It was quite a formidable expedition that departed from Berande at break of day next morning in a fleet of canoes and dinghies. There were Joan and Sheldon, with Binu Charley and Lalaperu, the eight Tahitians, and the ten Poonga-Poonga men, each proud in the possession of a bright and shining modern rifle. In addition, there were two of the plantation1 boat's-crews of six men each. These, however, were to go no farther than Carli, where water transportation ceased and where they were to wait with the boats. Boucher remained behind in charge of Berande.
By eleven in the morning the expedition arrived at Binu, a cluster of twenty houses on the river bank. And from here thirty odd Binu men accompanied them, armed with spears and arrows, chattering2 and grimacing3 with delight at the warlike array. The long quiet stretches of river gave way to swifter water, and progress was slower and more dogged. The Balesuna grew shallow as well, and oftener were the loaded boats bumped along and half-lifted over the bottom. In places timber-falls blocked the passage of the narrow stream, and the boats and canoes were portaged around. Night brought them to Carli, and they had the satisfaction of knowing that they had accomplished4 in one day what had required two days for Tudor's expedition.
Here at Carli, next morning, half-way through the grass-lands, the boat's-crews were left, and with them the horde5 of Binu men, the boldest of which held on for a bare mile and then ran scampering6 back. Binu Charley, however, was at the fore7, and led the way onward8 into the rolling foot-hills, following the trail made by Tudor and his men weeks before. That night they camped well into the hills and deep in the tropic jungle. The third day found them on the run-ways of the bushmen--narrow paths that compelled single file and that turned and twisted with endless convolutions through the dense9 undergrowth. For the most part it was a silent forest, lush and dank, where only occasionally a wood-pigeon cooed or snowwhite cockatoos laughed harshly in laborious10 flight.
Here, in the mid-morning, the first casualty occurred. Binu Charley had dropped behind for a time, and Koogoo, the PoongaPoonga man who had boasted that he would eat the bushmen, was in the lead. Joan and Sheldon heard the twanging thrum and saw Koogoo throw out his arms, at the same time dropping his rifle, stumble forward, and sink down on his hands and knees. Between his naked shoulders, low down and to the left, appeared the bone-barbed head of an arrow. He had been shot through and through. Cocked rifles swept the bush with nervous apprehension11. But there was no rustle12, no movement; nothing but the humid oppressive silence.
"Bushmen he no stop," Binu Charley called out, the sound of his voice startling more than one of them. "Allee same damn funny business. That fella Koogoo no look 'm eye belong him. He no savvee little bit."
Koogoo's arms had crumpled13 under him, and he lay quivering where he had fallen. Even as Binu Charley came to the front the stricken black's breath passed from him, and with a final convulsive stir he lay still.
"Bight through the heart," Sheldon said, straightening up from the stooping examination. "It must have been a trap of some sort."
He noticed Joan's white, tense face, and the wide eyes with which she stared at the wreck14 of what had been a man the minute before.
"I recruited that boy myself," she said in a whisper. "He came down out of the bush at Poonga-Poonga and right on board the Martha and offered himself. And I was proud. He was my very first recruit--"
"My word! Look 'm that fella," Binu Charley interrupted, brushing aside the leafy wall of the run-way and exposing a bow so massive that no one bushman could have bent15 it.
The Binu man traced out the mechanics of the trap, and exposed the hidden fibre in the tangled16 undergrowth that at contact with Koogoo's foot had released the taut17 bow.
They were deep in the primeval forest. A dim twilight18 prevailed, for no random19 shaft20 of sunlight broke through the thick roof of leaves and creepers overhead. The Tahitians were plainly awed21 by the silence and gloom and mystery of the place and happening, but they showed themselves doggedly22 unafraid, and were for pushing on. The Poonga-Poonga men, on the contrary, were not awed. They were bushmen themselves, and they were used to this silent warfare23, though the devices were different from those employed by them in their own bush. Most awed of all were Joan and Sheldon, but, being whites, they were not supposed to be subject to such commonplace emotions, and their task was to carry the situation off with careless bravado24 as befitted "big fella marsters" of the dominant25 breed.
Binu Charley took the lead as they pushed on, and trap after trap yielded its secret lurking-place to his keen scrutiny26. The way was beset27 with a thousand annoyances28, chiefest among which were thorns, cunningly concealed29, that penetrated30 the bare feet of the invaders31. Once, during the afternoon, Binu Charley barely missed being impaled32 in a staked pit that undermined the trail. There were times when all stood still and waited for half an hour or more while Binu Charley prospected33 suspicious parts of the trail. Sometimes he was compelled to leave the trail and creep and climb through the jungle so as to approach the man-traps from behind; and on one occasion, in spite of his precaution, a spring-bow was discharged, the flying arrow barely clipping the shoulder of one of the waiting Poonga-Poonga boys.
Where a slight run-way entered the main one, Sheldon paused and asked Binu Charley if he knew where it led.
