10
DESPERATE CHANCE
The great chest in the bottom of Rajah Muda Saffir's
prahu had awakened in other hearts as well as his,
blind greed and avarice; so that as it had been the
indirect cause of his disaster it now proved the
incentive to another to turn the mishap to his own profit,
and to the final undoing of the Malay.
The panglima Ninaka of the Signana Dyaks who manned
Muda Saffir's war prahu saw his chief disappear beneath
the swift waters of the river, but the word of command
that would have sent the boat hurriedly back to pick up
the swimmer was not given. Instead a lusty cry for
greater speed ahead urged the sinuous muscles gliding
beneath the sleek brown hides; and when Muda Saffir
rose to the surface with a cry for help upon his lips
Ninaka shouted back to him in derision, consigning his
carcass to the belly of the nearest crocodile.
In futile rage Muda Saffir called down the most
terrible curses of Allah and his Prophet upon the head
of Ninaka and his progeny to the fifth generation,
and upon the shades of his forefathers, and upon the grim
skulls which hung from the rafters of his long-house.
Then he turned and swam rapidly toward the shore.
Ninaka, now in possession of both the chest and the girl,
was rich indeed, but with Muda Saffir dead he scarce knew
to whom he could dispose of the white girl for a price
that would make it worth while to be burdened with
the danger and responsibility of retaining her.
He had had some experience of white men in the past
and knew that dire were the punishments meted to those
who wronged the white man's women. All through
the remainder of the long night Ninaka pondered
the question deeply. At last he turned to Virginia.
"Why does the big white man who leads the ourang
outangs follow us?" he asked. "Is it the chest
he desires, or you?"
"It is certainly not the chest," replied the girl.
"He wishes to take me back to my father, that is all.
If you will return me to him you may keep the chest,
if that is what you wish."
Ninaka looked at her quizzically for a moment.
Evidently then she was of some value. Possibly should
he retain her he could wring a handsome ransom from the
white man. He would wait and see, it were always an
easy matter to rid himself of her should circumstances
require. The river was there, deep, dark and silent,
and he could place the responsibility for her loss
upon Muda Saffir.
Shortly after day break Ninaka beached his prahu before
the long-house of a peaceful river tribe. The chest
he hid in the underbrush close by his boat, and with
the girl ascended the notched log that led to the verandah
of the structure, which, stretching away for three hundred
yards upon its tall piles, resembled a huge centipede.
The dwellers in the long-house extended every courtesy
to Ninaka and his crew. At the former's request
Virginia was hidden away in a dark sleeping closet
in one of the windowless living rooms which opened
along the verandah for the full length of the house.
Here a native girl brought her food and water, sitting,
while she ate, in rapt contemplation of the white skin
and golden hair of the strange female.
At about the time that Ninaka pulled his prahu upon
the beach before the long-house, Muda Saffir from the safety
of the concealing underbrush upon the shore saw a familiar
war prahu forging rapidly up the stream. As it approached
him he was about to call aloud to those who manned it,
for in the bow he saw a number of his own men;
but a second glance as the boat came opposite him
caused him to alter his intention and drop further
into the engulfing verdure, for behind his men squatted
five of the terrible monsters that had wrought such havoc
with his expedition, and in the stern he saw his own Barunda
in friendly converse with the mad white man who had led them.
As the boat disappeared about a bend in the river Rajah
Muda Saffir arose, shaking his fist in the direction it
had vanished and, cursing anew and volubly, damned each
separate hair in the heads of the faithless Barunda and
the traitorous Ninaka. Then he resumed his watch for
the friendly prahu, or smaller sampan which he knew time
would eventually bring from up or down the river to his rescue,
for who of the surrounding natives would dare refuse succor
to the powerful Rajah of Sakkan!
At the long-house which harbored Ninaka and his crew,
Barunda and Bulan stopped with theirs to obtain
food and rest. The quick eye of the Dyak chieftain
recognized the prahu of Rajah Muda Saffir where it
lay upon the beach, but he said nothing to his white
companion of what it augured--it might be well to
discover how the land lay before he committed himself
too deeply to either faction.
At the top of the notched log he was met by Ninaka,
who, with horror-wide eyes, looked down upon the
fearsome monstrosities that lumbered awkwardly up
the rude ladder in the wake of the agile Dyaks
and the young white giant.
"What does it mean?" whispered the panglima to Barunda.
"These are now my friends," replied Barunda.
"Where is Muda Saffir?"
Ninaka jerked his thumb toward the river.
"Some crocodile has feasted well," he said significantly.
Barunda smiled.
"And the girl?" he continued. "And the treasure?"
Ninaka's eyes narrowed. "They are safe," he answered.
