JUNGLE TERROR
 
 *
 
 You make a fool of me again ... 7 will teach you I "
 
 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 BY 
 HARVEY WICKHAM 
 
 FRONTISPIECE 
 BY 
 
 RALPH FALLEN COLEMAN 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 I 920
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1920, BY 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF 
 TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, 
 INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Cablegram .... 3 
 
 II. Obstacles ...... 14 
 
 III. A Mysterious Disappearance 28 
 
 IV. The Refugees 38 
 
 V. The Fate of the Priest . . 50 
 
 VI. The Portent 60 
 
 VII. Death's Neighbourhood . . 70 
 
 VIII. Purdy'sWalk .... 84 
 
 IX. The Cataclysm .... 96 
 
 X. New Puzzles 106 
 
 XI. Interrupted Confidence . . 117 
 
 XII. A Crisis 136 
 
 XIII. The Thing 159 
 
 XIV. Good-bye Earth .... 173 
 XV. The Abyss 188 
 
 . XVI. Purdy Dealt With ... 200 
 
 XVII. Krieg's Legacy . . . . 213 
 
 XVIII. Weisner 226 
 
 XIX. A Lost Discovery . . . 235 
 
 2133985
 
 JUNGLE TERROR
 
 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE CABLEGRAM 
 
 AD God said unto the serpent: "I 
 will put enmity between thee and 
 the woman, and between thy seed 
 and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and 
 thou shalt bruise its heel." 
 
 Also, we know from less holy writ that 
 a snake, though scotched, continues to be 
 venomous and wags its tail until the very 
 sundown of its day. 
 
 Alone, at a table in the best cafe in a 
 shabby little South American capital which 
 must here be nameless, sat a sun-browned 
 Yankee lost in the contemplation of the 
 
 3
 
 4 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 smoke of his cigarette. He was thin, lank, 
 with introspective, pale, blue eyes one of 
 those men whose strength both of mind and 
 of body is hidden from the careless observer; 
 men who look indolent, impractical, and 
 yet are to be found, somehow, always 
 where the world's work is toughest and its 
 dangers most subtle and deadly. 
 
 A suit of well-worn khaki suggested at 
 first some sort of military service, but the 
 absence of braid, to say nothing of the com 
 fortable slouch of his shoulders, showed 
 him to be civilian. He had, with it all, 
 an air of being at one and the same time 
 lost and perfectly and unutterably at 
 home. 
 
 Ross Purdy would, in fact, have felt at 
 home anywhere. And yet for the moment 
 he did wonder why he happened to be in 
 that particular spot. There was absolutely 
 nothing to do. The war was over; German 
 intrigue in the far quarters of the earth a 
 thing of an unbelievable past. Why, then,
 
 THE CABLEGRAM 5 
 
 did not the Government let him return to 
 Washington; or, say, to Washington Square ? 
 Truly, orders were strange things, past 
 finding out. There must be a reason be 
 hind them. But it was nonsense not to 
 trust a man. 
 
 "A cable for you, senor," said a waiter, 
 laying a yellow envelope on the table. 
 
 Purdy nodded, but did not take his hands 
 from his pockets. So here was something 
 definite at last. But, since it had been so 
 long in reaching him, there was no hurry 
 about it. He, too, could take his time. 
 Pride has its demands, after all. 
 
 The theatre-like room was drowsy under 
 the spell of the late afternoon. Overhead 
 a number of creaking rotary fans, with long 
 wooden arms as crazy as Don Quixote's 
 windmills, drove down the hot breath of the 
 Tropic of Capricorn, but fell just short of 
 creating a breeze. In an hour the city 
 would begin to wake from its siesta, and fill 
 the cafe with gaiety carefully imitated from
 
 6 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 gaiety of New York, London, and more 
 especially Paris. But as yet, the whole 
 world seemed half asleep. 
 
 Now and then some fellow idler, willing 
 to scrape up an acquaintance, would pass 
 near Purdy's table. One, a stout, boyish 
 individual, with an air of counterfeit reck 
 lessness that strove in vain with a home 
 sickness that was all too real, passed several 
 times but did not succeed in catching his 
 eye. From the doorway a party of tourists 
 had Purdy pointed out to them as a one 
 time revolutionist, and swallowed the story 
 without a gulp. 
 
 And all the while that unopened cable 
 gram lay there eyeing its recipient re 
 proachfully from the table. 
 
 He endured it as long as he could. But 
 a cablegram is a cablegram. The moment 
 he permitted himself to look at it, his fingers 
 reached instinctively forward and tore it 
 open. Expanded from code to English, 
 it read:
 
 THE CABLEGRAM 7 
 
 Without attracting attention make thorough in 
 vestigation of the native panic in the montanas near 
 Los Altos. Stories here contradictory. Draw at 
 sight for whatever amounts necessary. 
 
 The reader of this carte blanche order 
 stared as if he could not believe his 
 eyes. Why should the august Service to 
 which he belonged be bothering itself about 
 such things as natives in a panic or 
 out? 
 
 Again the boyish individual with the 
 reckless pose drifted into view. He was the 
 local representative of an international 
 news agency, and having found nobody 
 willing to quench his thirst or to give him a 
 story, was on his way out. This time 
 Purdy invited him to a chair. 
 
 "Tommy/' he began, "what's this fuss 
 I hear they're having in the uplands ? An 
 other rebellion, I suppose. Know anything 
 about it?" 
 
 Tommy ran his fingers through a mop of 
 sweat-dampened hair, settled himself de-
 
 8 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 liberately, leaned forward on his elbows, 
 and answered: 
 
 "So, that's what you're down here for! 
 But what's the use of calling it a rebellion 
 to me? And if I were you I wouldn't 
 talk so loud." 
 
 He looked hurt. Purdy was forced to 
 smile. 
 
 "If it isn't a rebellion, what is it?" 
 
 "Blessed if I know if you don't," was 
 the answer. "And you're right. If I were 
 you I'd trust nobody nobody at all. The 
 gang down here has got a ringer in the pie. 
 And you know what they can do to you." 
 
 "Come, Tommy! I'm really in the dark. 
 I've been on war duty. What on earth can 
 be interesting the gang down here, as you 
 call them, and the gang up along the little 
 old Potomac, too? The days when any 
 street fight might be part of an international 
 plot are over, Son. We've laid the Big 
 Plotter by the heels. What new deviltry 
 are we up against now?"
 
 THE CABLEGRAM 9 
 
 "That I don't know. Beyond my job. 
 But it doesn't take much to make South 
 America unhealthy and there is some 
 thing stirring. Right the opposite of a re 
 bellion, though. The natives are afraid." 
 
 Tommy, though somewhat mollified, was 
 still obviously piqued at what he took to 
 be a lack of frankness in his vis-a-vis, 
 and Purdy was not sorry when, there be 
 ing no prospects of further liquids mak 
 ing their appearance, he finally took his 
 leave. 
 
 There remained the newspapers. Purdy 
 sent out for a comprehensive assortment, 
 and began digging for information. Little 
 was to be had, though one of the miserable 
 local journals written in Spanish told how a 
 foreigner, with the suggestive name of 
 Krieg and living well off toward the sus 
 pected region, had committed suicide after 
 the walls of his hacienda had just missed 
 killing him by falling flat, like the walls of 
 Jericho. The cause of this mysterious be-
 
 io JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 haviour on the part of the walls was not 
 mentioned, nor did there appear to be any 
 evidence of suicide beyond the fact of the 
 fellow's disappearance. Purdy wondered 
 why such an incomplete item should have 
 been published at all. 
 
 It was on a par with the yarn printed 
 immediately beneath it, about a party of 
 hunters along the Maranon River having 
 caught sight of a new species of black jaguar 
 while wandering beyond the usual trails in 
 a dense selva, or primeval jungle a species 
 of such "unusual size and ferocity" that 
 they had been "unable to kill it with the 
 ammunition at hand." The Maranon is a 
 tributary of the Amazon, far north of Los 
 Altos, and the yarn was well within the 
 scope of the ordinary nature-faker's imagi 
 nation. Yet to this incident, too, one was 
 moved to apply the epithet "odd." 
 
 The American papers offered nothing 
 until he came upon an obscure dispatch, 
 buried at the bottom of a column among
 
 THE CABLEGRAM 11 
 
 the advertisements and likely enough from 
 Tommy's own hand. It was to the effect 
 that, for some cause yet to be ascertained 
 but presumably connected with an outbreak 
 of sheep-plague, the remote hill districts in 
 the neighbourhood of yes, it was Los Altos, 
 again! were rapidly being depopulated by 
 an exodus which had no parallel in South 
 American history. Investors in mining 
 stocks, the persons most affected, were 
 warned to pay no attention to tales coming 
 from refugees, for the reason that most of 
 the latter appeared to have gone insane from 
 the hardships of their journey. 
 
 A very curious item, this. Hardships of 
 their journey, indeed ! Tommy's confidence 
 would have to be won and an explanation 
 dragged out of him, that was certain. But 
 why should Uncle Sam, with the work of 
 helping to remake a world-map on his hands, 
 be worrying about it ? 
 
 Purdy got to his feet, his tall, slender 
 figure with its slight stoop giving more than
 
 12 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 ever the impression of delicacy rather than 
 strength. But his nerves were humming 
 now like taut steel cords. All sense of lassi 
 tude, all his former feeling of ill usage, of 
 being left neglected and forgotten in that 
 far quarter of the earth, had vanished 
 utterly. Hardships of the journey, eh? 
 Something which had upset their reason? 
 A likely story, that ! 
 
 Outside the cafe the streets were practi 
 cally deserted vistas of intolerable bright 
 ness, cut here and there by sharp, swordlike 
 shadows fighting valiantly on behalf of the 
 cool and languorous evening which was to 
 come. From the distance rolled an open 
 carriage and pair, setting up a clatter of 
 hoofs and a stir of dust. He looked, ex 
 pecting to see some high-bred, haughty 
 Spanish dame, scornful of modernity and 
 automobiles, and protected by the inevit 
 able maid and parasol the forerunner of 
 hundreds yet waiting for the five o'clock sea 
 breeze. Instead, the carriage proved to be
 
 THE CABLEGRAM 13 
 
 empty. It halted. From the box jumped 
 a uniformed flunkey, who bowed respect 
 fully and said, "The Presidente sends his 
 compliments, senor, and would like to see 
 you at the palace. "
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 OBSTACLES 
 
 PURDY refused a seat in the carriage. 
 This summons, coming so closely on 
 the heels of the cablegram, struck 
 him as curious. Of course there could be no 
 connection between the two, but it might be 
 a good thing to walk and collect his ideas 
 before plunging into an interview, let its 
 end and object be what it might. Thus it 
 was that he found himself crossing the 
 palace grounds leisurely and on foot. 
 
 The Presidente's two children, in the 
 charge of a darkly beautiful young woman in 
 white cap and apron, were playing on the 
 lawn beneath the shadow of one of the or 
 nate porticos. For all he knew, this was 
 their daily habit. Excepting one formal 
 call, business had never brought him that 
 
 14
 
 OBSTACLES 15 
 
 way before. But his mind was in a mood to 
 take note of trifles, and it seemed rather odd 
 that the domestic life of such an ostentatious 
 establishment as Fernando Lara's should be 
 allowed to escape from the privacy of the 
 patio. If the scene had been planned pur 
 posely to catch his eye it could not have 
 been staged better. 
 
 The maid was addressing her charges in 
 French as he came past. This was natural 
 enough. It was like the Presidente to put 
 on airs by employing a foreign servant. 
 Yet it was not the Champs filysees or the 
 Luxembourg Gardens which Purdy suddenly 
 found himself thinking about. No, it was 
 of something more sinister: the picture of 
 one of those lost and crooked streets on the 
 lower East Side of New York where all 
 nationalities congregate and weird things 
 come to pass. A whim of association, no 
 doubt a vague memory from a forgotten 
 case of his newspaper days. 
 
 To whim, also, could be attributed the
 
 16 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 idea that those steady, heavy-lidded eyes 
 regarded him with a look of serious purpose. 
 A nurse maid might have been expected 
 either to smile or to ignore him altogether. 
 This look was half threat, half warning. 
 But what nonsense he was thinking ! Grant 
 that she did come from Chatham Square 
 rather than from Paris. Grant that her 
 complexion, in such vivid contrast with 
 her hair and eyes, was far too fair to be 
 French. She was not the first who had 
 played such a deception upon a gullible 
 employer. Purdy mounted the imitation 
 marble steps before the grandiose entrance 
 with a sense of disgust. Everything in 
 South America was imitation everything. 
 Lara received him with elaborate cor 
 diality. Purdy wondered whether the false 
 note here was struck by the drifts of gray 
 above the temples, accentuating the con 
 descending benevolence of a high-born ca- 
 ballero, or by the prominent cheek bones 
 and more than Castillian swarthiness of
 
 OBSTACLES 17 
 
 skin which gave the Presidente on close in 
 spection the aspect of a Sioux Indian, 
 tamed but not altogether trustworthy. 
 
