The Haunters of the Silences Part 12

But he could not turn back, for the terror was behind him. Straight ahead lay his only hope. There, not more than two or three minutes distant, lay his secure refuge. He could see the leaden gray expanse, touched by a gleam of cold and lonely sunlight which had pierced the obscurity of the squall. Could he reach it? If he could, he would drop into the slow wave, dive to the bottom, and hold to the roots of the swaying weeds till the terror had gone by.

A hundred yards behind came the hawk, moving like a dreadful ghost through the swirl and glimmer of the snow. His plumage was white, but pencilled with shadowy markings of pale brown. His narrowed eyes, fixed upon the fugitive, were fiercely bright and hard like gla.s.s. His hooked beak, his flat head, his strong, thick, smoothly modelled neck, were outstretched in a rigid line like those of the drake.

The long, spectral wings of the great hawk beat the air, but not with haste and violence like those of the fleeing quarry. Swift as his wingbeats were, there was a surging movement about them, an irresistible thrust, which made them seem slow and gave their working an air of absolute ease. For all this ease, however, he was flying faster than the fugitive. Slowly, yard by yard, he crept up, the distance from his victim grew narrower. The drake's wings whistled upon the wind, a strange shrill note, as of terror and despair. But the wings of the pursuing destroyer were as noiseless as sleep. He seemed less a bird than a spirit of doom, the embodiment of the implacable Arctic cold.

The astounding speed at which the two were rus.h.i.+ng through the sky on this race of life and death brought the gleam of the estuary water hurrying up from the horizon to meet them. The terrible seconds pa.s.sed.

The water was not half a mile ahead. The line of the drake's flight began to slope toward earth. A few moments more, and a sudden splash in the tide would proclaim that the fugitive was safe in a refuge where the destroyer could not follow. But the noiseless wings were now just behind him, just behind and above.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE NOISELESS WINGS WERE NOW JUST BEHIND HIM"]

At this moment the fugitive opened his beak for one despairing squawk, his acknowledgment that the game of life was lost. The next instant the hawk's white body seemed to leap forward even out of the marvellous velocity with which it was already travelling. It leaped forward, and changed shape, spreading, and hanging imminent for the least fraction of a second. The head, with slightly open beak, reached down. A pair of great black talons, edged like knives, open and clutching, reached down and forward.

The movement did not seem swift, yet it easily caught the drake in the midst of his flight. For an instant there was a slight confusion of winnowing and flapping wings, a dizzy dropping through the sky. Then the great hawk recovered his balance, steadied himself, turned, and went winging steadily inland toward a crag which he had noted, where he might devour his prey at ease. In his claws was gripped the body of the black drake, its throat torn across, its long neck and webbed feet trailing limply in the air.

In the Unknown Dark

His long, awkward legs trembling with excitement, his long ears pointing stiffly forward, his distended nostrils sniffing and snorting, he stared anxiously this way and that from the swirling, treacherous current to the silent man poling the scow. The river, at this point nearly half a mile wide, daunted him now that he saw it at such close quarters, though all summer he had been viewing it with equanimity from the sh.o.r.e. A few hundred yards above the comparatively quiet course of the ferry he saw a long line of white leaping waves, stretching from bank to bank with menacing roar, and seeming as it were about to rush down upon the slow ferry and overwhelm it. When he looked toward the other side of the scow the prospect was equally threatening. The roar from below was worse than the roar from above, and the whole river, just here so radiant with the sunset glow, grew black with gloom and white with fury as it plunged through a rocky chasm strewn with ledges. The only thing that comforted him at all and kept his fears within bounds was the patient, st.u.r.dy figure of the man, poling the scow steadily toward sh.o.r.e.

This nervous pa.s.senger on the primitive backwoods ferry was a colt about eight months old, whose mother had died the previous day. His owner, a busy lumberman, was now sending him across the river to a neighbour's farm to be cared for, because he was of good "Morgan" strain. The ferryman had taken the precaution to hitch the end of his halter-rope to a thwart amids.h.i.+ps, lest he should get wild and jump overboard; but the colt, though his dark brown coat was still woolly with the roughness of babyhood, had too much breadth between the eyes to be guilty of any such foolishness. He felt frightened, and strange, and very lonely; but he knew it was his business just to trust the man and keep still.