"The white man wants the girl," remarked Barunda. "He does
not suspect that you are one of Muda Saffir's people.
If he guessed that you knew the whereabouts of the girl
he would torture the truth from you and then kill you.
He does not care for the treasure. There is enough
in that great chest for two, Ninaka. Let us be friends.
Together we can divide it; otherwise neither of us will
get any of it. What do you say, Ninaka?"
The panglima scowled. He did not relish the idea of
sharing his prize, but he was shrewd enough to realize
that Barunda possessed the power to rob him of it all,
so at last he acquiesced, though with poor grace.
Bulan had stood near during this conversation, unable,
of course, to understand a single word of the native tongue.
"What does the man say?" he asked Barunda. "Has he
seen anything of the prahu bearing the girl?"
"Yes," replied the Dyak. "He says that two hours ago
such a war prahu passed on its way up river--he saw the
white girl plainly. Also he knows whither they are bound,
and how, by crossing through the jungle on foot, you may
intercept them at their next stop."
Bulan, suspecting no treachery, was all anxiety to be
off at once. Barunda suggested that in case of some
possible emergency causing the quarry to return down
the river it would be well to have a force remain at
the long-house to intercept them. He volunteered to
undertake the command of this party. Ninaka, he said,
would furnish guides to escort Bulan and his men
through the jungle to the point at which they might
expect to find Muda Saffir.
And so, with the girl he sought lying within fifty feet
of him, Bulan started off through the jungle with two
of Ninaka's Dyaks as guides--guides who had been well
instructed by their panglima as to their duties.
Twisting and turning through the dense maze of
underbrush and close-growing, lofty trees the little
party of eight plunged farther and farther into the
bewildering labyrinth.
For hours the tiresome march was continued, until at
last the guides halted, apparently to consult each
other as to the proper direction. By signs they made
known to Bulan that they did not agree upon the right
course to pursue from there on, and that they had
decided that it would be best for each to advance a
little way in the direction he thought the right one
while Bulan and his five creatures remained where they were.
"We will go but a little way," said the spokesman,
"and then we shall return and lead you in the proper direction."
Bulan saw no harm in this, and without a shade of
suspicion sat down upon a fallen tree and watched his
two guides disappear into the jungle in opposite
directions. Once out of sight of the white man the two
turned back and met a short distance in the rear of the
party they had deserted--in another moment they were
headed for the long-house from which they had started.
It was fully an hour thereafter that doubts began to
enter Bulan's head, and as the day dragged on he came
to realize that he and his weird pack were alone and lost
in the heart of a strange and tangled web of tropical jungle.
No sooner had Bulan and his party disappeared in the
jungle than Barunda and Ninaka made haste to embark
with the chest and the girl and push rapidly on up the
river toward the wild and inaccessible regions of the
interior. Virginia Maxon's strong hope of succor had
been gradually waning as no sign of the rescue party
appeared as the day wore on. Somewhere behind her upon
the broad river she was sure a long, narrow native
prahu was being urged forward in pursuit, and that
in command of it was the young giant who was now never
for a moment absent from her thoughts.
For hours she strained her eyes over the stern of the
craft that was bearing her deeper and deeper into the
wild heart of fierce Borneo. On either shore they
occasionally passed a native long-house, and the girl
could not help but wonder at the quiet and peace which
reigned over these little settlements. It was as
though they were passing along a beaten highway in the
center of a civilized community; and yet she knew that
the men who lolled upon the verandahs, puffing indolently
upon their cigarettes or chewing betel nut, were all head hunters,
and that along the verandah rafters above them hung
the grisly trophies of their prowess.
Yet as she glanced from them to her new captors she
could not but feel that she would prefer captivity in
one of the settlements they were passing--there at
least she might find an opportunity to communicate with
her father, or be discovered by the rescue party as it
came up the river. The idea grew upon her as the day
advanced until she spent the time in watching furtively
for some means of escape should they but touch the
shore momentarily; and though they halted twice her
captors were too watchful to permit her the slightest
opportunity for putting her plan into action.
Barunda and Ninaka urged their men on, with brief
rests, all day, nor did they halt even after night
had closed down upon the river. On, on the swift prahu
sped up the winding channel which had now dwindled
to a narrow stream, at intervals rushing strongly between
rocky walls with a current that tested the strength
of the strong, brown paddlers.
Long-houses had become more and more infrequent until
for some time now no sign of human habitation had
been visible. The jungle undergrowth was scantier and
the spaces between the boles of the forest trees more open.
Virginia Maxon was almost frantic with despair as the
utter helplessness of her position grew upon her.
Each stroke of those slender paddles was driving her farther
and farther from friends, or the possibility of rescue.
