Blown to Bits; or, The Lonely Man of Rakata

"Nebber, massa, nebber!" answered the negro with remonstrative gravity. "When I's nigh out ob my wits, so's my innards feels like nuffin' but warmish water, I gits whitey-grey in de chops, so I's told, an' blue in de lips, an' I pretends nuffin'—I don't care who sees it!"

The track for some distance beyond this point became worse and worse. Then the nature of the ground changed somewhat—became more hilly, and the path, if such it could be styled, more rugged in some places, more swampy in others, while, to add to their discomfort, rain began to fall, and night set in dark and dismal without any sign of the village of which they were in search. By that time the porters who carried Verkimier's boxes seemed so tired that the hermit thought it advisable to encamp, but the ground was so wet and the leeches were so numerous that they begged him to go on, assuring him that the village could not be far distant. In another half-hour the darkness became intense, so that a man could scarcely see his fellow even when within two paces of him. Ominous mutterings and rumblings like distant thunder also were heard, which appeared to indicate an approaching storm. In these circumstances encamping became unavoidable, and the order was given to make a huge fire to scare away the tigers, which were known to be numerous, and the elephants whose fresh tracks had been crossed and followed during the greater part of the day. The track of a rhinoceros and a tapir had also been seen, but no danger was to be anticipated from those creatures.

"Shall we have a stormy night, think you?" asked Nigel, as he assisted in striking a light.

"It may be so," replied the hermit, flinging down one after another of his wet matches, which failed to kindle. "What we hear may be distant thunder, but I doubt it. The sounds seem to me more like the mutterings of a volcano. Some new crater may have burst forth in the Sumatran ranges. This thick darkness inclines me to think so—especially after the new activity of volcanic action we have seen so recently at Krakatoa. Let me try your matches, Nigel, perhaps they have escaped—mine are useless."

But Nigel's matches were as wet as those of the hermit. So were those of the professor. Luckily Moses carried the old-fashioned flint and steel, with which, and a small piece of tinder, a spark was at last kindled, but as they were about to apply it to a handful of dry bamboo scrapings, an extra spirt of rain extinguished it. For an hour and more they made ineffectual attempts to strike a light. Even the cessation of the rain was of no avail.

"Vat must ve do now?" asked the professor in tones that suggested a wo-begone countenance, though there was no light by which to distinguish it.

"Grin and bear it," said Nigel, in a voice suggestive of a slight expansion of the mouth—though no one could see it.

"Dere's nuffin' else left to do," said Moses, in a tone which betrayed such a very wide expansion that Nigel laughed outright.

"Hah! you may laugh, my yoong frond, hot if zee tigers find us out or zee elephants trample on us, your laughter vill be turned to veeping. Vat is zat? Is not zat vonderful?"

The question and exclamation were prompted by the sudden appearance of faint mysterious lights among the bushes. That the professor viewed them as unfriendly lights was clear from the click of his rifle-locks which followed.

"It is only phosphoric light," explained Van der Kemp. "I have often seen it thus in electric states of the atmosphere. It will probably increase—meanwhile we must seat ourselves on our boxes and do the best we can till daylight. Are you there, boys?"

This question, addressed to the bearers in their native tongue, was not answered, and it was found, on a feeling examination, that, in spite of leeches, tigers, elephants, and the whole animal creation, the exhausted porters had flung themselves on the wet ground and gone to sleep while their leaders were discussing the situation.

Dismal though the condition of the party was, the appearances in the forest soon changed the professor's woe into eager delight, for the phosphorescence became more and more pronounced, until every tree-stem blinked with a palish green light, and it trickled like moonlight over the ground, bringing out thick dumpy mushrooms like domes of light. Glowing caterpillars and centipedes crawled about, leaving a trail of light behind them, and fireflies darting to and fro peopled the air and gave additional animation to the scene.

In the midst of the darkness, thus made singularly visible, the white travellers sat dozing and nodding on their luggage, while the cries of metallic-toned horned frogs and other nocturnal sounds peculiar to that weird forest formed their appropriate lullaby.