"Plenty bush fella garden he stop along there short way little bit," was the answer. "All right you like 'm go look 'm along."
"'Walk 'm easy," he cautioned, a few minutes later. "Close up, that fella garden. S'pose some bush fella he stop, we catch 'm."
Creeping ahead and peering into the clearing for a moment, Binu Charley beckoned34 Sheldon to come on cautiously. Joan crouched35 beside him, and together they peeped out. The cleared space was fully36 half an acre in extent and carefully fenced against the wild pigs. Paw-paw and banana-trees were just ripening37 their fruit, while beneath grew sweet potatoes and yams. On one edge of the clearing was a small grass house, open-sided, a mere38 rain-shelter. In front of it, crouched on his hams before a fire, was a gaunt and bearded bushman. The fire seemed to smoke excessively, and in the thick of the smoke a round dark object hung suspended. The bushman seemed absorbed in contemplation of this object.
Warning them not to shoot unless the man was successfully escaping, Sheldon beckoned the Poonga-Poonga men forward. Joan smiled appreciatively to Sheldon. It was head-hunters against headhunters. The blacks trod noiselessly to their stations, which were arranged so that they could spring simultaneously39 into the open. Their faces were keen and serious, their eyes eloquent40 with the ecstasy41 of living that was upon them--for this was living, this game of life and death, and to them it was the only game a man should play, withal they played it in low and cowardly ways, killing42 from behind in the dim forest gloom and rarely coming out into the open.
Sheldon whispered the word, and the ten runners leaped forward--for Binu Charley ran with them. The bushman's keen ears warned him, and he sprang to his feet, bow and arrow in hand, the arrow fixed43 in the notch44 and the bow bending as he sprang. The man he let drive at dodged45 the arrow, and before he could shoot another his enemies were upon him. He was rolled over and over and dragged to his feet, disarmed46 and helpless.
"Why, he's an ancient Babylonian!" Joan cried, regarding him. "He's an Assyrian, a Phoenician! Look at that straight nose, that narrow face, those high cheek-bones--and that slanting47, oval forehead, and the beard, and the eyes, too."
"And the snaky locks," Sheldon laughed.
The bushman was in mortal fear, led by all his training to expect nothing less than death; yet he did not cower48 away from them. Instead, he returned their looks with lean self-sufficiency, and finally centred his gaze upon Joan, the first white woman he had ever seen.
"My word, bush fella kai-kai along that fella boy," Binu Charley remarked.
So stolid49 was his manner of utterance50 that Joan turned carelessly to see what had attracted his attention, and found herself face to face with Gogoomy. At least, it was the head of Gogoomy--the dark object they had seen hanging in the smoke. It was fresh--the smoke-curing had just begun--and, save for the closed eyes, all the sullen51 handsomeness and animal virility52 of the boy, as Joan had known it, was still to be seen in the monstrous53 thing that twisted and dangled54 in the eddying55 smoke.
Nor was Joan's horror lessened56 by the conduct of the Poonga-Poonga boys. On the instant they recognized the head, and on the instant rose their wild hearty57 laughter as they explained to one another in shrill58 falsetto voices. Gogoomy's end was a joke. He had been foiled in his attempt to escape. He had played the game and lost. And what greater joke could there be than that the bushmen should have eaten him? It was the funniest incident that had come under their notice in many a day. And to them there was certainly nothing unusual nor bizarre in the event. Gogoomy had completed the life-cycle of the bushman. He had taken heads, and now his own head had been taken. He had eaten men, and now he had been eaten by men.
The Poonga-Poonga men's laughter died down, and they regarded the spectacle with glittering eyes and gluttonous59 expressions. The Tahitians, on the other hand, were shocked, and Adamu Adam was shaking his head slowly and grunting60 forth61 his disgust. Joan was angry. Her face was white, but in each cheek was a vivid spray of red. Disgust had been displaced by wrath62, and her mood was clearly vengeful.
Sheldon laughed.
"It's nothing to be angry over," he said. "You mustn't forget that he hacked63 off Kwaque's head, and that he ate one of his own comrades that ran away with him. Besides, he was born to it. He has but been eaten out of the same trough from which he himself has eaten."
Joan looked at him with lips that trembled on the verge64 of speech.
"And don't forget," Sheldon added, "that he is the son of a chief, and that as sure as fate his Port Adams tribesmen will take a white man's head in payment."
"It is all so ghastly ridiculous," Joan finally said.
"And--er--romantic," he suggested slyly.
She did not answer, and turned away; but Sheldon knew that the shaft had gone home.
"That fella boy he sick, belly65 belong him walk about," Binu Charley said, pointing to the Poonga-Poonga man whose shoulder had been scratched by the arrow an hour before.
The boy was sitting down and groaning66, his arms clasping his bent knees, his head drooped67 forward and rolling painfully back and forth. For fear of poison, Sheldon had immediately scarified the wound and injected permanganate of potash; but in spite of the precaution the shoulder was swelling68 rapidly.