Night had fallen, dark and impenetrable, and with it
had come the haunting fears that creep in when the sun
has deserted his guardian post.
Barunda and Ninaka were whispering together in low
gutturals, and to the girl's distorted and fear excited
imagination it seemed possible that she alone must be
the subject of their plotting. The prahu was gliding
through a stretch of comparatively quiet and placid
water where the stream spread out into a little basin
just above a narrow gorge through which they had just
forced their way by dint of the most laborious
exertions on the part of the crew.
Virginia watched the two men near her furtively.
They were deeply engrossed in their conversation.
Neither was looking in her direction. The backs of the
paddlers were all toward her. Stealthily she rose to a
stooping position at the boat's side. For a moment
she paused, and then, almost noiselessly, dove overboard
and disappeared beneath the black waters.
It was the slight rocking of the prahu that caused
Barunda to look suddenly about to discover the reason
for the disturbance. For a moment neither of the men
apprehended the girl's absence. Ninaka was the first
to do so, and it was he who called loudly to the
paddlers to bring the boat to a stop. Then they
dropped down the river with the current, and paddled
about above the gorge for half an hour.
The moment that Virginia Maxon felt the waters close
above her head she struck out beneath the surface for
the shore upon the opposite side to that toward which
she had dived into the river. She knew that if any had
seen her leave the prahu they would naturally expect
to intercept her on her way toward the nearest shore,
and so she took this means of outwitting them,
although it meant nearly double the distance to be covered.
After swimming a short distance beneath the surface the
girl rose and looked about her. Up the river a few
yards she caught the phosphorescent gleam of water upon
the prahu's paddles as they brought her to a sudden
stop in obedience to Ninaka's command. Then she saw
the dark mass of the war-craft drifting down toward her.
Again she dove and with strong strokes headed for the shore.
The next time that she rose she was terrified to see
the prahu looming close behind her. The paddlers
were propelling the boat slowly in her direction--
it was almost upon her now--there was a shout
from a man in the bow--she had been seen.
Like a flash she dove once more and, turning, struck out
rapidly straight back beneath the oncoming boat.
When she came to the surface again it was to find herself
as far from shore as she had been when she first quitted
the prahu, but the craft was now circling far below her,
and she set out once again to retrace her way toward
the inky mass of shore line which loomed apparently near
and yet, as she knew, was some considerable distance from her.
As she swam, her mind, filled with the terrors of the night,
conjured recollection of the stories she had heard of the fierce
crocodiles which infest certain of the rivers of Borneo.
Again and again she could have sworn that she felt some huge,
slimy body sweep beneath her in the mysterious waters
of this unknown river.
Behind her she saw the prahu turn back up stream,
but now her mind was suddenly engaged with a new danger,
for the girl realized that the strong current was
bearing her down stream more rapidly than she had
imagined. Already she could hear the increasing roar
of the river as it rushed, wild and tumultuous, through
the entrance to the narrow gorge below her. How far
it was to shore she could not guess, or how far to the
certain death of the swirling waters toward which she
was being drawn by an irresistible force; but of one
thing she was certain, her strength was rapidly waning,
and she must reach the bank quickly.
With redoubled energy she struck out in one last mighty
effort to reach the shore. The tug of the current was
strong upon her, like a giant hand reaching up out of
the cruel river to bear her back to death. She felt
her strength ebbing quickly--her strokes now were
feeble and futile. With a prayer to her Maker she
threw her hands above her head in the last effort
of the drowning swimmer to clutch at even thin air
for support--the current caught and swirled her downward
toward the gorge, and, at the same instant her fingers
touched and closed upon something which swung low above
the water.
With the last flickering spark of vitality that remained
in her poor, exhausted body Virginia Maxon clung to the frail
support that a kind Providence had thrust into her hands.
How long she hung there she never knew, but finally
a little strength returned to her, and presently
she realized that it was a pendant creeper hanging
low from a jungle tree upon the bank that had saved her
from the river's rapacious maw.
Inch by inch she worked herself upward toward the bank,
and at last, weak and panting, sunk exhausted to the
cool carpet of grass that grew to the water's edge.
Almost immediately tired, Nature plunged her into a
deep sleep. It was daylight when she awoke,
dreaming that the tall young giant had rescued her
from a band of demons and was lifting her in his arms
to carry her back to her father.
Through half open lids she saw the sunlight filtering
through the leafy canopy above her--she wondered at the
realism of her dream; full consciousness returned and
with it the conviction that she was in truth being held
close by strong arms against a bosom that throbbed
to the beating of a real heart.
With a sudden start she opened her eyes wide to look up
into the hideous face of a giant ourang outang.
