第77章
Similarly she built walls and a roof, the latter thatched with many layers of great leaves.The fashioning of the barred windows and the door were matters of great importance and consuming interest.The windows, there were two of them, were large and the bars permanently fixed; but the door was small, the opening just large enough to permit her to pass through easily on hands and knees, which made it easier to barricade.She lost count of the days that the house cost her; but time was a cheap commodity--she had more of it than of anything else.It meant so little to her that she had not even any desire to keep account of it.How long since she and Obergatz had fled from the wrath of the Negro villagers she did not know and she could only roughly guess at the seasons.She worked hard for two reasons; one was to hasten the completion of her little place of refuge, and the other a desire for such physical exhaustion at night that she would sleep through those dreaded hours to a new day.As a matter of fact the house was finished in less than a week--that is, it was made as safe as it ever would be, though regardless of how long she might occupy it she would keep on adding touches and refinements here and there.
Her daily life was filled with her house building and her hunting, to which was added an occasional spice of excitement contributed by roving lions.To the woodcraft that she had learned from Tarzan, that master of the art, was added a considerable store of practical experience derived from her own past adventures in the jungle and the long months with Obergatz, nor was any day now lacking in some added store of useful knowledge.To these facts was attributable her apparent immunity from harm, since they told her when ja was approaching before he crept close enough for a successful charge and, too, they kept her close to those never-failing havens of retreat--the trees.
The nights, filled with their weird noises, were lonely and depressing.Only her ability to sleep quickly and soundly made them endurable.The first night that she spent in her completed house behind barred windows and barricaded door was one of almost undiluted peace and happiness.The night noises seemed far removed and impersonal and the soughing of the wind in the trees was gently soothing.Before, it had carried a mournful note and was sinister in that it might hide the approach of some real danger.That night she slept indeed.
She went further afield now in search of food.So far nothing but rodents had fallen to her spear--her ambition was an antelope, since beside the flesh it would give her, and the gut for her bow, the hide would prove invaluable during the colder weather that she knew would accompany the rainy season.She had caught glimpses of these wary animals and was sure that they always crossed the stream at a certain spot above her camp.It was to this place that she went to hunt them.With the stealth and cunning of a panther she crept through the forest, circling about to get up wind from the ford, pausing often to look and listen for aught that might menace her--herself the personification of a hunted deer.Now she moved silently down upon the chosen spot.
What luck! A beautiful buck stood drinking in the stream.The woman wormed her way closer.Now she lay upon her belly behind a small bush within throwing distance of the quarry.She must rise to her full height and throw her spear almost in the same instant and she must throw it with great force and perfect accuracy.She thrilled with the excitement of the minute, yet cool and steady were her swift muscles as she rose and cast her missile.Scarce by the width of a finger did the point strike from the spot at which it had been directed.The buck leaped high, landed upon the bank of the stream, and fell dead.Jane Clayton sprang quickly forward toward her kill.
"Bravo!" A man's voice spoke in English from the shrubbery upon the opposite side of the stream.Jane Clayton halted in her tracks--stunned, almost, by surprise.And then a strange, unkempt figure of a man stepped into view.At first she did not recognize him, but when she did, instinctively she stepped back.
"Lieutenant Obergatz!" she cried."Can it be you?"
"It can.It is," replied the German."I am a strange sight, no doubt; but still it is I, Erich Obergatz.And you? You have changed too, is it not?"
He was looking at her naked limbs and her golden breastplates, the loin cloth of jato-hide, the harness and ornaments that constitute the apparel of a Ho-don woman--the things that Lu-don had dressed her in as his passion for her grew.Not Ko-tan's daughter, even, had finer trappings.
"But why are you here?" Jane insisted."I had thought you safely among civilized men by this time, if you still lived."
"Gott!" he exclaimed."I do not know why I continue to live.I
have prayed to die and yet I cling to life.There is no hope.We are doomed to remain in this horrible land until we die.The bog!
The frightful bog! I have searched its shores for a place to cross until I have entirely circled the hideous country.Easily enough we entered; but the rains have come since and now no living man could pass that slough of slimy mud and hungry reptiles.Have I not tried it! And the beasts that roam this accursed land.They hunt me by day and by night."
"But how have you escaped them?" she asked.
"I do not know," he replied gloomily."I have fled and fled and fled.I have remained hungry and thirsty in tree tops for days at a time.I have fashioned weapons--clubs and spears--and I have learned to use them.I have slain a lion with my club.So even will a cornered rat fight.And we are no better than rats in this land of stupendous dangers, you and I.But tell me about yourself.If it is surprising that I live, how much more so that you still survive."