MOTHER OF INVENTION
It was not until the entire cycle of haunting sounds had been repeated for its final time that Elaine could consent to return to her pallet of grasses. And even when she had once more knelt upon this improvised bed, she could not consent to resign herself to the mercies of the night without one more glance towards Grenville's cavern.
She returned, unseen, to her door, and peered forth through the starlit night, discerning his dimly outlined figure, as he sat before his door.
He even arose as she paused there, uncertainly. She noted his listening attitude, the alertness of his pose. Then he sat once more upon the stone at his threshold, where she knew his club lay ready to his hand.
A sense of security, despite her bitterness of feeling, came slowly stealing upon her. She went back to her couch and slept.
Sidney, for his part, sat there alone, while hour after hour went silently by, and the constellations hung in higher arches. A thousand ramifications of thought he pursued in his active brain. But through them all, like an ever recurrent motif, stole a troubled reminder of the tiger, twice encountered in the day.
To slay this contemptuous, savage beast that already drooled about the jaws at thoughts of a human morsel, was the one imperative business to be promptly executed. Elaine and himself could live on fruits, and neglect all else, without serious results, for a week, or even a month, but this affair was not to be delayed.
He thought of pitfalls, giant traps, and automatic engines of destruction by the score, each deadly device absurdly impracticable and beyond all power of his achievement. His mind, accustomed to civilized ways, ran in higher ingenuities that were absolutely useless in this primal state of their existence.
When at length he leaned back against his wall and began to wonder if, in the end, he must arm himself with primitive man's crude bow and arrow, and thus engage the master prowler of the jungle, he was ready for Nature's claims. He slept there, too utterly exhausted to drag himself in to his bed. And there Elaine found him in the morning.
That day was a long one, of varied and wearying employments. The wall was finished across the trail, Elaine's too widely opened cavern was partially blocked up with stone, and, at length, in addition to searching the jungle for something particularly downy and inflammable for tinder, to use in making fire, Grenville went with his basket down to the clay pit and fetched sufficient of this moist and plastic material to mould a number of vessels.
This last useful art was not, however, immediately attempted. Unfired jugs and basins were absolutely useless—and as yet they had no fire. The search for tinder had resulted only in producing a silken, fluffy material that grew in a fat green pod. It was moist, when found, with the natural juices of the plant.
While it dried in the sun, under Elaine's supervision, Grenville worked at a stout, elastic tree-branch to taper out a bow. His stub of a knife-blade served indifferently against the close-grained wood, which, nevertheless, was obliged to yield to his persevering efforts.
At noon the weapon, save for the cord, was rudely finished. No arrows had been as yet provided. Obliged at this hour to replenish the camp supply of water, Grenville once more visited the spring. So fresh were the tracks of the tiger here, in the mire about the trickling stream, that he felt they must almost be warm. The brute was undoubtedly near at hand, but, perhaps, well fed, as before.
"There is nothing quite so important now as fire," was Grenville's remark, as he once more rejoined Elaine. "Without it we are practically helpless. With it—there is almost nothing we may not hope to achieve."
He had thought of a number of extraordinary and highly important implements and arts that only flame and glowing heat could render possible.
Elaine brought the fluff she had thoroughly dried, while Grenville cleaned his flint and steel. For an hour, then, he strove in vain to ignite his bit of tinder. It was not at all an easy matter to strike a spark from the stone. What few brilliant specks of incandescence sped occasionally downward like vigor transmuted into swiftly fading stars from Grenville's varied and over-eager strokes, either died on the air or missed their mark or struck it and found it uncongenial.
"This must be a vegetable asbestos," he finally declared. "If I had just a pinch of powder, this flint might recognize—— By Jove!" and he started at once to his feet. "I'm the greatest fool on legs!"
"What seems to be the trouble?" said Elaine, who could not possibly comprehend his meaning. "Have you made some sort of mistake?"
"I've been asleep—my brain defunct! Excuse me half a minute!"
He started madly down the trail, running like a boy. Before Elaine could do more than stare in wonder at his antics, he had reached the bottom of the wall, darted across the clearing, and disappeared in the jungle growth beyond.
He smashed his way hotly to the wrecked old barque, and, pawing deeply beneath the surface of the wasting saltpeter, that had been for long somewhat protected in the hold, promptly filled two pockets with the mineral, and went racing back as he had come.
But beyond the clearing he altered his course to enter the region once blackened by fire. Here he went directly to the hollow tree he had once before examined, and, wriggling inside, through the ample orifice burned out by the flames, he attacked the charred interior with his knife as if his very life depended on his haste.
In the briefest time he had chipped off more than a double handful of crisp, but inferior, charcoal. Retreating no less promptly than he had entered, he gathered this carefully in a giant leaf, and hastily rejoined