 The conversation began inanely with talk 
 about the climate and the price of sugar, 
 and led up gradually to the subject of 
 bright young men left knocking about the 
 world with nothing in the shape of a real 
 opportunity to show their remarkable qual 
 ities. Purdy could hardly believe his ears 
 when he heard himself actually asked to 
 resign his present position and accept a 
 post in Lara's official household. They 
 needed him, it appeared, though the only 
 duty mentioned was that of drawing regu 
 larly a salary whose figures were astounding. 
 But what impressed the American most was 
 the fact that Lara knew the contents of the 
 cablegram. The code had been stolen. 
 And the proposed salary was a bribe to keep 
 him idling inoffensively about the city. 
 Such absurd liberality could not otherwise 
 be accounted for.
 
 i8 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 Purdy was used to surprises. Not a 
 muscle of his face moved. But his mind 
 was active. Serious matters were assuredly 
 afoot. And since his commission to visit the 
 hills was no longer a secret, why not men 
 tion it openly and see what would hap 
 pen? 
 
 Lara received the information without a 
 blink. 
 
 "Ordered to investigate the trouble at 
 Los Altos, are you ? I was afraid of some 
 thing of the kind. In fact, that was one of 
 the reasons why I wanted to keep you with 
 us. A man of your calibre it is too bad 
 to see you thrown away on such a trifling 
 affair." 
 
 "Not thrown away. I'll be back, prob 
 ably in a couple of weeks." 
 
 Purdy's Spanish was almost as soft and 
 resonant as the other's. But the tone which 
 answered him grew suddenly earnest. 
 
 "Don't be too certain, sefior. These 
 native troubles are, as you say in your
 
 OBSTACLES 19 
 
 country, nasty things to mix up in. And 
 pray do not misunderstand me exceedingly 
 dangerous." 
 
 "Just what is it that is going on up in 
 the mountains?" asked Purdy. 
 
 "Ah! that is more than I can say. Some 
 tribe has found a war-chief, perhaps, and 
 relapsed into primitive barbarism. Who 
 can tell ? All we are certain of is that not 
 only the Blacks and the Indians, but the 
 Mestizos and even the Whites, are rushing 
 for the pampas. If I were you that is all 
 I would want to know." 
 
 It would have been impossible to com 
 bine menace and a friendly admonition into 
 a more polite phrase. Purdy thanked the 
 Presidente, and, without committing him 
 self to any definite line of action, rose to 
 withdraw. Lara accompanied him to the 
 door, handed him over to a pompous major 
 domo resplendent in medals and gold braid, 
 and contented himself with a parting in 
 junction.
 
 20 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 " Better consider my offer, senor better 
 consider it carefully/' 
 
 Purdy found himself at the beginning of a 
 long corridor. It was not the way by which 
 he had come in, and was so dimly lighted as 
 to be almost dark. Instinctively he hesi 
 tated, and during that instant a woman 
 appeared. Probably she had been there 
 before him, only becoming visible as his 
 eyes accustomed themselves to the shadows, 
 but he was nearly as much astonished as 
 if she had materialized out of the air. 
 Though no children accompanied her now, 
 it was impossible to mistake her. She was 
 Lara's French maid. And she had stationed 
 herself directly in his path. 
 
 Such impertinence was unbelievable. And 
 even more remarkable was the behaviour of 
 the major domo. Instead of reprimanding 
 the under-servant, or at least standing 
 politely at attention until the guest was 
 ready to move, he stalked away majestically
 
 OBSTACLES 21 
 
 by himself and disappeared around a corner. 
 Purdy and the woman were left alone. 
 
 He eyed her angrily. But she was a 
 remarkably beautiful woman. One could 
 not read the expression of her eyes in that 
 obscurity, yet it seemed friendly though 
 veiled, perhaps, behind some indeterminable 
 purpose. Purdy was about to demand an 
 explanation when he decided, on second 
 thought, that it would be better to let her 
 begin the conversation. 
 
 "Ziss way, please, m'sieu," she lisped. 
 "Ze man he make one little mistake. Ze 
 way out, it is par id here.'* 
 
 She opened a door and stood aside, smil 
 ing, to let him pass. 
 
 Purdy paused. But he had already more 
 than half suspected that the man had made 
 a mistake, under the impression, perhaps, 
 that the visitor was to be conducted to the 
 domestic quarters. And the door which the 
 girl held open led directly toward the en 
 trance-way, as he remembered it. What
 
 22 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 held him was the almost unmistakable 
 evidence of collusion between her and the 
 major domo. Also her broken English 
 had failed to deceive. She was no more 
 French than he was. 
 
 " Perhaps m'sieu is afraid," said a mock 
 ing voice. 
 
 Purdy coloured. He knew quite well now 
 that he ought to be upon his guard. Her 
 pretence of wanting merely to let him out 
 was too thin. There was something behind 
 it. But her laugh nettled him. He lost 
 all sense of prudence. Besides, there was 
 that look in her face, still suggesting a 
 desire to help him. He stepped toward 
 her. 
 
 Instead of waiting for him to pass, she 
 retreated, keeping before him yet never 
 turning away her eyes. 
 
 "There is something you wanted to tell 
 me, is there not?" he began, crossing the 
 threshold. " Come ! Out with it and talk 
 United States."
 
 OBSTACLES 23 
 
 "Oui, m'sieu somezing. Ze Presi- 
 dente- 
 
 She paused, like one interrupted at the 
 point of making a confidence. Purdy, 
 catching the sound of a cautious step behind 
 him, wheeled just in time to see the door 
 swing to. He flung himself upon it, but 
 it was locked. His retreat was cut off. 
 
 Furiously he turned to the girl, but she 
 avoided his clutches, slipped through an 
 other door beyond, and slammed it in his 
 face. He seemed to catch the echo of the 
 words, "Pardon! m'sieu will do quite well 
 where he is for a while," uttered in a tone 
 between a cry and a laugh. 
 
 He was alone in a spacious, unfurnished 
 chamber, which seemed once to have been 
 used as a guard-room, for there were empty 
 gun-racks along the walls. Now it was 
 given over to dust, cobwebs, and garden 
 tools. A few spades, a few pieces of rubber 
 hose, an aggressively new American lawn 
 mower and a rustic bench these were its
 
 24 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 sole furnishings. The floor and walls were 
 of concrete; the doors solid and without 
 openings. The windows had been bricked 
 up all save one, which showed a small open 
 ing near the top for the entrance of light 
 and air. Outside of a regular penitentiary, 
 a more impregnable prison cell could hardly 
 have been found. 
 
 Purdy's first impulse was to raise an 
 outcry, but he checked it instantly. If the 
 Presidente had dared to order this outrage 
 upon an American citizen, an outcry would 
 be useless. And who but the Presidente 
 could have ordered it ? And what power or 
 semblance of a power had given him the 
 courage ? These braggadocio South American 
 officials had sometimes very bizarre notions 
 of their own importance and of the relative 
 importance of the various nations of the 
 earth. But there always had to be some 
 thing or somebody to egg them on. What 
 private ambition, what political plot could 
 he, Purdy, be thwarting, now that Germany
 
 OBSTACLES 25 
 
 was gone ? It was impossible even to guess. 
 The Secret Service is a secret service. Its 
 servants work for the most part in the dark, 
 unaware even of their own risks. 
 
 And the girl ? At thought of her Purdy's 
 self-control departed suddenly, and he began 
 to pace the room like a caged animal. To 
 think that he had been duped by such an 
 ancient trick as this! Baited by a smile 
 and a pair of inscrutable eyes ! How should 
 he ever confess to his superiors that he had 
 lost his liberty while trying to follow a nur 
 sery maid? It would look like a vulgar 
 flirtation, and ruin his reputation for having 
 a head on his shoulders. 
 
 Nevertheless, it was not a flirtation. 
 Whatever else, it was not that. Nothing 
 had been farther from his mind than making 
 love to the girl. She had piqued his cur 
 iosity, and with that covert air of Amer 
 icanism about her and her apparent desire 
 to tell him something for his own good, she 
 had pshaw! She had found his blind
 
 26 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 side, that was all. Accounting for it would 
 do no good. He was trapped. 
 
 But was he ? That open space at the top 
 of the window invited investigation. It was 
 too high to reach directly from the floor, 
 but by standing the rustic bench on end and 
 using it as a ladder he managed to get a 
 glimpse outside. What he saw was a group 
 of trees and a great expanse of lavishly 
 watered lawn an unfamiliar bit of the 
 palace grounds. But there was no crawling 
 through the hole, it being protected by an 
 ornamental grating. One could only wait 
 and see what happened. Somebody must 
 come by and by. It was not likely that 
 they would leave him there to starve. If 
 only he had a little water. He was thirsty 
 already. 
 
 Purdy descended, lowered the bench to a 
 horizontal position, and flung himself upon 
 it, thankful even for such a couch. He did 
 not believe that his predicament was seri 
 ous, yet it began to dawn upon him that he
 
 OBSTACLES 27 
 
 was contending against forces at once so in 
 tangible and unknown that it might at any 
 moment become very serious indeed. A 
 parched throat is a terrible reminder of the 
 slenderness of the thread of human life.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE 
 
 HOURS passed. It grew dark. Purdy 
 recovered his sang froid like an old 
 campaigner whose nerves grow 
 steadier as the battle progresses. Only it 
 was a battle where for a time the initiative ap 
 peared to lie with the enemy. So, extended 
 upon the bench, his hands locked behind his 
 head for a pillow, he waited. 
 
 He must have slept for several hours 
 before he was aroused by the sound of a rat 
 gnawing cautiously overhead. A rat yes, 
 if a rat had a file for a tooth and could gnaw 
 iron. Nothing could now be seen in that 
 pitch-black chamber, not even the square 
 of the window. But the metallic quality 
 of the sound was unmistakable. 
 
 Purdy's mind at once reverted to the 
 
 28
 
 A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE 29 
 
 ornamental grating which had thwarted his 
 earlier attempt to escape. It was odd that 
 no light came through it. Even starlight 
 ought to be visible. Was there a shutter? 
 He lay watching, and grew conscious finally 
 of a dull blur that came and went. The 
 window was not covered by a shutter but 
 by something which moved. 
 
 Once more the bench did duty as a ladder. 
 Purdy climbed as quietly as possible, but 
 the gnawing ceased. 
 
 "Is that you?" whispered someone with 
 out. 
 
 "Tommy!" 
 
 "Yes; keep quiet just a minute now. I'll 
 be through here in a jiffy." 
 
 Half an hour later the two were safely 
 beyond the grounds. 
 
 "Now, Tommy, tell me how did you 
 come to look for me in there?" 
 
 "Got a note. It said where I'd find you. 
 Also where I'd find a ladder and a file. 
 Devil of a country, this."
 
 3 o JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "Who wrote the note?" 
 
 "Found it under my door. No name 
 given. And I didn't ask questions of any 
 body always healthier not to." 
 
 "But you undertook the job of getting 
 me out. That wasn't very healthy on the 
 face of it, it seems to me." 
 
 "Didn't think I'd leave another white 
 man in the lurch, did you?" 
 
 Purdy paused they were under a street 
 lamp and read in the other's eyes the lov 
 ing admiration of a dog for its master. It 
 surprised him as much as anything which 
 had happened during all those past few 
 eventful hours. He was not in the habit of 
 regarding himself as anything remarkable. 
 And yet to this forlorn wreck of a journalist, 
 stranded in a semi-tropical back-water and 
 dying of fatty degeneration of soul and 
 body, he was an object of envy, almost of 
 worship. Heretofore, circumstances had 
 hidden it, but now it was plain. The idea 
 made him want to laugh.
 
 A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE 31 
 
 "Tommy/* he said, abruptly, "why don't 
 you pull yourself together and get out of 
 this?" 
 
 "Why doesn't the President of the United 
 States make me Secretary of the Navy?" 
 
 "Anyway, it appears that I have un 
 known friends as well as enemies." 
 
 " Who ? The party who wrote that note ? 
 Wait and see. Maybe you were a lot 
 better off where I found you than you will 
 be where you're going. Los Altos, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 "Yes, Tommy. But if what you say is 
 true I'd like first to discover your 'party'.'* 
 
 "No chance. It was printed in capital 
 letters with a lead pencil, in just such Eng 
 lish as a Spaniard or a very clever person 
 pretending to be a Spaniard would write." 
 
