Page:Amazing Stories v08n02 1933-05.djvu/23

Rh of a war-god; thought it was of divine origin, created for their special benefit, you know.

UT I’m getting away from my story. Still, all that is important, it all has a bearing on what happened. As I said, I was obsessed with the desire to get away. But I couldn’t see how that was possible. It began to seem as if I were fated to remain there among the Xinguays for life. But I couldn’t stand the thought of that. Hope was the only thing that kept me up. And I decided that I would have to take the chance of the jungles, the chance of finding my way out or dying in the uninhabited bush. I even began to plan for that. I could carry sixty or seventy pounds of food with me. With care, and by subsisting on anything edible I might find—grubs, snails, lizards—with the birds and game I might get, I should be able to keep going for a month anyway. Clothing didn’t matter so much. And the khaki clothes I had worn were still in pretty fair shape for somehow, with some wild idea that I might need them later, I had put them aside soon after the head-hunters’ raid and had worn only a breech clout like the Indians. My boots were the big problem.

COULDN’T accustom myself to going barefooted. If I had had any sense, and hadn’t been so nauseated and crazed with horror, I would have saved the boots that the other men had been wearing. They hadn’t been injured by the vibrations of the Death Drum. But it was too late now. God knows it would have been bad enough to have—well—to have handled and cleaned them at the time. But now—after months—even the thought made me feel faint. But I hadn’t been such a fool as to wear out my boots. You see I had always had that thought uppermost in my mind—that some day, somehow, I would get away, and then I’d need my boots and my clothing. So I had made sandals out of bark and a sort of moccasins from the hide of a deer. But my boots had been pretty well worn when I reached the village and I knew they wouldn’t last me through a trip out of the Pajonal. And once in the jungle I wouldn’t have time to stop to make footgear. I would have to keep going if I expected to make it. So I busied myself making sandals and moccasins, until I had half a dozen pairs. With a rifle and ammunition—I wouldn’t need a revolver—and a machete and a knife, I would find a sixty pound load about all I could carry. But the load would grow lighter each day, so I wouldn’t have so much to tote when my strength failed or I became tired. The mere physical hardships and perils I would be forced to face didn’t worry me much. I had always carried a flint and steel made of those Spanish mechas, the inflammable wick with a flint and steel, you know, so I could make fire. I wasn’t afraid of wild beasts or snakes, and as I was in splendid physical shape I wasn’t troubled about being taken down with fever or sickness. Of course an accident might happen—I might break a leg or an arm or something—but that was a small chance. The thing that really troubled me was the direction I should take. Of course I knew in a general way where I was. I knew I was in the Gran Pajonal, but that’s like a man knowing he’s somewhere in the State of Texas or in the middle of the Sahara. I didn’t know whether I was nearest the Brazilian, the Ecuadorean, the Colombian or the Peruvian settlements. To be sure, the stream down which we had drifted hadn’t been far from the crater—we had walked it in a few hours. But I couldn’t recall the direction we had followed. And unless I could rig up some sort of a raft or boat, a river or stream wouldn’t help me. In fact it would hinder me, for as you know the jungle is always thickest near a stream. And I couldn’t afford to waste time following a roundabout route along a river. I spent hours, days racking my brain, trying to visualize the country as it appears on the maps, trying to calculate the route we had taken, the relative distances to various points. But the more I thought of it the more confused I became, the more hopeless my chances appeared.

Then Fate stepped in and forced my hand.

HE first earthquake came about midnight. It was pretty sharp, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I had gone through a lot of worse ’quakes, and there weren’t any buildings to tumble on top of one out there in the jungle. The Xinguays didn’t seem to be scared either. At least I didn’t hear them shouting or moving about. It was a long time until the second shock came—an hour at least, I should say; but I’m not sure, because I had fallen asleep after the first. The second was terrific, and everyone began yelling and running about. But nothing happened, and pretty soon the village quieted down again. I lay awake, waiting for another shock—there usually are three, you know—and wondering whether it would be worse than the others. But when it came it didn’t amount to much—only a tremor. So I decided it was all over and went to sleep.

I was awakened by shouts and a dull, throbbing roar. For a moment I thought it the Death-Drum. But somehow it was different—a duller, deeper, steadier sound. The Indians were rushing about like mad, and I jumped up and ran out, too.

Y first impression was that there was a thick fog—one of those heavy white mists that occur in the early morning in the jungle. Then my eyes began to smart, and I noticed a queer odor—sort of hot and earthy.