"We'll take him on to where Tudor is lying," Joan said. "The walking will help to keep up his circulation and scatter69 the poison. Adamu Adam, you take hold that boy. Maybe he will want to sleep. Shake him up. If he sleep he die."
The advance was more rapid now, for Binu Charley placed the captive bushman in front of him and made him clear the run-way of traps. Once, at a sharp turn where a man's shoulder would unavoidably brush against a screen of leaves, the bushman displayed great caution as he spread the leaves aside and exposed the head of a sharp-pointed spear, so set that the casual passer-by would receive at the least a nasty scratch.
"My word," said Binu Charley, "that fella spear allee same devildevil."
He took the spear and was examining it when suddenly he made as if to stick it into the bushman. It was a bit of simulated playfulness, but the bushman sprang back in evident fright. Poisoned the weapon was beyond any doubt, and thereafter Binu Charley carried it threateningly at the prisoner's back.
The sun, sinking behind a lofty western peak, brought on an early but lingering twilight, and the expedition plodded70 on through the evil forest--the place of mystery and fear, of death swift and silent and horrible, of brutish appetite and degraded instinct, of human life that still wallowed in the primeval slime, of savagery71 degenerate72 and abysmal73. No slightest breezes blew in the gloomy silence, and the air was stale and humid and suffocating74. The sweat poured unceasingly from their bodies, and in their nostrils75 was the heavy smell of rotting vegetation and of black earth that was a-crawl with fecund76 life.
They turned aside from the run-way at a place indicated by Binu Charley, and, sometimes crawling on hands and knees through the damp black muck, at other times creeping and climbing through the tangled undergrowth a dozen feet from the ground, they came to an immense banyan77 tree, half an acre in extent, that made in the innermost heart of the jungle a denser78 jungle of its own. From out of its black depths came the voice of a man singing in a cracked, eerie79 voice.
"My word, that big fella marster he no die!"
The singing stopped, and the voice, faint and weak, called out a hello. Joan answered, and then the voice explained.
"I'm not wandering. I was just singing to keep my spirits up. Have you got anything to eat?"
A few minutes saw the rescued man lying among blankets, while fires were building, water was being carried, Joan's tent was going up, and Lalaperu was overhauling80 the packs and opening tins of provisions. Tudor, having pulled through the fever and started to mend, was still frightfully weak and very much starved. So badly swollen81 was he from mosquito-bites that his face was unrecognizable, and the acceptance of his identity was largely a matter of faith. Joan had her own ointments82 along, and she prefaced their application by fomenting83 his swollen features with hot cloths. Sheldon, with an eye to the camp and the preparations for the night, looked on and felt the pangs84 of jealousy85 at every contact of her hands with Tudor's face and body. Somehow, engaged in their healing ministrations, they no longer seemed to him boy's hands, the hands of Joan who had gazed at Gogoomy's head with pale cheeks sprayed with angry flame. The hands were now a woman's hands, and Sheldon grinned to himself as his fancy suggested that some night he must lie outside the mosquito-netting in order to have Joan apply soothing86 fomentations in the morning.
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plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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grimacing
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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horde
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| n.群众，一大群 | |
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scampering
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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taut
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| adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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bravado
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| n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能 | |
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dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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annoyances
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| n.恼怒( annoyance的名词复数 )；烦恼；打扰；使人烦恼的事 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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impaled
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| 钉在尖桩上( impale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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prospected
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| vi.勘探（prospect的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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notch
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| n.(V字形)槽口，缺口，等级 | |
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45
dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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disarmed
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| v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 )；使息怒 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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cower
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| v.畏缩，退缩，抖缩 | |
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stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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virility
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| n.雄劲，丈夫气 | |
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53
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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54
dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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eddying
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| 涡流，涡流的形成 | |
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lessened
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| 减少的，减弱的 | |
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57
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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gluttonous
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| adj.贪吃的，贪婪的 | |
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grunting
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| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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hacked
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| 生气 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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scatter
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| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
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plodded
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| v.沉重缓慢地走（路）( plod的过去式和过去分词 )；努力从事；沉闷地苦干；缓慢进行（尤指艰难枯燥的工作） | |
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savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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73
abysmal
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| adj.无底的，深不可测的，极深的；糟透的，极坏的；完全的 | |
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74
suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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75
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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76
fecund
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| adj.多产的，丰饶的，肥沃的 | |
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77
banyan
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| n.菩提树，榕树 | |
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78
denser
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| adj. 不易看透的, 密集的, 浓厚的, 愚钝的 | |
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79
eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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80
overhauling
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| n.大修；拆修；卸修；翻修v.彻底检查( overhaul的现在分词 )；大修；赶上；超越 | |
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81
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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82
ointments
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| n.软膏( ointment的名词复数 )；扫兴的人；煞风景的事物；药膏 | |
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83
fomenting
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| v.激起，煽动（麻烦等）( foment的现在分词 ) | |
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84
pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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85
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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86
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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