 "Well, then, drop the note though I am 
 not going to drop the locking up until I've 
 had a little Yankee set-to with Lara. He 
 has quite a bit to explain. In the mean 
 time come! Get ready to go with me
 
 32 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 into the mountains. I must have somebody 
 I can trust." 
 
 Tommy stopped short in his tracks. 
 
 "You mean that?" he asked, earnestly. 
 "Don't you know what's the matter with 
 me?" 
 
 "Certainly. Booze. But you won't be 
 able to get it in the mountains." 
 
 "See you in the morning, then at the 
 cafe." 
 
 The words strove to be casual, but they 
 came unsteadily; and with a quick clasp 
 of the hand Tommy was gone. 
 
 Purdy's intention to rake the Presidente 
 over the coals for an affront (to call it noth 
 ing worse) offered to the person of an 
 American citizen was forestalled by an 
 elaborately rhetorical epistle from Lara 
 himself. He had heard of the " unfortunate 
 incident," due, he said, to the "stupidity of 
 menials," who had mistaken the honourable 
 caballero for another person, "a political
 
 A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE 33 
 
 offender of no consequence/' over whom, 
 and over whom alone, "the local govern 
 ment presumed to have jurisdiction." 
 
 From that time on the preparations for 
 the journey progressed without further in 
 terruption. Lara sent to offer a complete 
 outfit, "in case the caballero " it was al 
 ways caballero now "could not be dis 
 suaded." And though this doubtful assis 
 tance was respectfully declined, it continued 
 to be easy to find everything which a trav 
 eller could desire especially guides. 
 
 "Too easy," as Tommy remarked. "It's 
 like falling into a hole." 
 
 Purdy fully agreed with this view of 
 things. He had not forgotten Lara's anxi 
 ety to add his name to his pay-roll. The 
 bribe, the brusque imprisonment which fol 
 lowed its refusal, the note to Tommy, the 
 apology, they were all parts of the same 
 mystery. The very absurdity of the inci 
 dents, their comic-opera quality, only served 
 the more to stir his sense of caution. No
 
 34 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 guide who came recommended by any 
 person, no matter who, was employed. 
 Even then it was only three days before 
 everything was ready. Having failed to 
 hold him, they were speeding his departure. 
 Who? Why? Unanswerable enigmas. 
 
 And now began the first assault on the 
 mountains, beginning with a long but easy 
 stage on board that wonder among climbers, 
 the Los Altos Railroad a unique piece 
 of engineering which never reaches the des 
 tination for which it is named, but makes 
 its terminal half way, as if exhausted, at a 
 group of ancient and once very famous silver 
 mines. From there on the travellers found, 
 to their surprise, a stretch of newly con 
 structed track leading quite to one side of the 
 original survey and ending simply nowhere. 
 
 But that was later. For the time being 
 they had only to watch the straight, level 
 right-of-way eat swiftly through the narrow 
 strip of desert, become a gently winding,
 
 A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE 35 
 
 easy gradient amidst rolling lowlands, and 
 turn finally into a tortuous, worm-like path 
 boring patiently into the higher altitudes. 
 With their guides and their beasts of burden 
 (two burros and a llama) safe in the baggage 
 car, they had nothing to do but to sit and 
 smoke. Of talking they did little ; it was too 
 plainly the lull before action. 
 
 Thus they had travelled a day and a 
 night, the scenery growing ever more and 
 more magnificent, when a roughly dressed, 
 moustachioed stranger, whose previous taci 
 turnity had been emphasized by a slouched 
 sombrero and a persistently averted face, 
 turned suddenly around in the seat in front of 
 them and remarked in gruff, illiterate Spanish : 
 
 "See that pile of bricks and stones over 
 there, senors? That's Krieg's Casa, or 
 what is left of it. Mighty interesting ruin 
 if you care about such things." 
 
 Krieg! The name recalled that vague 
 and scarcely credible item about a sup 
 posed suicide, as nearly as Purdy could re-
 
 36 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 member. He wondered why he could recall 
 it at all. Something unlikely in the whole 
 narrative, probably, had made it stick in his 
 memory. Tommy seemed to know about 
 it, too, for he gazed at the heap of debris as 
 if it were indeed the interesting ruin which 
 the stranger pretended. A minute later the 
 train came to a standstill. 
 
 "A hot box," announced Tommy, after 
 rushing out to investigate with altogether 
 more eagerness than the case seemed to call 
 for. "What do you say to taking a look 
 around? It's only a little way, and we've 
 got lots of time." 
 
 Purdy shook his head. He had a consti 
 tutional disinclination for side issues once 
 he was fairly embarked. But there ap 
 peared to be no reason to restrain Tommy. 
 So with an amused smile at such boyish 
 enthusiasm, he watched him disappear 
 behind one of the casa's still standing walls. 
 It was less than a quarter of a mile from the 
 track. Yes, there was surely plenty of time.
 
 A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE 37 
 
 Fifteen minutes went by; then thirty; 
 then three quarters of an hour. Tommy did 
 not return. The engine blew a series of 
 warning whistles which echoed with startling 
 grandeur among the hills. The train began 
 slowly to move but still no Tommy. 
 Purdy was vexed. Such carelessness, even 
 if an appearance at the last minute made up 
 for it now, would mean no end of trouble 
 before they were through. He was about 
 to lean forward and address some fretful 
 remark to the stranger who had pointed out 
 the infernal ruins in the first place, but 
 the stir of mere annoyance had ceased to 
 irritate his nerves, giving place to a cold, 
 wire-like tension the realization that some 
 thing serious had taken place. The stranger 
 was no longer in his section, nor as in 
 vestigation proved anywhere on the train. 
 The landscape outside the windows slipped 
 past and downward with an ever-increasing 
 momentum like something falling of its own 
 weight.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE REFUGEES 
 
 IT WAS still possible to leap out and go 
 back. No great amount of speed was 
 being made. But Purdy returned to 
 his place. If Tommy was as unreliable as 
 all this or if he had already come to the 
 end of his inclination to proceed his room 
 would be better than his company. And 
 if he had met with some kind of foul play, 
 why that was one of the fortunes of war. 
 In such an enterprise a man's life must 
 count for nothing. 
 
 Purdy would have liked to play the hero. 
 It would have been so easy to waste time 
 looking for the missing little paragrapher, 
 for whom he had already conceived a rather 
 unreasonable liking. His duty, however, 
 was to the Service, and duty ordered him to 
 
 38
 
 THE REFUGEES 39 
 
 sit still, in seeming indifference, and to let 
 himself be carried on toward his destination. 
 Besides, how could he be sure that Tommy 
 had not meant to lead him into some sort 
 of a trap? It was hard to be forced to con 
 sider this possibility, but Purdy reasoned 
 bitterly everything was hard. At that 
 moment he certainly hated his job. 
 
 But on reaching the terminal, a tiny 
 station half hidden in the clouds, the ne 
 cessity of action revived his spirits. Tent, 
 provisions, three ugly-looking half-breed 
 guides, the burros, and the llama the 
 last for desperate stages where something 
 almost supernaturally sure-footed might 
 be needed were all hurried from the bag 
 gage car. He did indeed notice that the 
 rails had not come to an end. But beyond 
 the station they were rusty. It was just 
 like a South American company to leave an 
 incompleted section dangling uselessly at 
 the end of their road. Instinct told him to 
 follow those rails or was it merely curios-
 
 40 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 ity? but having been assured by the 
 station-agent that nothing but construction 
 trains had ever passed over them, he aban 
 doned the idea. His own route lay a little 
 more to the east. 
 
 The real journey had begun. 
 
 For several days all went well. He was 
 approaching the cordillera real stupendous 
 hills the like of which he had never seen. 
 He whistled gaily as he rode along the 
 guides on foot, ahead; the extra animals 
 following them; he himself bringing up the 
 rear. He seemed to have escaped from the 
 troubles behind him. The troubles yet 
 before did not for the moment matter. 
 
 Then one night he was awakened by the 
 half-breeds talking around the campfire 
 for the air had become thin and cold, and 
 the tropical swelter of the plains a memory. 
 It was something unusual for them to talk 
 and he wondered at their keeping awake 
 after their hard day's tramp. Nor were 
 they using the lingoa geral, or "common
 
 THE REFUGEES 41 
 
 speech" of their kind, but some sullen hill 
 dialect which no white man could ever hope 
 to understand. Also he had a vague notion 
 that what had aroused him was another 
 voice than theirs. 
 
 He took a cautious stroll about, but 
 nothing out of the way was to be seen, and 
 he decided that he must have been dream 
 ing. The next day, however, the guides' 
 feet seemed to be made of lead, and once 
 they balked in open mutiny at the base of 
 a trifling little ascent, on the pretext that 
 they could not climb it. Purdy drew his 
 automatic, and the caravan moved on. 
 After that he stopped whistling. The sense 
 of being free, beyond the reach of the unseen 
 influences which had grudgingly watched 
 his departure, no longer kept him company. 
 The sunlight lost its brightness as well as 
 its warmth. The solitude became appalling. 
 He was nearing the region of unchronicled, 
 untoward happenings, where Fear had ap 
 peared and turned men's hearts to water.
 
 42 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 And he did not even know what handicap 
 he might be carrying with him. 
 
 What surprised him most was the absence 
 of refugees. He knew this was where they 
 should come, and had expected to find the 
 trail overrun with them. It was a wonder 
 fully good trail, too. It might almost be 
 called a road. Why should a fleeing popula 
 tion avoid a road ? A road, above all things, 
 is usually man's friend. Wasn't this the 
 right one ? Had he lost his way ? 
 
 No; by noon there appeared on the sky 
 line a huge gash, clean cut through the moun 
 tains as if by some gigantic sword. This, 
 unquestionably, was the pass to Los Altos. 
 
 Leaving the main trail and taking a bee- 
 line for this goal, he was soon with his party 
 in a maze of narrow paths, like sheep tracks; 
 and here at last the solitude was broken. 
 A mist had drifted over the intervening 
 valley, and coming toward him out of it 
 was a man who seemed fresh from a personal 
 encounter with the devil. He was better
 
 THE REFUGEES 43 
 
 dressed than the ordinary peon, and his 
 well-fed cheeks, not yet sunken by forced 
 marches on an empty stomach, made it 
 clear that until recently he had been in very 
 comfortable circumstances. But his gar 
 ments were in tatters, and his face almost 
 as pale as a Caucasian's, as if every drop of 
 blood had been bled out of it. 
 
 "Hello, there!" cried Purdy in Spanish. 
 "Am I headed right for the water-gap?" 
 
 ''You're headed for it right enough," was 
 the answer, spoken in the same language, 
 but the tone savoring a great deal more of 
 suspicion than of friendliness. 
 
 "And have I any chance of getting there? 
 You look as if as if a fellow might not, you 
 know." 
 
 "A man can get there, serior, if he wants 
 to go. And you won't need your tent." 
 
 "Why won't I need my tent?" 
 
 "Just beyond the gap there is a large 
 mletta and several scattered settlements 
 this side of it."
 
 44 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "You'll find every cabin deserted." 
 
 Purdy drew the man toward him, and 
 lowered his voice so that he might not be 
 overheard. 
 
 "What's wrong with this infernal coun 
 try?" he demanded. 
 
 The other shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "They say that a dragon comes out of the 
 hills and devours women and children," he 
 answered. 
 
 "What rot! You don't mean to tell me 
 that you've ever seen it?" 
 
 "No, I haven't seen it, sefior. I did 
 not wait. It is better not to wait and 
 see too much. A black jaguar, for in 
 stance." 
 
 "What!" cried Purdy, his mind instantly 
 reverting to that stray newspaper paragraph 
 which he had come upon while looking for 
 sterner matters something about a jungle 
 beast too huge to be brought down with 
 ordinary ammunition.
 
 THE REFUGEES 45 
 
 " Si, sefior. One might see a jaguar hid 
 ing in a tree and not afraid of bullets." 
 
 "Was it especially large, this one ?" Purdy 
 heard himself asking. 
 
 "No, not large but black." 
 
 The fellow refused to say more, and re 
 sumed his way, throwing behind him a look 
 that seemed freighted with incommunicable 
 knowledge. Purdy forced a laugh, and told 
 himself that he was on nothing more or less 
 than a wild-goose chase. And for a time he 
 almost believed it; there was something so 
 medieval, absurd, and un-South American 
 in the dragon story, and something so child 
 ish in the other. 
 
