As It Was in the Beginning Part 12

"Well--I shall mount it, in any case, though I have my doubts of his standing while I blow a few rocks through his person."

When he went for a fresh supply of fruits he brought up a log some four or five feet in length, with a burned-off p.r.o.ng at its end. This he intended to prepare as a "carriage" for the gun. He placed the p.r.o.nged end down in his fire, to burn out a niche for the little bra.s.s piece, which he cleaned of its mud then and there.

His preliminary work on the bit of ordnance was soon concluded. When his log had burned to a moderate depth, he removed it to a near-by rock and gouged the charred portions away. Into the hollow thus rudely formed, the breach of the gun loosely fitted, ready to be firmly bound in place.

But the day was done, and Elaine had spread their "table," to which Sidney was glad to repair.

He had mentioned nothing of the tube still fatly bulging his pocket.

Until he should first determine what the cylinder contained, he meant to arouse no unnecessary speculations in the breast of his companion.

How much she might yet have to know of the barque and the mummy chained in its cabin he could not determine to-night. That something sinister lurked behind the mystery which this and the two headless skeletons involved was his constantly growing conviction.

It was not until night was heavily down, and Elaine had crept gladly to the comfort of her cave, that Grenville produced the bra.s.s cylinder, and stirred up new flames of his fire.

Then, sitting alone in the ruddy glow, with a rock for a stool, and another before him for an anvil, he sc.r.a.ped all he could of the greenish oxidation from the cover of the tube, and tried, as before, to wrench it off. The stubborn parts remained solidly rusted together.

This he had apparently expected. For he took up a rock of convenient size and, gently beating the cylinder just below its union with the cover, he bent it slightly inward about its entire circ.u.mference, meanwhile pausing from time to time to thrust his knife between the cemented pieces and force them a little apart.

The tube was considerably mangled by this process, while the cover still adhered. In a final burst of impatience, Grenville thrust the battered cap in the crevice between two bowlders and wrenched it roughly away.

Then he turned the hollow tube to the light, revealing, within, the edge of some doc.u.ment, thick and loosely rolled. This he readily removed and straightened in his hands, placing the tube beneath his arm.

For a moment the parchment seemed, despite the firelight upon it, a mere blank square, of leathery texture and weight. Then he fancied he saw upon its surface some manner of writing, or signs.

He resumed his seat and held the thing to the fullest light of the flames. It was yellowish tan in color, a trifle stiff, and inclined to curl to the shape it had held so long. Grenville turned it over, so dim were the characters it bore. There was nothing, however, on its outer side, wherefore he bent more closely towards his wavering light above such signs as he could finally discern.

Perhaps the fact that he began by expecting to find some ordinary map, or printed or written characters, for a short time baffled his wits.

Howbeit, he began at length to discover the fact that a few large signs or hieroglyphics had been rudely sketched upon the parchment. When this discovery was finally confirmed, he had still considerable difficulty in tracing the lines that comprised these singular designs.

The firelight cast dark shadows in certain crease-like traceries that folds in the substance had formed. It was not until he presently managed to discriminate between these mere wrinkles and the "writing,"

that he made the slightest progress. His eyes at last became more keen to follow the artist's meaning. With his stub of a pencil, on a whittled bit of wood, he began to copy what he "read."

The result was, crudely, this:

[Ill.u.s.tration: parchment with signs and hieroglyphics]

It was not a map; it could hardly be a message--unless expressed in some short-hand system heretofore unknown--yet it must at some time or other have been accounted important to have been so elaborately preserved.

Grenville turned it upside down, compared his copy with the original repeatedly, and then examined the parchment with most minute particularity in search of some smaller writing to explain these mysterious signs.

There was nothing further to be seen--at least by the light of his fire. Two of the symbols only did he recognize as ever having come to his attention before. These were, first, the lines like a series of M's, and second the oval, about a human figure. This last suggested unmistakably an ancient Egyptian cartouch--the name or t.i.tle of a king.

But containing one sign only, and that apparently representing a mummy, it puzzled the inventor no less than the pyramids and curves.

That some either crude or crafty mind had combined this mixture of Egyptian and nondescript hieroglyphics with intent to reveal some secret message or information to other initiated beings, while concealing its import from all accidental beholders of the script, seemed to Grenville perfectly obvious.

He sat for three hours replenis.h.i.+ng the fire and goading his brain for a key to the puzzle, before it occurred to his mind at last the tube might contain the explanation.