But Moses neither dozed nor nodded. With a pertinacity peculiarly his own he continued to play a running accompaniment to the lullaby with his flint and steel, until his perseverance was rewarded with a spark which caught on a dry portion of the tinder and continued to burn. By that time the phosphoric lights had faded, and his spark was the only one which gleamed through intense darkness.

How he cherished that spark! He wrapped it in swaddling clothes of dry bamboo scrapings with as much care as if it had been the essence of his life. He blew upon it tenderly as though to fan its delicate brow with the soft zephyrs of a father's affection. Again he blew more vigorously, and his enormous pouting lips came dimly into view. Another blow and his flat nose and fat cheeks emerged from darkness. Still another—with growing confidence—and his huge eyes were revealed glowing with hope. At last the handful of combustible burst into a flame, and was thrust into a prepared nest of twigs. This, communicating with a heap of logs, kindled a sudden blaze which scattered darkness out of being, and converted thirty yards of the primeval forest into a chamber of glorious light, round which the human beings crowded with joy enhanced by the unexpectedness of the event, and before which the wild things of the wilderness fled away.

When daylight came at last, they found that the village for which they had been searching was only two miles beyond the spot where they had encamped.

Here, being thoroughly exhausted, it was resolved that they should spend that day and night, and, we need scarcely add, they spent a considerable portion of both in sleep—at least such parts of both as were not devoted to food. And here the professor distinguished himself in a way that raised him greatly in the estimation of his companions and caused the natives of the place to regard him as something of a demi-god. Of course we do not vouch for the truth of the details of the incident, for no one save himself was there to see, and although we entertained the utmost regard for himself, we were not sufficiently acquainted with his moral character to answer for his strict truthfulness. As to the main event, there was no denying that. The thing happened thus:—

Towards the afternoon of that same day the travellers began to wake up, stretch themselves, and think about supper. In the course of conversation it transpired that a tiger had been prowling about the village for some days, and had hitherto successfully eluded all attempts to trap or spear it. They had tethered a goat several times near a small pond and watched the spot from safe positions among the trees, with spears, bows and arrows, and blow-pipes ready, but when they watched, the tiger did not come, and when they failed to watch, the tiger did come and carried off the goat. Thus they had been baffled.

"Mine frond," said the professor to the hermit on hearing this. "I vill shot zat tiger! I am resolved. Vill you ask zee chief to show me zee place ant zen tell his people, on pain of def, not to go near it all night, for if zey do I vill certainly shot zem—by accident of course!"

The hermit did as he was bid, but advised his sanguine friend against exposing himself recklessly. The chief willingly fell in with his wishes.

"Won't you tell us what you intend to do, professor?" asked Nigel, "and let us help you."

"No, I vill do it all by mineself—or die! I vill vant a shofel or a spade of some sort."

The chief provided the required implement, conducted his visitor a little before sunset to the spot, just outside the village, and left him there armed with his rifle, a revolver, and a long knife or kriss, besides the spade.

When alone, the bold man put off his glasses, made a careful inspection of the ground, came to a conclusion—founded on scientific data no doubt—as to the probable spot whence the tiger would issue from the jungle when about to seize the goat, and, just opposite that spot, on the face of a slope about ten yards from the goat, he dug a hole deep enough to contain his own person. The soil was sandy easy to dig, and quite dry. It was growing dusk when the professor crept into this rifle-pit, drew his weapons and the spade in after him, and closed the mouth of the pit with moist earth, leaving only a very small eye-hole through which he could see the goat standing innocently by the brink of the pool.

"Now," said he, as he lay resting on his elbows with the rifle laid ready to hand and the revolver beside it; "now, I know not vezer you can smell or not, but I have buried mineself in eart', vich is a non-conductor of smell. Ve shall see!"

It soon became very dark, for there was no moon, yet not so dark but that the form of the goat could be seen distinctly reflected in the pond. Naturally the professor's mind reverted to the occasion when Nigel had watched in the branches of a tree for another tiger. The conditions were different, and so, he thought, was the man!

"Mine yoong frond," he said mentally, "is brav', oondoubtedly, but his nerves have not been braced by experience like mine. It is vell, for zere is more dancher here zan in a tree. It matters not. I am resolf to shot zat tigre—or die!"