 Toward nightfall, however, came a more 
 sinister interruption. They came upon a 
 family party, led by a bony horse attached 
 to a pair of drag-poles bearing a rough litter, 
 which had stopped to rest. On the litter 
 huddled a woman with two wretched babies 
 in her lap; and by her side stood a man, 
 brown and half naked. Starvation and
 
 46 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 terror mingled in the dull blur which was his 
 face. 
 
 Purdy, hurrying forward to greet them, 
 was nearly overwhelmed by the torrent of 
 semi-articulate complaint which the woman 
 began to pour forth. The country behind 
 them, she said, was cursed. There were 
 devils there devils that burned up the high 
 ways and devastated the forests. She had 
 not seen them herself, but her husband had, 
 and so had her husband's brother. 
 
 "Is that so?" asked Purdy, turning his 
 attention to the man. "What have you 
 seen? What are you running away from? 
 You seem to have come a long way." 
 
 The man responded by pointing to a spot 
 where the edge of a mountain rill had been 
 trampled into mud by a drove of some un 
 known inhabitants of the wilderness, and 
 clapped his hand to his nose in an inexplica 
 ble and utterly ridiculous gesture. But this 
 time Purdy did not laugh. The man was 
 too evidently mad.
 
 THE REFUGEES 47 
 
 Purdy finally dismissed the miserable 
 group with a wave of his hand. They could 
 do nothing for him, nor he for them. Their 
 very distress had filled him with a sort of 
 resentment. Why couldn't they at least 
 have kept their reason, and been in a posi 
 tion to tell him something ? Could that silly 
 press dispatch have been right in saying that 
 people were going insane from the hardships 
 of travel ? What hardships ? He was hav 
 ing no trouble himself at least not enough 
 to grow insane over. 
 
 And yet how was he going to maintain 
 discipline among his already discontented 
 guides? One could not always march be 
 hind them with drawn gun. Sometimes a 
 man must sleep. And what was to hinder 
 a sleeping man from being robbed and left 
 say with his throat cut ? 
 
 He had seated himself upon a boulder the 
 better to think over the situation while the 
 camp was being pitched for the night. Con 
 found Tommy! Here was where he was
 
 48 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 needed. Silence had descended. The purl 
 of the stream, punctuated by an occasional 
 bleat from the llama, was the only sound. 
 It struck Purdy suddenly that the silence 
 was unnatural. 
 
 A few moments before he had heard the 
 guides muttering among themselves dis 
 puting, apparently. But now they had 
 fallen speechless. A glance over his shoul 
 der showed two of them crouching over the 
 llama, busily adjusting its pack to its back. 
 The third guide and the ponies were no 
 where to be seen. 
 
 "Hold on, there!" shouted Purdy, jump 
 ing up and once more bringing his weapon 
 into play. 
 
 The fellows started, broke into discordant 
 laughter and dashed for the cover of the 
 underbrush, the llama's pack sliding to the 
 ground. He heard the shouts of their hid 
 den companion and the sounds of horses 
 driven recklessly, gradually ceasing in the 
 distance.
 
 THE REFUGEES 49 
 
 They had got the better of him sooner 
 than he had expected, and had made away 
 with a good three fourths of the stores. But 
 he still had the llama and its pack, and his 
 own throat intact. Good luck, on the 
 whole rare good luck. 
 
 Purdy set about building a fire. He 
 would make some coffee, eat a few hard bis 
 cuits, and turn in. But while looking for 
 wood his eyes fell upon something shiny 
 lying upon the ground. It was a small gold 
 coin. In his haste to escape, one of the 
 guides had dropped it. 
 
 A half-breed Indian with a gold coin! 
 Somebody had followed them, somebody 
 with things like these in his pocket. Purdy 
 felt an uncomfortable stir in the roots of his 
 hair. An impalpable web encompassed him. 
 That which he went to meet had something 
 to do with that which he had left behind. 
 He had been unable to kick loose, to get a 
 free start. And how lonely he was !
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE FATE OF THE PRIEST 
 
 BUT by dawn he was ready to resume 
 his journey. Company, of a sort, 
 would probably soon be plenty 
 enough. 
 
 In the course of the day he did meet a few 
 hill folk. But though all were in a state 
 of more or less complete mental disorganiza 
 tion, not one had come from within the circle 
 of high peaks toward which his way was 
 tending. They had lived on the outskirts 
 of the secret, had been moved by mere 
 rumours, and had come around, not through, 
 the mountains. As for the inhabitants of Los 
 Altos, they must have taken another direc 
 tion altogether. Why? What could mean 
 this avoidance of roads ? Surely they would 
 not rush for the trackless northern pampas. 
 
 S
 
 THE FATE OF THE PRIEST 51 
 
 "Probably I'll find them safe in their 
 homes, minding their own business," said 
 Purdy to himself. 
 
 But he really had no such conviction. 
 Already he had passed several huts and 
 cabins all deserted. They gave him an 
 uncomfortable feeling. It would have been 
 easier to contend against an army than this 
 general emptiness. 
 
 However, he trudged on, now through a 
 forest of dark conifers, now across compara 
 tive open spaces carpeted with gorgeous 
 and seemingly unseasonable wild flowers; 
 while from either side of the pass, half lost 
 in the clouds, looked down pale, ghostly 
 slopes of eternal snow. 
 
 It was nearly evening when he finally 
 emerged from this sunken ravine and found 
 himself upon the upturned edge, so to speak, 
 of a great plateau. The sun at his back, 
 setting early, sent the shadows of domed 
 summits far out toward the centre of the 
 expanse. The land in the middle distance,
 
 52 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 evidently of alluvial formation, lay as 
 flat as a lake and as large as a county. 
 The air was as still as death. Not a thing 
 stirred. Gradually, as the sun sank lower, 
 the shadows crept farther and yet farther 
 toward the distant eastern escarpments 
 until they mingled with the hills themselves, 
 rising higher and ever higher as far as the 
 eye could reach. It was like a vast theatre 
 with a back-drop of endless perspective rep 
 resenting some malignant Country of the 
 Giants. But the play was over. The 
 stage was empty. The lights were being 
 put out. He had come too late. 
 
 Such was his first thought. But a mo 
 ment's observation showed him that the 
 theatre might not yet be empty after all. 
 In a hollow of the slope almost directly be 
 neath his feet was what looked like a deeper 
 shadow upon the general dusk. Scrutiny 
 resolved it into a cluster of shadows. This 
 was Los Altos. He had arrived. 
 
 Night is no time for exploration, so having
 
 THE FATE OF THE PRIEST 53 
 
 unburdened the llama, made camp, and par 
 taken of a scanty meal, he rolled himself in a 
 blanket and tried to sleep. But sleeping 
 was difficult. The vicinity of a spot where 
 men have shown the white feather and 
 abandoned their homes to bats is no place 
 for pleasant dreams. He longed to surprise 
 some movement, some sign of human life, if 
 it were only a cry of distress or the challenge 
 of an enemy. But all was as silent as a 
 landscape on the moon. 
 
 However, not even night can last forever, 
 and when he finally set foot within the vil 
 lage he had at least the company of sun 
 shine. The place was already familiar from 
 descriptions which Tommy had been careful 
 to collect; one or two decent houses, built 
 by white traders, a surrounding area of 
 native huts, and an outer circle of shapeless, 
 skin-made tepees. Everything looked as he 
 had expected it to look. Only, there was 
 nobody in the streets, nor at the windows 
 to see him pass. Most of the doors stood
 
 54 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 open, but without inviting entrance. The 
 sun cast fantastic shadows upon these sills, 
 shadows that were hard and sharp, and 
 deeper than seemed natural. The gaping 
 interiors were repellent. 
 
 Conquering his aversion, Purdy entered 
 hut after hut. He came upon no one, dead 
 or alive. There had at least been no pesti 
 lence, which was one relief. Such poor fur 
 niture as the places were likely ever to 
 have contained rested untouched. Noth 
 ing but bare necessities had been carried 
 away. 
 
 The better class of houses showed a like 
 state of things, and he made his way to the 
 public square, where the main and generally 
 level street met the mountain road. He 
 stood for a moment in front of the squat 
 Jesuit mission, which was the principal 
 building in the settlement. Here was the 
 roomy plaza of what had once been a pros 
 perous puebla. There were said to be min 
 eral deposits in the vicinity, as well as game
 
 THE FATE OF THE PRIEST 55 
 
 and dye-woods. It had been a great place 
 for traders. But the traders were gone. 
 
 Purdy shouted. The only answer was his 
 own voice thrown back from the inscrutable 
 peaks. He could have borne the emptiness 
 of the huts and tepees. It does not take 
 much to drive away a semi-barbarous, 
 almost nomadic population. But what of 
 the decent houses whose inhabitants must 
 have been of a blood more nearly akin to 
 his own ? What, above all, of the building 
 annexed to the church, which must have 
 been the priest's ? 
 
 He examined the exterior of the priest's 
 house minutely. Though of wood, it bore, 
 like the church, some traces of gaudy paint 
 ing, some indications of an attempt at 
 architecture. But of that which he sought 
 to know it had nothing to say. 
 
 Stepping resolutely through the door, he 
 explored the interior without result. It 
 was just a collection of vacant rooms. Fi 
 nally he came upon a door which was closed.
 
 56 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 Cautiously he pushed it open. It gave upon 
 a narrow, arbour-like passage, boarded in 
 against the weather and leading, as was 
 apparent, toward the church itself. A sort 
 of alcove near the farther end had probably 
 served as the sacristy. Here was the priest's 
 own writing-table; a rusty pen; a bottle of 
 dried-up ink, and a lot of letter-paper scat 
 tered along the passage as if swept to the 
 floor by the hurrying skirt of a cassock. 
 
 A moment later, following the trail of 
 paper, Purdy found himself within the chan 
 cel, where in service time he would have 
 been facing the rude, unlettered congrega 
 tion which doubtless had so often crowded 
 the rustic nave and transepts. But now 
 the benches, instead of being in stiff and 
 solemn rows, were tossed in heaps. The 
 Stations of the Cross rude chromos that 
 had once given a touch of colour to the un- 
 decorated walls were torn and trampled. 
 The cross itself had been thrown down. 
 
 Purdy's eyes went slowly from its vacant
 
 THE FATE OF THE PRIEST 57 
 
 place on the altar to its present position on 
 the floor. He felt his heart begin suddenly 
 to beat like a hammer. For there, near the 
 cross, lay a still figure. Tonsure and vest 
 ment identified it beyond a doubt. The 
 priest had died at his post. 
 
 Here, at last, was a witness. The people 
 of Los Altos had left a clue to what had 
 overtaken them. But the clue was a riddle. 
 The lips of the witness were sealed. Is 
 there not a proverb which says that dead 
 men tell no tales ? 
 
 Purdy, who knew that in spite of proverbs 
 the dead are sometimes loquacious, knelt 
 down before the prostrate form. Something 
 crumpled and white showed between the 
 cold fingers. It was a bit of paper. He 
 gained possession of this with difficulty, for 
 the fingers seemed reluctant to part with 
 what they held. Then he seated himself on 
 an overturned bench, spread out the paper 
 on his knee and became lost in thought. 
 Once perused, it would no longer be a piece
 
 58 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 of paper merely. It would be a voice. He 
 could almost hear it already, echoing among 
 the exposed rafters overhead. But when he 
 finally gave his attention to the lines their 
 import was disappointing. He read : 
 
 My people are insane with fear. They have risen 
 against their God, and are gathering outside to kill 
 me as if I had brought this thing. I am going now 
 to make one more effort to control them. But the 
 events of the past week have hurled them back into 
 savagery, and I am afraid that I shall fail. I cannot 
 even make them flee in the right direction. Their 
 souls are like the wheat through which Samson's 
 foxes scattered with the firebrands. Alas, how 
 terribly apt that figure is! We are consumed with 
 terror which is like a flame, and a flame which is 
 terror itself. If only I knew more. But I am like a 
 child babbling an incredible tale. However, I have 
 made certain of much; and if worst comes to the 
 worst, and this paper be found by some friend from 
 the outside world, let him read on carefully. This 
 jungle terror 
 
 A ragged edge closed the sentence. Purdy 
 hunted in vain for the rest of the note. 
 Whatever had torn it in two had made away 
 with the final half if the final half had ever
 
 THE FATE OF THE PRIEST 59 
 
 been written. More likely the garrulous 
 old priest had wasted too much time with 
 his homilies and now God alone knew what 
 he had wished to reveal. 
 