All this while he had held it beneath his arm, hard pressed against his body. As he peered down its dark interior once more, he likewise thrust in his fingers. It was they that discovered and fastened upon another sheet of something he had missed.

This clung so close to the tube's metal walls he wetted his finger to remove it. The light then shone opaquely through its substance. It was ordinary foolscap paper, the half of a sheet, gone yellowish with age, but otherwise very well preserved.

It was covered with roughly scrawled characters.

Grenville glanced it through--and irrelevantly longed for a pipe. He felt he should like some good tobacco to a.s.sist in the puzzle's solution.

He felt convinced, however, that a crude example of the simplest, most primitive cipher was contained upon the sheet. Should the words later prove to be in English he could finally read it all. He began to compare the recurrence of the various symbols at once, discovering that the sign in the form of a cross had been used no less than fourteen times, and was therefore almost certainly E. The next in importance was the figure 3, which he felt might be either A, or N, or S, since these, after E, are among the characters in English spelling most frequently employed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: second message]

On another clean chip of whittled wood he jotted down a few of the "words" with E's in each instance subst.i.tuted for the crosses, and then began attempting to make clear sense by subst.i.tuting A's, N's, and S's for the figure three, the figure one, and open squares, which, he found, had been often represented.

It was a blind and tedious business. His fire burned low, in his absorption, and the midnight constellations marched past the zenith of the heavens before he finally realized the folly of his quest.

"It's not a bit of good in the world, if I knew all about it," he finally confessed, "no matter what it means."

He went to bed. But he did not sleep. Those singular pyramids and the cipher still lingered before his inner vision. What was the mystery hidden behind the dead man chained in the rotting barque, the headless skeletons lying near the swamp, and now these doc.u.ments, found in the tube and so carefully concealed?

"I give it up," he told himself at last, in an effort to dismiss it all and compose his active brain. "I wish I had a stouter tube to make a good bomb for the tiger."

He thought perhaps he could use the oxidized cylinder as it was, and began thereupon to wonder how he should make a fuse by which its powder contents might be ignited. Thus he drowsed off at last, with fantastic dreams swiftly solving the sum of his problems.

CHAPTER XII

AMBITIOUS PLANS

Grenville awoke with a brilliant idea, born in his brain as he slept.

It was not concerned with the doc.u.ments found in the old bra.s.s receptacle, but entirely with the tiger. He knew how to fas.h.i.+on a fuse.

The creepers had answered this latest need, with their bark so readily hollowed. He had burned up yards of the drying stuff with the core removed, all of it shrunk and twisted tight, like long coils of vegetable tubing. He had only to fill it with his powder while green, and then let it dry in the sun.

He could likewise fill the useless cylinder, wrap it about to increase its resistance to the powder--and thereby render its explosion far more violent. If, after that, a chance were presented to ignite it under the tiger----

It was possible always, he confessed, the tiger might prove unwilling.

However, both the cannon and bomb should be immediately prepared.

There could be no peace upon the island while the brute remained alive.

All thoughts of the cipher were postponed for evening recreation. The day's work began after breakfast in preparing large quant.i.ties of powder.

At this Elaine a.s.sisted. She was glad of any employment. No less in her veins than in Grenville's the promptings of being in the primitive were daily surging stronger. Like himself, she was hungry for meat; and while she had no thoughts of turning Amazon herself, she felt an increasing interest in all that Grenville was attempting in his task of coping with nature.

Meanwhile Sidney was daily a.s.suming a wild and unkempt aspect that he could not possibly avoid. His beard was an unbecoming stubble that he was powerless to shave; his hair was uncombed and a trifle long; his clothing was not without its rents. But what an active, muscular being he appeared, as he moved about at his work! He seemed so thoroughly fearless, so competent and at home with naked Nature. His thoughtfulness, moreover, had no limits, and neither had his cheer. He had made no further disquieting advances, but seemed rather to have forgotten, utterly, the lawless emotions to which he had one day given way.

This day it was he started the fires to bake his vessels of clay. They were all sufficiently dry for the purpose, and, huddled together, a bit removed, in a rudely constructed furnace made of rock, were piled about with abundant fuel to provide an even heat.

The morning was sped between the various duties. Some ten or more pounds of powder Grenville finally stored in his cave. The labor of grinding and mixing had undergone many interruptions while he attended the fire about his jugs. He finally fetched some creepers from the growth and, stripping out the pliable cores, poured powder in several of the hollow coverings, bound them together, here and there, with fibers, and placed them out on the rocks to dry.