When the animal trusts the man he generally comes out all right; but once in a long while Fate interferes capriciously, and the utterly unexpected happens. Hundreds of times, and with never a mishap, the ferryman had poled his clumsy scow across the dangerous pa.s.sage between the rapids--the only possible crossing-place for miles in either direction. But this evening, when the scow was just about mid-channel, for some inexplicable reason the tough and well-tried pole of white spruce snapped. It broke short off in the middle of a mighty thrust. And overboard, head first, went the ferryman.

As the man fell his foot caught in the hook of a heavy chain used for securing hay-carts and such vehicles on the scow; and as the clumsy craft swung free in the current the man was dragged beneath it. He would have been drowned in a few seconds, in such water; but at last, in the twisting, the captive foot fell clear. The man came to the surface on the upper side of the scow, made one despairing but successful clutch, got hold of the edge, and with his last strength drew himself aboard, all but suffocated, and with a broken ankle. Tricked by years of security, he had left his spare pole on the sh.o.r.e. There was absolutely nothing to do but let the scow drift, and pray that by some succession of miracles she might survive nine miles of rapids and gain the placid reaches below.

As the man, white and sullen, crouched on the bottom of the scow and held his ankle, the colt eyed him wonderingly. Then he eyed the river, very anxiously, and presently braced his legs wide apart as the scow gave a strange, disconcerting lurch. The roar was growing swiftly louder, and those fierce white waves appeared to be rus.h.i.+ng right up the middle of the river to meet the scow. Daunted at the sight, he crowded as close as he could to the ferryman, and nosed him as if to call his attention to the peril.

In a very few minutes the scow was in the rapids. But the current had carried her well insh.o.r.e, where there chanced to be, for several miles, a comparatively free channel, few rocks, and no disastrous ledges. She swung and wallowed sickeningly, b.u.mping so violently that once the colt's knees gave way beneath him and twice he was all but hurled overboard. And she took in great, slos.h.i.+ng crests of waves till she was half-full of water. But she was not built to sink, and her ribs were sound. For miles she pounded her terrible way in safety through the bewildering tumult. At last a long jutting promontory of rock started the current on a new slant, and she was swept staggering across to the other sh.o.r.e. Here, for nearly two miles, she slipped with astonis.h.i.+ng good luck down a narrow, sluice-like lane of almost smooth water. As if to compensate for this fortune, however, she was suddenly caught by a violent cross-current, s.n.a.t.c.hed out of the clearway, and swept heavily over a ledge. At the foot of this ledge she was fairly smothered for some seconds. The man clung obstinately to the gunwales; and the colt, by sheer good luck, fell in the scow instead of over the side. By the time he had struggled to his feet again the scow had righted herself, and darted into a wild chaos of rocks and sluices close by the sh.o.r.e.

Here she caught on a boulder, tipped up till she was nearly on her gunwale, and pitched the little animal clear overboard.

As the clumsy craft swung loose the very next instant, the colt was dragged along in her wake, and would have ended his adventures then and there but for the readiness of the man. Forgetting for an instant his own terrible plight, he drew his knife and slashed the rope. Thus released, the colt got his head above water and made a valiant struggle toward the sh.o.r.e, which was now not five yards away.

All that he could do in the grip of that mad flood was, needless to say, very little, but it chanced to be enough, for it brought him within the grasp of a strong eddy. A moment later he was dashed violently into shoal water. As he fought to a footing he saw the scow wallowing away down the torrent. Then he found himself, he knew not how, on dry land.

The falls roared behind him. They might, it seemed, rush up at any instant and clutch him again. Blind and sick with panic, he dashed into the woods, and went galloping and stumbling straight inland. At last he sank trembling in the deep gra.s.s of a little brookside meadow.

Being of st.u.r.dy stock, the brown colt soon recovered his wind. Then, feeling nervous in the loneliness of the woods and the deepening shadows, he s.n.a.t.c.hed a few mouthfuls of gra.s.s and started to try and find his way home. Obeying some deep-seated instinct, he set his face aright, and pushed forward through the thick growths.

His progress, however, was slow. Among the trees the twilight was now gathering, and the dark places filled his young heart with vague but dreadful apprehensions, so that at every few steps he would stop and stare backward over his shoulder. Presently he came out upon another open glade, and cheered by the light, he followed this glade as long as it seemed to lead in the right direction. Once a wide-winged, noiseless shadow sailed over his head, and he s.h.i.+ed with a loud snort of terror.

He had never before seen an owl. And once he jumped back wildly, as a foraging mink rustled through the herbage just before him. But for all the alarms that kept his baby heart quivering, he pressed resolutely forward, longing for the comfort of his mother's flank, and the familiar stall in the barn above the ferry.