 There was nothing more to be discovered, 
 and Purdy, finding a pick and shovel, ripped 
 up a few boards from in front of the altar 
 and performed as best he could the pious 
 office of rendering dust to dust. Used to 
 an adventurous life the mere presence of 
 death affected him but little. And yet as 
 he stood there looking thoughtfully down at 
 the new-made grave, he was moved to swear 
 a solemn oath that the cause of this martyr's 
 death should not remain unknown.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PORTENT 
 
 THERE was a sudden clatter in the 
 world outside and Purdy hurried to 
 the door. Two horses were racing 
 through the village street, one bearing an 
 empty saddle, the other carrying a man. 
 Though his head was swathed in a bandage 
 there was no mistaking Tommy. 
 
 "Lord! but you've been making tracks," 
 he cried, leaping to the ground. " I was be 
 ginning to think you had seven-league boots." 
 Purdy regarded him. Company was 
 grateful, certainly, but he could not forget 
 on the instant that this young fellow had 
 much to explain. Tommy shook hands en 
 thusiastically, and then drew back. 
 
 "Say!" he exclaimed; "you don't think I 
 
 cut away intentionally, do you?" 
 
 60
 
 THE PORTENT 61 
 
 "I don't know what to think," Purdy re 
 sponded. "Your coming back seems to 
 argue that you didn't. But I'm not sure 
 you're going to be of any use to me a man 
 who loses trains or his nerve, maybe. 
 What's the answer?" 
 
 "See here, man! You left me to die 
 for all you knew. And you don't hear me 
 complaining, do you? No, sir. I under 
 stood. You had your job, and you did 
 quite right. But if you're going to think 
 that I got cold feet, or maybe well, there's 
 nothing left for me but to hike it back. 
 But here are your ponies. It's a wonder 
 you wouldn't recognize them." 
 
 Purdy melted instantly, and held out his 
 hand. 
 
 "Forgive me, old chap," he said. "I 
 ought to have known. But up here a man 
 begins to think he's going woozy and dis 
 trusts even himself let alone other people. 
 Tell me, what happened to you?" 
 
 "In the first place," began Tommy, ap-
 
 62 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 peased, and sitting down with his friend 
 upon the church steps, while the ponies 
 panted wearily at the end of their bridle 
 reins, "in the first place, I had a reason for 
 going over that casa. The original hint of 
 anything wrong in this neck of the woods 
 came from there . It was a little thing, which 
 never got into print the story of a pond 
 that would suddenly have ripples all over 
 it when there wasn't any wind. It seemed 
 ridiculous, but it set me thinking. Then 
 came a report that the casa had been 
 wrecked by a curse which a witch-doctor 
 had put upon it, and that Krieg, the man 
 who'd lived there, had been frightened into 
 killing himself. I didn't believe all the 
 silly details, but I wanted to get a glimpse 
 of the ruins. I had heard a few things about 
 this Krieg before, and thought that his 
 suicide, after he'd been seen alive about the 
 wreck, sounded fishy. If he was really dead, 
 I thought I ought to find a body, or some 
 thing. Nobody would have been likely to
 
 THE PORTENT 63 
 
 disturb it there was too much superstition 
 around. 
 
 "So I was nosing among what remained 
 of the walls, listening all the while for a 
 whistle from the train, when something 
 rapped me over the head and the next 
 thing I knew it was night, and I was lying 
 on my back studying astronomy. I'd been 
 left for dead, I gathered, and there wasn't 
 a soul, let alone a train, to be seen. 
 
 " Later, those nice guides of yours came 
 back my way, and I thought you were prob 
 ably done for. But I still had my money on 
 me, and had no trouble in getting the ponies 
 and a sack of grub. I fancy they thought 
 they were being bribed again. They were 
 certainly flush when I left them. But I 
 couldn't get any information from their 
 gabble. And well, here I am." 
 
 Purdy, touched by such adventures so 
 simply told, unfolded his own. Tommy 
 listened attentively. But evidently his 
 curiosity was not satisfied.
 
 64 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "Haven't you seen anything peculiar?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Nothing but what I have told you. 
 Isn't that peculiar enough? Of course it 
 isn't 'sheep plague'." 
 
 "Oh, did you read that? I got so mad 
 there one time having stories suppressed 
 that I just thought I'd give them that to get 
 even. But you haven't seen any burnt 
 things nor hollows, for instance?" 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "I stuck to the main trail longer I guess 
 than you did," the journalist observed. 
 "Quite a stunning trail a regular boule 
 vard. You must have noticed. Mighty 
 curious thing, here in the wilderness. That 
 extension of the Los Altos railroad, too. I 
 followed that for a way, till it simply quit 
 on me. Not a house in sight. That isn't 
 exactly usual, for a railroad. But the trail 
 there was one place where it looked as if 
 it had been scooped out fresh dirt I don't 
 know exactly how to describe it. But it was
 
 THE PORTENT 65 
 
 as clean as if a sand-blast had been run over 
 it. And the trees they were scorched, 
 that's all there is to it.'* 
 
 "It must have been lightning." 
 
 "I suppose it must have been," assented 
 Tommy, but without conviction; "light 
 ning for a quarter of a mile!" 
 
 "What else could it have been?" 
 
 "That's just the point. But there's an 
 other thing." 
 
 The men had risen and were looking to 
 ward the sun, as if it had occurred to them 
 simultaneously that it was time to be think 
 ing of moving on to some place more pleasant 
 for the night's camp. Purdy walked across 
 the street to where the llama was feeding, 
 turned the beast loose to follow at will, and 
 strapped the pack it had been carrying to 
 the back of his recovered burro. 
 
 "Well, what is it? What other thing?" 
 he finally asked. 
 
 " I was on my back among the ruins, as I 
 told you," Tommy answered, "and was
 
 66 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 staring at the stars, trying to collect my 
 wits. Maybe I dreamed it, but I thought 
 that a face suddenly stooped down from 
 somewhere and looked at me." 
 
 " It must have been a dream, for you say 
 you found nobody about." 
 
 "A funny dream, though. It scared me, 
 naturally, and I shut my eyes, expecting 
 to be knocked out for keeps every minute. 
 I thought at first it was that fellow who sat 
 in the seat ahead of us on the train. And 
 then I realized that it hadn't been a man's 
 face at all." 
 
 "Not a man's face?" 
 
 "No; but I remember seeing once that 
 pretty French maid that you say locked 
 you in at the Presidente's." 
 
 "Tommy!" cried Purdy, leaping into the 
 saddle, "let's get on. You are a stark, rav 
 ing lunatic." 
 
 The moment they pushed forward beyond 
 the abandoned villeta it was evident that 
 they were following in the wake of the
 
 THE PORTENT 67 
 
 departed mob. The ground was trampled, 
 but not a living creature was to be seen. 
 
 "I don't understand it," said Purdy, 
 finally. "These people were running in the 
 wrong direction as the priest said they 
 would. One would think the danger came 
 from " 
 
 "Maybe they ran toward it in an at 
 tack," suggested Tommy. "We haven't 
 found any packs or household goods, or 
 anything like that. It looks almost as if 
 we were trailing after a well-drilled army." 
 
 "An army wouldn't have women and 
 children with it," Purdy objected. " Haven't 
 you noticed the shreds of petticoats on the 
 bushes? No, it was the mob all right. 
 And I should say that something came up 
 very suddenly behind it. There ought to 
 be stragglers, though. In a village of that 
 size there must have been some who could 
 not travel very far, and their friends could 
 hardly carry them forever. We'll have 
 somebody to talk to before the day is over."
 
 68 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 But the day was already advanced, and 
 it drew to a close without this prophecy 
 being fulfilled. The two travellers had 
 reached the middle of the plateau. About 
 them was an apparently unbroken ring of 
 snow-capped peaks. The sun was setting 
 behind Los Altos in their rear a yellow 
 globe, sharp, distinct, unfamiliar. 
 
 "Do you know what that looks like to 
 me?" said Tommy, with an attempt at 
 laughter. " It looks like the yolk of an egg. 
 And it's going to be broken on the edge of a 
 frying-pan. Watch ! " 
 
 Purdy smiled. It did indeed look rather 
 like an egg. And the circular plane with 
 its edge of hills was sufficiently suggestive 
 of a pan. There was even a stupendous 
 peak towering above the others in the dis 
 tance ahead to serve as handle. Then, as if 
 to carry out the figure, the mists, rising 
 slowly from the ground, were suddenly 
 streaked with yellow. 
 
 "We're in an omelet," cried Tommy, dis-
 
 THE PORTENT 69 
 
 mounting at the spot where they were to 
 pass the night. 
 
 But Purdy wasn't listening. He stood, 
 drawn to his full height, his back to the sun 
 set, his breath coming and going with that 
 ecstatic sense of danger which comes to the 
 true campaigner when a foe, long sought, 
 declares his presence and takes his stand. 
 
 "Anyway, we're no longer alone in the 
 world," he declared, pointing. 
 
 Tommy exclaimed. There could be no 
 doubt of what he saw. Rising from the 
 base of one of the foot-hills in the very 
 direction of their journey was a filmy but 
 unmistakable column of smoke.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 DEATH'S NEIGHBOURHOOD 
 
 SHORTLY after daybreak the smoke 
 arose again now like a beckoning 
 finger. A while afterward it dis 
 appeared, but Purdy and Tommy had al 
 ready taken its bearings, and advanced 
 toward the spot. 
 
 The ground began to rise, at first grad 
 ually, and then with an ever-steeper ascent. 
 It was no longer bare, but covered with tall, 
 misshapen bushes and later with a growth of 
 mountain conifers. In an open grove of these 
 they halted. Before them lay what had once 
 been the body of a man. It was torn almost 
 to shreds. Farther on there were other 
 bodies and others. It was like a battlefield. 
 
 "All natives as far as I can make out/' 
 Purdy observed. "I wonder " 
 
 70
 
 DEATH'S NEIGHBOURHOOD 71 
 
 "Look!" 
 
 Tommy pointed with an unsteady index 
 toward a figure lying by itself. It was 
 clothed in blue overalls, with a workman's 
 blouse and cap. 
 
 "A white man!" 
 
 "And a labourer, Tommy. That's not 
 South American." 
 
 "Anyway, he was killed like a Christian 
 a blow in the head. Not like some of 
 these others." 
 
 In a few minutes they had counted a 
 score of these overalled corpses. Some had 
 been killed "like Christians," others in a 
 manner not to be described. 
 
 "Women and children, too," continued 
 Purdy, moving steadily forward. "What 
 do you make of it ?" 
 
 "Some of their clothes are scorched!" 
 
 Tommy's teeth were all but chattering, 
 but Purdy only nodded. He had come to 
 the stump of a mighty evergreen broken 
 off short. And beyond it there was a dis-
 
 72 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 tinct swath cut through the forest, as if the 
 trees had been stalks of grass mown by a 
 scythe. 
 
 "Scorched cut broken. I think we've 
 seen enough here. Let's go on." 
 
 "All right. Have have you got a flask 
 with you ? Mine is empty." 
 
 Purdy gave his companion a critical, ap 
 praising glance, and handed him some 
 brandy. The colour returned to the boyish, 
 too loosely moulded face, and a defiant, 
 reckless carriage to the shoulders. Here, 
 should the worst happen, was a sadly broken 
 reed to lean upon. But the march was re 
 sumed without a word. And the ponies, 
 which had been almost unmanageable in 
 the neighbourhood of death, again permitted 
 themselves to be ridden. The llama had 
 disappeared. 
 
 "One thing about this country it looks 
 peaceful," said Tommy some hours later. 
 "Now that my blood is in circulation again, 
 hang me if I don't believe we dreamed it
 
 DEATH'S NEIGHBOURHOOD 73 
 
 about those dead men. There were too 
 many of them to be real." 
 
 Purdy, his attention fixed on something 
 to one side on the ground, said nothing. 
 
 They were now skirting a beautiful little 
 lake, which nestled in a fold of the hills and 
 reflected the serene morning sky from a 
 surface as untroubled as that of a mirror. 
 Then, just as they were about to turn their 
 backs upon it, the lake seemed to shiver, 
 broke into innumerable ripples, and finally 
 sent a wave splashing loudly against the 
 shore. Purdy leaped down and touched 
 the water cautiously with his finger. 
 
 "As cold as ice! A geyser ought to be 
 warm." 
 
 "But this isn't a geyser." 
 
 ' What then?" 
 
 "Quien sabe ? I told you I'd heard of a 
 pond that rippled without any wind. This 
 is another one." 
 
 Tommy was quite collected by this time. 
 A little brandy now and then, and never a
 
 74 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 drop too much that appeared to be the 
 medicine. But it wouldn't do to trust it 
 too far. For instance, Purdy did not dare 
 mention what he had seen just before com 
 ing to the lake the body of the llama lying 
 stone dead in the underbrush. 
 