In this resolute and heroic frame of mind he commenced his vigil.

It is curious to note how frequently the calculations of men fail them—even those of scientific men! The tiger came indeed to the spot, but he came in precisely the opposite direction from that which the watcher expected, so that while Verkimier was staring over the goat's head at an opening in the jungle beyond the pond, the tiger was advancing stealthily and slowly through the bushes exactly behind the hole in which he lay.

Suddenly the professor became aware of something! He saw nothing consciously, he heard nothing, but there stole over him, somehow, the feeling of a dread presence!

Was he asleep? Was it nightmare? No, it was night-tiger! He knew it, somehow; he felt it—but he could not see it.

To face death is easy enough—according to some people—but to face nothing at all is at all times trying. Verkimier felt it to be so at that moment. But he was a true hero and conquered himself.

"Come now," he said mentally, "don't be an ass! Don't lose your shance by voomanly fears. Keep kviet."

Another moment and there was a very slight sound right over his head. He glanced upwards—as far as the little hole would permit—and there, not a foot from him, was a tawny yellow throat! with a tremendous paw moving slowly forward—so slowly that it might have suggested the imperceptible movement of the hour-hand of a watch, or of a glacier. There was indeed motion, but it was not perceptible.

The professor's perceptions were quick. He did not require to think. He knew that to use the rifle at such close quarters was absolutely impossible. He knew that the slightest motion would betray him. He could see that as yet he was undiscovered, for the animal's nose was straight for the goat, and he concluded that either his having buried himself was a safeguard against being smelt, or that the tiger had a cold in its head. He thought for one moment of bursting up with a yell that would scare the monster out of his seven senses—if he had seven—but dismissed the thought as cowardly, for it would be sacrificing success to safety. He knew not what to do, and the cold perspiration consequent upon indecision at a supreme moment broke out all over him. Suddenly he thought of the revolver!

Like lightning he seized it, pointed it straight up and fired. The bullet—a large army revolver one—entered the throat of the animal, pierced the root of the tongue, crashed through the palate obliquely, and entered the brain. The tiger threw one indescribable somersault and fell—fell so promptly that it blocked the mouth of the pit, all the covering earth of which had been blown away by the shot, and Verkimier could feel the hairy side of the creature, and hear the beating of its heart as it gasped its life away. But in his cramped position he could not push it aside. Well aware of the tenacity of life in tigers, he thought that if the creature revived it would certainly grasp him even in its dying agonies, for the weight of its body and its struggles were already crushing in the upper part of the hole.

To put an end to its sufferings and his own danger, he pointed the revolver at its side and again fired. The crash in the confined hole was tremendous—so awful that the professor thought the weapon must have burst. The struggles of the, tiger became more violent than ever, and its weight more oppressive as the earth crumbled away. Again the cold perspiration broke out all over the man, and he became unconscious.

It must not be supposed that the professor's friends were unwatchful. Although they had promised not to disturb him in his operations, they had held themselves in readiness with rifle, revolver, and spear, and the instant the first shot was heard, they ran down to the scene of action. Before reaching it the second shot quickened their pace as they ran down to the pond—a number of natives yelling and waving torches at their heels.

"Here he is," cried Moses, who was first on the scene, "dead as mutton!"

"What! the professor?" cried Nigel in alarm.

"No; de tiger."

"Where's Verkimier?" asked the hermit as he came up.

"I dun know, massa," said Moses, looking round him vacantly.

"Search well, men, and be quick, he may have been injured," cried Van der Kemp, seizing a torch and setting the example.

"Let me out!" came at that moment from what appeared to be the bowels of the earth, causing every one to stand aghast gazing in wonder around and on each other.

"Zounds! vy don't you let me out?" shouted the voice again.

There was an indication of a tendency to flight on the part of the natives, but Nigel's asking "Where are you?" had the effect of inducing them to delay for the answer.

"Here—oonder zee tigre! Kveek, I am suffocat!"

Instantly Van der Kemp seized the animal by the 'tail, and, Avith a force worthy of Hercules, heaved it aside as if it had been a dead cat, revealing the man of science underneath—alive and well, but dishevelled, scratched, and soiled—also, as deaf as a door-post!