Sidney had lost little time in vain regrets for the hour spent
uselessly below. He had gone at once to the gallery and hidden its
entrance with the door. He had caught up Elaine's well-finished nets
and the pole for a yoke she had been working to complete when the
visitors' sail was discovered and, only pausing to make certain he
could not be seen, went at once to the spring for extra jugs of water.
The sun was already dipping redly in its bath when he brought his first
burden to the terrace. He paused to observe the maneuvers of the ship,
now coming about in the sunset breeze, just off the tiny inlet where
his catamaran was moored.
The queer sharp sail was reefed while he was watching. He saw three
men heave overboard an anchor, which promptly sounded the shallow
depths where the strange craft presently swung.
Considerably to Elaine's discomfort of mind, he hastened once more down
the trail. She was certain the Dyaks would go to the spring before
Sidney could got away. However, he brought another pair of jugs, an
armful of fuel, and a basket of fruit with the greatest possible
expedition.
The boatmen made no movement to come ashore as long as the twilight
revealed them. The highest notes of their voices floated indistinctly
to the terrace, towards which the men were frequently seen to gesture,
but even these sounds were finally lost as darkness enwrapped the
island.
Despite the fact that four of his water-jugs still remained in the
thicket near the spring, Grenville made no more trips for water that
evening, since Elaine was obviously distressed by the thought of the
risk he might incur.
He was awake all night, maintaining the life of their smoldering fire,
and alert for any signs or sounds of movement in the clearing by the
trail. In one of the darkest hours before the dawn he heard the
familiar wails and moans of the headland cave rise briefly on the wind.
From the anchored ship the cry was returned, as on the former occasion.
After that a droning chant came fitfully up from the darkness of the
waters, to die at last in the silence. Later he heard a shout, and
then vague accents of speech. But, when daylight arrived, the craft
had disappeared.
Elaine had not yet risen. Grenville quietly moved from one extremity
of the headland to the other, searching the sea in all directions. He
was soon convinced the visitor had not decamped, but had moved the
vessel to one or another of the island's hidden inlets, that its
movements, as well as those of its crew, should be no longer observed.
One lingering hope, which he had fostered in his breast, that the
natives might not prove a bloodthirsty lot of head-hunters after all,
he felt he must definitely abandon. This furtive move under cover of
the dark was not the sort of maneuver to excite one's trust or
confidence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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