 It was about mid-afternoon when they 
 came upon a tiny log cabin with a pile of 
 smouldering embers before it. This was 
 evidently the source of the smoke which had 
 served as their guide across the plateau. 
 A battered collection of pots and pans care 
 lessly washed and left to dry in the sun told 
 of masculine housekeeping, but at first 
 there appeared to be nobody about. Then 
 the cheerful sound of a pick came to their 
 ears, and farther on they saw a little hump 
 backed old man working busily and peace 
 fully at the mouth of a shallow drift cut 
 into a shelf of crumbling quartz, as if this 
 were some placer claim in sunny California. 
 He would pound his takings fine, scoop 
 them up in an enormous skillet, and wash
 
 DEATH'S NEIGHBOURHOOD 75 
 
 them out at a mountain rivulet which flowed 
 near as if for his special benefit. 
 
 His back was toward the intruders, and 
 when Purdy called out he did not pay the 
 slightest attention. He seemed deaf. Then 
 Tommy, who was walking ahead, picked 
 up a handful of gravel and threw it. The 
 old man wheeled as the gravel stones fell 
 about him and uttered a cry of surprise in 
 which there was an element not only of fear 
 but of ferocious delight. Only one word 
 was clearly distinguishable "goggles!" 
 And as he uttered it he snatched a clumsy- 
 looking revolver from his pocket, and 
 fired. 
 
 His movements were quick and jerky, but 
 Purdy's were quicker. He had shot and 
 winged his man at the first hostile sign, and 
 the bullet which might have dropped 
 Tommy in his tracks went wild. 
 
 "Yankees!" groaned the miner, clutch 
 ing his wounded arm and coming forward, 
 his face twisted with pain. "If I'd only
 
 76 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 V known. Mebbe, though, you're as bad 
 as any of 'em. You never kin tell." 
 
 "Who are you ?" demanded Purdy, speak 
 ing very loud. "And what do you mean by 
 trying to pot strangers this way ? I simply 
 had to shoot. Did I hurt you much?" 
 
 " I reckon you hurt me a good deal, part 
 ner. I'm a bit deef, and you came on me 
 kinda sudden. But my arm ain't broke. 
 Help me off with this shirt, will you ? My 
 name's Briggs. Tear off somethin* for a 
 bandage. Damn slug went clean through 
 me. I'm bleedin' to death." 
 
 "Let it bleed it will do you good," said 
 Purdy, producing a surgical kit from the 
 pack of the burro he had all the time been 
 holding firmly by the bridle. "But what 
 if we did come upon you suddenly ? Any 
 reason up here for being afraid of people 
 in general?" 
 
 A look of child-like cunning stole into the 
 hunchback's wrinkled face. 
 
 "I ain't savin' nothing," he muttered.
 
 DEATH'S NEIGHBOURHOOD 77 
 
 "There ain't nothing to say. But if you 
 was to want to stake out a claim alongside 
 of mine I wouldn't say nothing, either. The 
 ground is rich rich, I tell you. And I been 
 gittin' lonesome peggin' away here by my 
 self." 
 
 "The fellow has found gold/' Purdy re 
 marked to Tommy later, when they had all 
 eaten a comfortable supper of the miner's 
 providing and the miner himself had retired 
 to his bunk in the cabin to get such sleep 
 as his wound might permit. The campfire 
 blazed brightly. It was an hour which in 
 vited a pipe and a general summing up of 
 the situation. 
 
 "He seems friendly, too," said Tommy, 
 lazily stretching himself before the blaze. 
 "That's what I can't understand after 
 the way he first received us." 
 
 "It's plain enough that he took you for 
 someone else that's the answer. When 
 he saw you he shouted out: 'There's them 
 goggles !' or something like that. You were
 
 78 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 ahead, and you were wearing goggle*, too. 
 Remember?" 
 
 "That's right. I hadn't taken them off 
 since the sun-glare on the plateau began 
 to hurt jmy eyes. We're to look out for a 
 man with goggles, then." 
 
 " I think so, Tommy. Anyway, we're to 
 look out for a man. And when you come 
 to consider the matter, that's about the 
 worst thing one ever does have to look out 
 for." 
 
 "But why don't Briggs talk? He wants 
 us to stay." 
 
 "He *wa'nts us to keep him company. 
 He's afraid to stay here alone. But yet 
 he doesn't quite trust us. Don't know as we 
 can blame him for that." 
 
 "Are we to trust him?" 
 
 "You're right, Tommy. One of us had 
 better keep awake, turn about. The trouble 
 with Briggs is, he's in a panic. Only his 
 gold keeps him here. No telling what a 
 frightened man will do especially when you
 
 DEATH'S NEIGHBOURHOOD 79 
 
 don't know what he's frightened about. 
 But here he comes now." 
 
 Briggs had appeared in the doorway, and 
 began to complain about his arm. Purdy 
 renewed the dressing, noted that the wound 
 showed no signs of inflammation, and in 
 vited the hunchback to sit a while by the 
 fire. The invitation was accepted, but the 
 conversation clung persistently to the com 
 monplace. Briggs seemed interested only 
 in his mine. He had been prospecting for 
 silver, he said, when he had accidently dis 
 covered gold, and having since then lost 
 his partner was now " naturally hankerin' 
 to hear the English language." 
 
 "See here, old chap," broke in Purdy, 
 finally. "I'm not a miner, but I'm not 
 exactly a tenderfoot, either. Something 
 is wrong up here. Never mind the gold. 
 Tell us about the whatever it is that's 
 loose." 
 
 Briggs looked uncomfortable. 
 
 "There ain't nothing to tell," he began,
 
 8o JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 reluctantly, "except a lot of superstitious 
 nonsense. You ain't the sort to pay no at 
 tention to such like foolishness, be you?" 
 
 "What became of your partner?" 
 
 "More'n I know. He wandered off and 
 never come back. That was some time ago. 
 Megrums, I guess. His name was Weisner." 
 
 "Did he ever wear goggles?" 
 
 Briggs jumped up from the log where he 
 had been sitting, and declaimed, excitedly: 
 
 "I don't know anything about any man 
 with goggles. There ain't any such man 
 up here." 
 
 "Well, then," said Purdy, "what is up 
 here?" 
 
 Briggs paced about a bit, and reseated 
 himself. 
 
 "I'll tell you what it is. Sometimes, 
 mostly in the middle of the night, there 
 comes it's a bad smell, that's what it is. 
 Don't be took surprised if it comes to 
 night." 
 
 " Must be some volcanic vent-holes in the
 
 DEATH'S NEIGHBOURHOOD 81 
 
 neighbourhood," put in Tommy, with a 
 touch of irony. 
 
 "Volcanoes? Not this way, partner. 
 Besides, it ain't brimstun. The smell is 
 more like like an old cellar." 
 
 Tommy laughed outright, but Purdy re 
 mained thoughtful. He remembered the 
 pantomime indulged in by one of the refu 
 gees he had held his nose. 
 
 "I believe Briggs is telling the truth," 
 he said to Tommy when the miner had gone 
 back to the cabin; "about everything ex 
 cepting the man with goggles, that is. Per 
 haps if we can win a little more of his con 
 fidence " 
 
 But Tommy, wearied by the events of the 
 day, had fallen asleep. Purdy left his sen 
 tence unfinished, refilled his pipe, and pre 
 pared for a lonely vigil. He thought of all 
 that had happened since the receipt of the 
 cablegram: Lara's offer of a bribe; the prank 
 of the pretended French maid; the meeting 
 with the elusive stranger on the train;
 
 82 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 Tommy's experiences at Krieg's Casa; the 
 murdered priest; Tommy's tale of scooped- 
 out roads and scorched vegetation; the 
 bodies of panic-stricken villagers and the 
 yet more unaccountable dead men in over 
 alls, some merely bruised, some torn to 
 shreds; the snapped tree-stems; the ap 
 parently uncaused wave across the bosom 
 of a placid lake; the mysteriously slain 
 llama; the hunchback's fear of men with 
 goggles, and now his yet more ridiculous 
 yarn. Could any explanation be found 
 which would bring all these and several 
 other things together into one comprehen 
 sible and logical whole? Or were he and 
 Tommy the victims of so many unrelated 
 caprices of fortune? of nature? yes, 
 though he hated to consider it, of the 
 supernatural ? 
 
 It was an hour for such thoughts. The 
 fire had died down. No sound, not even a 
 companionable snore, came from either of 
 his companions. Purdy must have dozed,
 
 DEATH'S NEIGHBOURHOOD 83 
 
 for he opened his eyes suddenly with the 
 confused memory of a sharp hissing sound 
 in his ears. 
 
 "What is it?*' asked Tommy, drowsily, 
 raising himself on his elbow. 
 
 "Nothing, I guess. I only thought I 
 heard something." 
 
 There had been nothing in the sky but 
 the shadow of the night and the presences 
 of the stars. But now something was al 
 tered. Purdy could not have said what it 
 was, but the stars seemed to grow dim in 
 the cloudless atmosphere tarnished, like 
 brilliants breathed upon by some unearthly 
 monster. 
 
 From far off in the forest there came a 
 cry, as of an animal stung to madness by 
 sudden fear or pain. A movement it 
 could be called nothing more passed just 
 above the tree-tops, leaving behind it a 
 faint but unmistakable odour of mud.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 PURDY'S WALK 
 
 IN THE morning Purdy started out alone 
 for a walk. He had, he told Tommy, 
 the ghost of an idea perhaps the be 
 ginning of the thread of which the problem 
 he had come to solve was woven and he 
 wanted to think it out. All these phenomena 
 traced upon the ground, in the water, 
 in the heavens, in the quaking hearts of men 
 and women had one thing in common: 
 They suggested evil. Here ought to be a 
 clue. 
 
 He had every intention of making his 
 walk a short one, but the hills were like 
 magnets, and the sight of the plateau, 
 spreading wider and wider beneath him 
 every time he turned to look back, rilled 
 his mind with a sort of intoxication. Being
 
 PURDY'S WALK 85 
 
 more used to the labyrinths of cities than 
 to those of the wild he paid less attention 
 than he should to where he was going. It 
 seemed sufficient to note that he was always 
 climbing. 
 
 Then he yielded to the lure of a natural 
 aisle, and turned aside. Here, with an 
 easier gradient, he made such rapid prog 
 ress that soon he found himself shut in by 
 pinnacles of rock. From being a man 
 creeping up a roof he had become a man 
 wandering in the cellars of a Brobdignagian 
 castle. The sense of expanse, of freedom, 
 left him. No longer did the air seem super 
 charged with ozone. There came a chok 
 ing sensation at the throat. The cliffs 
 towered about, higher and higher. It was 
 almost as if they had sprouted, or at least 
 grown enormously, since he came among 
 them. His neck began to ache with the 
 effort of looking upward. It was time to 
 go back. One could not think out prob 
 lems here.
 
 86 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 But the sun had disappeared behind a 
 ilm of wintry haze, making it difficult to 
 locate the points of the compass ; and as he 
 had not mounted directly from the plain, 
 mere going down hill would never take him 
 to his starting point. It was necessary to 
 retrace his steps with every twist and turn 
 which they had made. But how? The 
 aisle, instead of being a single cut in the 
 rock, proved to be a dozen aisles, branching 
 off into innumerable transepts a devil's 
 cathedral. 
 
 Staggering with fatigue, and a little 
 giddy, he chose a cushion of dry moss, 
 leaned his back against a boulder and 
 almost immediately fell asleep. When he 
 awoke was it minutes or hours afterward? 
 everything seemed to have changed. The 
 scene, as he remembered it, was a confusion 
 of palisades heaped one upon the other in a 
 terrific riot, and a great central peak tower 
 ing above the rest like a chief amongst a 
 retinue of lesser sky-lords. Now the peak
 
 PURDY'S WALK 87 
 
 was gone. The canopy of haze had become 
 a low, leaden roof whose weight he could 
 all but feel upon his shoulders. Every recol 
 lection of the way he had come had beea 
 blotted out by strange and threatening 
 dreams. 
 
 Thoroughly alarmed, he chose the route 
 which looked the least unfamiliar only to 
 see its familiarity vanish more completely 
 with every step. Possibly he might in 
 coming have passed that bank of flowers, 
 that glowed now with such a vivid purple, 
 on his right. He might though he could 
 not understand how have gone unseeingly 
 by a waterfall hanging like a silver veil from 
 the eaves of a basaltic battlement far over 
 head. But he could never have encountered 
 those two figures of stone, roughly shaped 
 like human forms, which arose, as if alive, in 
 his path. No; he was beholding things 
 which neither his own nor any other human 
 eye had ever rested on before. 
 