As he reached the end of the glade his apprehensive ears caught a curious sound, a sort of dry rustling, which came from the fringe of the undergrowth. He halted, staring anxiously at the place the strange sound came from. Immediately before him was the prostrate and rotting trunk of an elm-tree, its roots hidden in the brushwood, its upper end projecting into the gra.s.s and weeds of the glade. As the colt stood wondering, a thickset, short-legged, grayish coloured animal, covered with long, bristling quills, emerged from the leaf.a.ge and came crawling down the trunk toward him. It looked no larger than the black-and-white dog which the colt was accustomed to seeing about the farmyard, but its fierce little eyes and its formidable quills made him extremely nervous.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HIS APPREHENSIVE EARS CAUGHT A CURIOUS SOUND."]

The porcupine came directly at him, with an ill-natured squeaking grunt.

The colt backed away a foot or two, snorting, then held his ground. He had never yielded ground to the black-and-white dog. Why should he be afraid of this clumsy little creature? But when, at last, the porcupine drew so near that he could have touched it with his outstretched nose, instead of making any such great mistake as that he flung his head high in air, wheeled about, and lashed out furiously with his hinder hoofs.

One hoof caught the porcupine fairly on the snout and sent it whirling end over end into the thicket, where it lay stretched out lifeless, as a feast for the first hungry prowler that might chance by. Not greatly elated by his victory, the magnitude of which he in no way realized, the colt plunged again into the woods and continued his journey.

By this time the sun had dropped completely behind the wooded hills, and here in the deep forest the dark seemed to come on all at once. The colt's fears now crowded upon him so thickly that he could hardly make any progress at all. He was kept busy staring this way and that, and particularly over his shoulders. A ma.s.s of shadow, denser than the rest,--a stump, a moss-grown boulder,--would seem to his frightened eyes a moving shape, just about to spring upon him. He would jump to one side, his baby heart pounding between his ribs, only to see another and huger shadow on the other side, and jump back again. The sudden scurrying of a wood-mouse over the dry spruce-needles made his knees tremble beneath him. At last, coming to two tall, straight-trunked saplings growing close together just before the perpendicular face of a great rock, he was vaguely reminded of the cow-stanchions near his mother's stall in the barn. To his quivering heart this was in some way a refuge, as compared with the terrible s.p.a.ciousness of the forest. He could not make himself go any farther, but crowded up as close as possible against the friendly trees and waited.

He had no idea, of course, what he was waiting for, unless he had some dim expectation that his dead mother, or his owner, or the man on the ferryboat would come and lead him home. His instinct taught him that the dark of the wilderness held unknown perils for him, though his guarded babyhood had afforded him no chance to learn by experience. Young as he was, he took up the position which gave his peculiar weapons opportunity for exercise. Instead of backing up against the trees and the rock, and facing such foes as the dread dark might send upon him, he stood with his back toward the danger and his formidable heels in readiness, while over first one shoulder, then the other, his eyes and ears kept guard.

The situation was one that might well have cowed him completely; but the blood in his baby veins was that of mettled ancestors, and terrified though he was, and trembling, his fear did not conquer his spirit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BIG OWL HAD BEEN DISTURBED AT ITS BANQUET."]

Soon after he had taken his stand in this strange and desolate stabling, from a little way back in the underbrush there came a pounce, a scuffle, and a squeal, more scuffle, and then silence. He could not even guess what was happening, but whatever it was, it was terrible to him. For some moments there came, from the same spot, little, soft, ugly, thickish sounds. These stopped abruptly. Immediately afterwards there was a hurried beating of wings, and something floated over him. The big owl had been disturbed at its banquet. A few seconds more and the watcher's ears caught a patter of light footsteps approaching. Next he saw a faint gleam of eyes, which seemed to scrutinize him steadily, fearlessly, indifferently, for perhaps the greater part of a minute.

Then they vanished, with more patter of light footsteps; and as they disappeared a wandering puff of night air brought to the colt's nostrils a musky scent which he knew. It was the smell of a red fox, such as he had seen once prowling around his owner's barn-yard. This smell, from its a.s.sociations, was comforting rather than otherwise, and he would have been glad if the fox had stayed near.

For some time now there was stillness all about the big rock, the owl's kill and the pa.s.sing of the fox having put all the small wild creatures on their guard. Little by little the colt was beginning to get used to the situation. He was even beginning to relax the tense vigilance of his watching, when suddenly his heart gave a leap and seemed to stand still.