 He was lost. He could not even find the
 
 88 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 spot where he had stopped to rest. Prog 
 ress of any sort became almost impossible. 
 He had, unconsciously, been hurrying; and, 
 strong and hardy as he was for a city man, 
 he had frequently to lean against some rock 
 or tree to regain his breath. At long inter 
 vals was it this day, or the next ? he would 
 point the muzzle of his automatic into the 
 air and fire, hoping that some friendly ear 
 might hear the report. The result was al 
 ways startling. Shots would sound from 
 every direction at first close at hand, then 
 at greater and greater distances, suggesting 
 a pack of scattering dogs. Then the silence 
 would creep back and hedge him about as 
 with an invisible barrier, and it would be 
 several minutes before he eould realize that 
 he had only been mocked by the complica 
 tions of a mountain echo. But when he 
 reached his last cartridge, some obscure 
 hunter's instinct stayed his hand, bidding 
 him save this bullet for a yet more desperate 
 and final need.
 
 PURDY'S WALK 89 
 
 It grew bitterly cold, and he thought of a 
 new expedient. He remembered how he 
 and Tommy had been guided by the smoke 
 of the hunchback's camp. Before it grew 
 too dark again he must build a fire. Per 
 haps he had travelled in circles and not 
 wandered so far, after all. Tommy and 
 Briggs might see it. But though he col 
 lected a great heap of dry brush and piled 
 green stuff on top of the blaze, night fell 
 without a sign of succor. In vain he strained 
 his ears. The hoped-for sound of an answer 
 ing gun did not come. 
 
 Again he fell asleep. Ages seemed to 
 pass in blackness and silence. Then there 
 came noise and confusion. He awoke with 
 a cry. A sharp, hot pain stung his cheek. 
 Overhead, not more than twenty feet from 
 his face, was a monster, clothed in a yellow 
 flame, that writhed and twisted, and com 
 plained with a voice like that of the wind 
 or a worried beast. The note of the slain 
 priest had spoken of flames. But here was
 
 90 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 not the looked-for solution of the mystery. 
 His own fire had merely crawled up a 
 splintered pine and was spreading among 
 the dead branches. Purdy got from be 
 neath barely in time to escape an avalanche 
 of burning wood. But rest had put new 
 strength into his muscles. He resumed his 
 way. 
 
 Though not yet morning, it was light. 
 The forest appeared to be afire all around 
 him. An ever-growing roar was in his 
 ears. It seemed incredible that the de 
 structive element should have made such 
 progress. Stranger still, the roaring in 
 creased as he went. Could it be fire which 
 made that loud but sweet and limpid 
 music ? 
 
 Something cold suddenly embraced his 
 feet and ankles. He was in the midst of a 
 mountain torrent. This, not the flames, 
 was what made the music. He discovered 
 that he was very thirsty, and let himself sink 
 to his knees, burying his face in the delicious
 
 PURDY'S WALK 91 
 
 eddies and nearly losing his balance and 
 drowning. When he reached the other 
 bank, he determined to stay there. Much 
 might happen before he starved to death, 
 and he need not again run the risk of thirst. 
 Yet his matches were damp, and the wetting 
 had rendered him doubly cold. It seemed a 
 pity to freeze so near to a raging holocaust. 
 Only a single brand was needed. 
 
 He got back to the fire without difficulty. 
 Though much less extensive than he had 
 supposed, it shone like a red eye through 
 the forest. He even found the very tree 
 beneath which he had couched. But he 
 did not secure a blazing branch; he stared 
 in front of him like a man in a trance. 
 Sticking into the tree-trunk not far from 
 where his head had been was a long and 
 slender knife. 
 
 He waited till ghostly forms on high told 
 of sunlight on the peaks, and resumed his 
 wanderings, giddy from lack of food but 
 finding plenty of water. The torrent was
 
 92 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 the crookedest stream imaginable. He 
 came across it every little while, forded it 
 again and again, and in the end forgot which 
 side he was on. Or perhaps there were a 
 dozen different torrents. It did not matter. 
 That night he buried himself under a heap 
 of pine needles. There was some creature 
 abroad on his trail some creature which 
 was attracted by fire and could hurl knives 
 into the bole of a tree. That was the 
 thought which pursued him. Later he did 
 not know how much later he aroused 
 himself and went on again, moved by that 
 stubborn sense of duty which is a part of the 
 Anglo-Saxon blood. He had ceased to hope. 
 Tommy would come to the conclusion that 
 the worst had happened. He might even 
 now be gone, and in any case could never 
 arrive in time to be of any use. There were 
 no provisions. The keen air sapped vitality 
 at its very root. Life had become a night 
 mare. 
 
 Often Purdy cnme to precipices, and some-
 
 PURDY'S WALK 93 
 
 times imagined himself upon dizzy brinks 
 which did not in fact exist. Images whirled 
 continually before his vision sometimes 
 of terror, sometimes the soft, seductive 
 images of approaching delirium. Time had 
 gone completely out of the universe. 
 
 Once, after he had passed over a region 
 of dry rocks, the world became suddenly 
 white and dazzling. Something beneath 
 his feet gave like feathers and clung like 
 glue. It was snow. He was tempted to 
 fill himself with this treacherous substitute 
 for food and drink; and to avoid yielding 
 he let himself drift toward the lower levels, 
 walking automatically upon legs that had 
 forgotten the meaning of weariness. 
 
 Another time he fell; and instead of 
 trying to get up again, drew his weapon, 
 pressing the muzzle eagerly against his 
 temple. Was not this moment as good as 
 another for that last, carefully treasured 
 bullet? Yet he did not pull the trigger. 
 Suicide, when brought so near, revealed it-
 
 94 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 self as a form of surrender. He would at 
 least wait. Perhaps, if he lived long enough, 
 he would learn what he had come to learn. 
 
 If only he could keep his mind clear, and 
 distinguish realities from dreams. Not for 
 hours had he been alone. At one time it 
 would be Tommy who walked beside him; 
 at another, Briggs; a man in goggles; or 
 Lara's pretended nursery maid. Oftenest 
 it was the maid. He could not forget her, 
 and sometimes it seemed as if she were the 
 heart of the whole mystery. 
 
 "It is strange that I don't suffer more," 
 he kept saying aloud in his more lucid inter 
 vals. "Starvation is not as horrible as the 
 books say it is." 
 
 Afterward he would return to imaginary 
 conversations with the shadows about him, 
 dimly conscious that there was something 
 real beneath his fancies. Often now he 
 fell. He became bruised, bleeding a thing 
 dreadful to see. The time came when the 
 next collapse promised to be the last. He
 
 PURDY'S WALK 95 
 
 stumbled forward in a heap and lay stiH. 
 It was about sunset in the world below. 
 Mechanically he covered himself with leaves 
 and broken branches. He would dream no 
 more. Here would be his grave. 
 
 Yet he awoke and was at once con 
 vinced that the final shreds of his reason 
 were gone. Beside him he saw a basket 
 food drink. It required every atom of 
 his will to limit himself to a drop and a 
 morsel. The meat, the liquor they were 
 substantial. His mind cleared. Leading- 
 from the basket was a thread, seemingly 
 without end. Either he was mad indeed, 
 or it had been put there to tempt him on.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CATACLYSM 
 
 IN THE old fable it was a thread (or, as 
 some say, a hair from the head of 
 Ariadne) which led Theseus from the 
 labyrinth after he had slain the Minotaur. 
 In Purdy's case, his enemy being still alive, 
 the trail was much more likely to be an 
 invitation to destruction than an escape. 
 But he was far too desperate now even to 
 hesitate, and soon found himself standing 
 at the thread's farther end. 
 
 Before him was a cliff, about two hundred 
 feet high, in the face of which was a narrow, 
 almost perpendicular, fissure. The rough 
 sides of this fissure afforded a series of foot 
 holds, a sort of natural ladder; but he had 
 not climbed it very far before he discovered 
 that wherever a rock-knob was lacking its 
 
 96
 
 THE CATACLYSM 97 
 
 place had been supplied by an iron peg skil 
 fully set in an artificially drilled hole. Com 
 mon prudence called for a halt; but he was 
 beyond prudence. 
 
 The top of the cliff revealed a bit of slop 
 ing tableland, or meadow, several acres in 
 extent and covered with a heavy growth 
 of tufted grass. Across the meadow lay a 
 well-worn path, ending at a second cliff 
 very much like the first. The grass was 
 everywhere green and luxuriant save along 
 the borders of the path, where it was seared 
 and brown, as if from blight. The path 
 terminated abruptly at the entrance to a 
 cave. 
 
 This was so obviously the lion's mouth 
 that even Purdy, overwrought as he was, 
 paused for a moment. But all paths ema 
 nate a certain fascination, and this one fairly 
 beckoned. 
 
 The cave proved to be a mere tunnel, 
 penetrating the mountain for a few yards 
 and ending in emptiness. Purdy stopped.
 
 98 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 He seemed to be looking into a cavern with 
 out floor, ceiling, or sides. Only shadows 
 interrupted the gaze above, beneath, or be 
 yond shadows diluted by a pale light which 
 streamed from some undefined source, as 
 though the rock-drip were phosphorescent. 
 
 Creeping on his hands and knees, he came 
 to the edge of the abyss and suddenly drew 
 his breath in sharply through h s teeth with 
 a hiss that echoed and reechoed as if all the 
 inner spaces of the earth were alive with 
 snakes. What he had seen was his own face 
 looking up at him. The abyss was no abyss, 
 but a mirror, an expanse of darkly glittering 
 liquid with a surface as smooth as quick 
 silver. As he gazed, fascinated, he no 
 ticed that the mirror's depths were faintly 
 streaked with green, hair-like whisps. The 
 substance was not quite homogeneous. And 
 in the air he breathed there was a slightly 
 fetid odour suggestive of slime. 
 
 Purdy felt the need of a smoke. It had 
 been days now since he had been able to
 
 THE CATACLYSM 99 
 
 get a light from his water-soaked matches, 
 and there was something extremely dis 
 agreeable in the fumes from the pool. A 
 puff or two of tobacco was what he wanted 
 before proceeding farther. It might rid 
 his lungs of that painful weight which was 
 beginning to distress them, and relieve the 
 dizziness and the heaviness of the eyelids 
 which went with it. 
 
 Smoke ? Why not ? There, as if created 
 by his thought, lay a package of cigarettes 
 and a boxof matches almost beneath his hand. 
 
 Scarcely knowing what he did, he struck 
 a match. Almost immediately the silence 
 of the cave was shaken by a moan of terror. 
 Something he took it for an animal at 
 first was coming toward him along the 
 edge of the pool. It whimpered and stum 
 bled as it came, and just as he completed 
 the lighting of his cigarette, revealed itself 
 as a man a man of enormous stature, and 
 fat for his height, wearing a sort of mask 
 with goggles. He was trying to make for
 
 ioo JUNGLE TERROR ' 
 
 the entrance. Purdy got to his feet and 
 put himself in the way. 
 
 "Back, you fool, back!" cried the man, 
 in a thick, guttural voice, and drawing a 
 revolver. 
 
 Purdy waited with the supreme indiffer 
 ence of semi-stupor, but the bullet did not 
 
 come. 
 
 iM 
 
 Trying to bluff me, are you?" he mut 
 tered. "Come to think of it, I have a 
 shot yet left myself." 
 
 Had he been in his right senses, certainly 
 he would not have touched a weapon now. 
 He was completely covered, and at that 
 range the other could hardly miss. As it 
 was, he drew with great deliberation and 
 aimed at his enemy's head. 
 
 "Nein! Nein! Don't shoot here, for 
 the lof of Gott !" The man in goggles 
 shoved his mask aside, dropped his revolver, 
 and fell to his knees. His attitude, with his 
 hands clasped together, suggested not only 
 surrender but prayer.
 
 THE CATACLYSM 101 
 
 In disgust, and obeying one of the crazy 
 impulses which were in possession of his 
 brain, Purdy tossed his own weapon aside. 
 
 "What's the matter, old Specs? Are 
 you sick?" 
 
 " Ja y sick. You schmoke! Give it very 
 carefully, to me, or we die/' 
 
 For some reason or other he was actually 
 afraid of the cigarette. 
 
 "You brought me here, with your damned 
 thread," laughed Purdy, drawing on his 
 luckily discovered talisman and removing it 
 from his lips with a flourish. "Wanted me 
 to die alone, only I arrived too soon for 
 your get-away. Is that it?" 
 
 "Give me that schmoke und we both live. 
 I give you back your life." 
 
 He crept close as he spoke and tried to 
 take the cigarette in his hand. Purdy held 
 it out of his reach and felt himself gently 
 lifted and carried from the cave. He was 
 as helpless as a baby. 
 