Just about ten paces behind him he saw a pair of pale, green-gleaming eyes, round, and set wider apart than those of the fox, slowly floating toward him. At the same time his nostrils caught a scent which was absolutely unknown to him, and peculiarly terrifying.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHICH SEEMED TO SCRUTINIZE HIM STEADILY."]

As these two dreadful eyes drew near, the colt's muscles grew tense.

Then he distinguished a shadowy, crouching form behind the eyes; and he gathered his haunches under him for a desperate defense. But the big lynx was wary. This long-legged creature who stood thus with his back to him and eyed him with watchful, sidelong glances was something he did not understand. Before he came within range of the colt's heels he swerved to one side and stole around at a safe distance, investigating.

He was astonished, and at first discomfited, to find that, whichever way he circled, the unknown animal under the rock persisted in keeping his back to him. For perhaps half an hour, with occasional intervals of motionless crouching, he kept up this slow circling, unable to allay his suspicions. Then, apparently making up his mind that the unknown was not a dangerous adversary, or perhaps in some subtle way detecting his youth, he crept closer. He crept so close, indeed, that he felt emboldened to spring; and he was just about to do so.

Just at this moment, luckily just the right moment, the colt let loose the catapult of his strong haunches. His hoofs struck the lynx fairly in the face, and hurled him backwards against a neighbouring tree.

Half-stunned, and his wind knocked out, the big cat picked himself up with a sharp spitting and snarling, and slunk behind the tree. Then he turned tail and ran away, thoroughly beaten. The strange animal had a fas.h.i.+on in fighting which he did not know how to cope with; and he had no spirit left for further lessons.

After this the night wore on without great event, though with frequent alarms which kept the colt's nerves ceaselessly on the rack. Now it was the faint, almost imperceptible sound of a hunting weasel; now it was the erratic scurrying of the wood-mice; now it was the loud but m.u.f.fled thumping of a hare, astonished at this long-limbed intruder upon the wilderness domains. The colt was accustomed to sleeping well through the night, and this protracted vigil upon his feet (for he was afraid to lie down) exhausted him. When the first spectral gray of dawn began to work its magic through the forest, his legs were trembling so that he could hardly stand. When the first pink rays crept in beneath the rock, he sank down and lay for half an hour, not sleeping, but resting. Then he got up and resumed his homeward journey, very hungry, but too desperate with chill and homesickness to stop and eat.

He had travelled perhaps a mile, when he caught the sound of heavy, careless footsteps, and stopped. Staring anxiously through the trees, he saw a woodsman striding along the trail, with an axe over his shoulder.

At sight of one of those beings that stood to him for protection, and kindly guidance, and shelter, his terror and loneliness all slipped away. He gave a shrill, loud whinny of delight, galloped forward with much cras.h.i.+ng of underbrush, and snuggled a coaxing muzzle under the arm of the astonished woodsman.

The Terror of the Sea Caves

I

It was in Singapore that big Jan Laurvik, the diver, heard about the lost pearls.

As he was pa.s.sing the head of a mean-looking alley near the waterside, late one sweltering afternoon, he was halted by a sudden uproar of cries and curses. The noise came from a courtyard about twenty paces up the alley. It was a fight, evidently, and Jan's blood responded with a sympathetic thrill. But the curses which he caught were all in Malay or Chinese, and he curbed his natural desire to rush in and help somebody.

Though he knew both languages very well, he knew that he did not know, and never could know, the people who spoke those languages. Interference on the part of a stranger might be resented by both parties to the quarrel. He shrugged his great shoulders, and walked on reluctantly.

Hardly three steps had he taken, however, when above the shrill cries a great voice shouted.

"Take that, you d.a.m.ned--" it began, in English. And at that it ended, with a kind of choking.

Jan Laurvik wheeled round in a flash and ran furiously for the door of the courtyard, which stood half-open. He was a Norwegian, but English was as a native tongue to him; and amid the jumble of races in the East he counted all of European speech his brothers. An Englishman was being killed in there. The quarrel was clearly his.

Six feet two in height, swift, and of huge strength, with yellow hair, so light as to be almost white, waving thickly over a face that was sunburnt to a high red, his blue eyes flaming with the delight of battle, Jan burst in upon the mob of fighters. Several bodies lay on the floor. One dark-faced, low-browed fellow, a Lascar apparently, with his back to the wall and a b.l.o.o.d.y kreese in his hand, was putting up a savage fight against five or six a.s.sailants, who seemed to be Chinamen and Malays. The body of the Englishman whose voice Jan had heard lay in an ugly heap against the wall, its head far back and almost severed.