 But the first breath of outside air revived
 
 io2 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 him somewhat, and he no sooner felt the 
 ground again beneath his feet than he caught 
 his captor by the arm. A terrific struggle 
 ensued, the stranger's one object appearing 
 to be escape, while Purdy held him back 
 with all the desperate energy of incipient 
 madness. In spite of himself he was slowly 
 dragged along. In vain he tried to catch 
 the tufted grass between his feet. The 
 grass was torn out by the roots. Still in 
 anely clutching the cigarette, he lost ground 
 continually. The cave-mouth receded. He 
 could not fight the slope. And he began to 
 realize that away from the cave meant 
 toward the cliff. 
 
 As a last resort he relaxed his efforts, 
 feigning exhaustion, then put every atom 
 of his force into a single, skilful lunge, and 
 managed to get his gigantic but clumsy an 
 tagonist squarely to the ground. But the 
 cigarette, too, had fallen upon the border 
 of dead grass beside the path. 
 
 A spot of flame, almost invisible in the
 
 THE CATACLYSM 103 
 
 bright sunshine, spread rapidly up the 
 slope. It was remarkable how the grass 
 burned. Watching it with an almost hyp 
 notized interest, Purdy loosened his hold. 
 
 With a frenzied gasp the goggled man 
 was up and away. 
 
 " Retten Sif Sich ! Spring jurs leben !" 
 
 The words shot over his shoulder less like 
 a friendly warning than like the involuntary 
 exclamation of one who sees a fellow being 
 in imminent peril and speaks without stop 
 ping to think. 
 
 Purdy yielded to the suggestion, and ran 
 frantically for several yards. Then he re 
 flected. Might not this be a ruse? From 
 what should he save himself? Why should 
 he run for his life? There are many safer 
 pastimes than rushing headlong down an 
 incline toward the edge of a precipice. The 
 edge, in fact, was nearer than he thought, 
 and he had to fling himself flat on his face to 
 avoid being swept into space by his own 
 momentum.
 
 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 Nothing in a lifetime of adventure had 
 ever affected him with such a sense of help 
 lessness, such horror, as being the puppet of 
 the unseen, of the inexplicable, as what im 
 mediately followed. Prompted by instinct, 
 he had looked back toward the cave and 
 now saw the whole mountain side gradually 
 lift itself into the air and disappear. The 
 movement must have been of awful swift 
 ness, but in comparison with his racing 
 thoughts it seemed slow. Never for an in 
 stant did he connect it with any idea of an 
 explosion. 
 
 Next came the turning topsy-turvy of 
 natural law. He felt himself shooting out 
 over the gulf. But he did not fall ; he rose, 
 plunging into the depths of something in 
 visible and soft, which hardened gradually 
 into a great cushion, against which another 
 cushion at his back urged him with ever- 
 increasing force. Every atom of breath 
 went from his lungs. He seemed about to 
 be crushed. Then he slipped to the earth,
 
 THE CATACLYSM 105 
 
 not like a falling body, but gently, like a 
 drop of water slipping down a window-pane. 
 The descent was of no great distance. He 
 had been blown entirely across a chasm to a 
 snow-crowned slope on the other side. 
 
 At the same time there came a sound 
 which acted upon every tissue of his body; 
 a sound which he could, so to speak, hear 
 in his very marrow. His bones shook with 
 the mighty vibration until it seemed as if 
 their sockets must be pulverized. After 
 this there succeeded a rain of boulders and 
 smaller stones, promising every instant a 
 speedy death. But at last the ungodly 
 downpour ceased, and all that remained of 
 the cataclysm was a thunderous peal which 
 flung itself from peak to peak and died 
 away finally in a grand diapason organ note 
 among the farther hills. 
 
 But Purdy did not hear the end of this 
 appalling symphony. One of the last and 
 smallest stones, as it ricochetted after its 
 descent, had struck him on the head.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 NEW PUZZLES 
 
 WHEN he came to his senses his first 
 impression was of darkness. It 
 must be night, he thought. And 
 yet that impenetrable pall overhead a back 
 ground of intense black faintly streaked with 
 gray certainly was not the sky. There 
 was also a closeness in the air which bewil 
 dered him. The last he remembered he had 
 been in some catastrophe, out of doors . And 
 now he was in some stuffy, shut-up place. 
 
 Slowly he pieced his scattered memory 
 together. There had been an explosion, and 
 evidently he had been stunned. He didn't 
 seem to have been hurt, but for a moment 
 he was afraid to move lest he should find 
 himself buried alive caught in some crevice 
 beneath a pile of splintered rock. 
 
 106
 
 NEW PUZZLES 107 
 
 The more he stared into the blackness 
 above him, however, the less total it became. 
 A light was stealing in from somewhere; 
 and as it gradually increased, the details of 
 his surroundings revealed themselves. He 
 was lying in a rough bunk. The pall of 
 blackness was a roof; the gray streaks 
 beams. 
 
 Perhaps he was back at Briggs's place. 
 But no, as he turned his head he caught sight 
 of an enormous room, as big as the best cafe 
 in Lara's capital. It was fitted up as a 
 machine-shop, with belts, pulleys, shafting. 
 The sight was so astonishing that he closed 
 his eyes again, thinking it must be an illu 
 sion. But he was not asleep, and his mind 
 was perfectly clear. Had he been ill, and 
 carried back to civilization ? But they don't 
 put sick men into bunks fastened to the walls 
 of machine-shops. Nor could this be a 
 stamp mill in some neighbouring mining 
 camp. He had never heard of any such 
 camp, and stamp mills do not have their
 
 io8 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 floors cluttered up with spool-like objects, 
 twice the size of flour barrels, nor miles and 
 miles of small, flexible, yellowish-gray rope 
 festooned from the rafters. 
 
 He recalled the man with goggles, and 
 moved cautiously, expecting every instant 
 to feel the clutch of fetters. But his limbs 
 were free; he might get up if he chose. But 
 what if it was the man with goggles who had 
 brought him there? In that case, he was 
 free to rise because the man in goggles 
 wanted him to rise. All things considered, 
 it might be just as well to lie still. 
 
 Curiosity, however, finally got the better 
 of this resolution, and with as little noise as 
 possible he crept out of the bunk. He was 
 fully dressed, he found, save for his boots, 
 which were waiting for him. The bright 
 morning sunshine, now streaming in through 
 a row of windows, cast the long shadows of 
 the boot-tops half way across the floor. 
 He decided to do his first exploring in his 
 stockinged feet, but his eyes instinctively
 
 NEW PUZZLES 109 
 
 followed the shadows. There, where the 
 shadows ended, about an open fireplace, 
 were some chairs, a table, a bookcase, and a 
 flat-topped desk. The table showed a half- 
 opened drawer, and bending over it, with 
 his back turned, stood a human figure. 
 
 Purdy, moving as stealthily as a cat, se 
 cured a stout iron bar from an extinct forge, 
 shaped like the foundation of a chimney, 
 that rose in his way, and crept forward. 
 A scrap grated under his foot. The figure 
 turned its head. 
 
 "What's the matter now?" 
 
 The bar clattered to the cement floor. 
 
 "Well, Tommy, you are always sur 
 prising me! I'm mighty glad it's you. 
 Was it you who brought me to this place?" 
 
 "Yes; we heard an explosion something 
 awful, and went toward the sound. Briggs 
 is somewhere about." 
 
 "Then all I've got to say is that Briggs, 
 as well as you, is a mighty brave man." 
 Purdy seated himself in a chair before the
 
 no JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 desk in that incongruously domestic corner 
 before the fireplace. It was beginning to 
 be borne in upon him that Tommy was 
 acting strangely. 
 
 "Where in heaven's name are we?*' he 
 went on. "What is this place?" 
 
 "We are up in the mountains still, but I 
 don't know what it is. Only got here last 
 night." 
 
 Tommy's reluctance to talk was now ob 
 vious. He seemed to be thinking of some 
 thing quite apart from his words. Purdy 
 turned to the desk before him. His glance 
 fell aimlessly upon a thumb-worn volume 
 which lay open at a passage bearing all the 
 marks of frequent perusal. Slowly and at 
 first almost automatically he translated 
 from the foreign language in which it was 
 printed : 
 
 "The body has a hand of flesh. Who 
 shall give a hand to the will ? Give me but 
 the power which lies in the atoms of the 
 dust, and I will write my name upon the
 
 NEW PUZZLES in 
 
 world in letters of steel and flame. Not 
 the force to do this or that, but Force 
 Itself." 
 
 On the margin was written in a large, ir 
 regular hand : 
 
 "What a fool the Kaiser was he thought 
 he had it." 
 
 And then, beneath: 
 
 "It is found Force, itself! The secret 
 of the atoms of the dust is mine. Already 
 men are afraid. Their terror dangerous 
 them makes. The butcher while he only 
 whets his knife was almost under the feet 
 of the sheep. Abroad it is over, they write 
 me. One surrenders. Bah! Soon, above 
 the mob, above presidents and kings, I, 
 even I, Hans Krieg " 
 
 The writing broke off. 
 
 "Krieg, eh? Sounds like a crazy man," 
 said Purdy, aloud. "I don't know, though. 
 Supposing the hand of the will was found ? 
 Only a crazy man 
 
 "Say, Tommy! What do you think of
 
 ii2 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 this? Here's somebody who's trying to 
 start up the Big Unpleasantness again. It's 
 your friend, Krieg, too, or somebody else 
 of the same name. He claims to have dis 
 covered a way of doing not anything in 
 particular, but his own sweet will in general. 
 He- -" 
 
 But Tommy wasn't listening. He was 
 swaying unsteadily on his feet, grinning 
 fatuously; and while Purdy stared, slipped 
 suddenly to the floor and began to babble 
 almost incoherently. 
 
 "It was the spooky things that got me," 
 he said. "A machine-shop is all right. I 
 can stand that. But hair ugh! I could 
 n't bear to think about how it must have 
 come here not in cold blood. Honest, I 
 couldn't." 
 
 A bottle stood half empty on the table. 
 Purdy snorted in disgust. 
 
 "Where'd you find it? Confound you, 
 you're drunk again." 
 
 "Shouldn't wonder. But thash better'n
 
 NEW PUZZLES 113 
 
 going off my trolley. 3 S where I was going, 
 
 too." 
 
 The voice trailed off into silence. With 
 surprising suddenness Tommy was asleep. 
 
 Purdy knelt down and lifted one of the 
 heavy eyelids with a finger. The pupil 
 was perceptibly shrunken. No, the 
 wretched journalist was not drunk, but 
 drugged. 
 
 " Morphia !" muttered Purdy. "That 
 bottle of course. The man who wrote in 
 that book would naturally set out poisoned 
 liquor/' 
 
 But what had Tommy learned? What 
 had he meant about hair? Certainly he 
 had used the word and there was a paper- 
 wrapped parcel lying in the open drawer. 
 Purdy shivered as he examined it, the vision 
 of some nameless outrage creeping across his 
 thoughts, for that parcel contained a tress 
 of human hair cut off with prodigal liberal 
 ity hair rather straight, long, and bluish 
 black, like jet.
 
 ii4 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 And yet there was no need to imagine 
 anything gruesome. It might be a solemn 
 love-token cut from the head of the dead. 
 Some women, even while living, might spare 
 such a lock as that and look not a whit the 
 worse. But the latter idea, at least, brought 
 Purdy no satisfaction. The whole place 
 had become utterly repugnant to him a 
 devil's workshop. He did not want to 
 think of any woman being connected with it. 
 Especially did a pump-like contrivance 
 near the door, exhaling a faint odour not of 
 slime, this time, but of ammonia excite his 
 ire. Several frost-covered pipes extending 
 from it suggested the ice-making plant in an 
 up-to-date brewery. An evil brew it was 
 which was being made here, there could be 
 no doubt about that. No place for senti 
 mental keepsakes and tresses of hair! 
 
 A squeaking sound arrested his attention. 
 There was something alive in the midst of 
 these mechanical contrivances. A short 
 search revealed a wire hutch and several
 
 NEW PUZZLES 115 
 
 hungry little guinea pigs. He quieted them 
 with a handful of food from a near-by bas 
 ket. But what were they here for ? Vivi 
 section? Some yet more accursed experi 
 ment? Yet somehow it did not matter. 
 He was too sated with horrors to feel. The 
 innocent little creatures in their snowy coats 
 rather inclined him to smile. After all, na 
 ture's handiwork was wholesome and beau 
 tiful. He would try to forget man's. 
 
 Tommy was sleeping heavily, but re 
 quired no particular attention. He would 
 rest as comfortably before the fireplace, 
 where there was a cheerfully blazing log, 
 as he would anywhere else. Purdy went 
 to the door he had already noticed, and 
 tried it. He found it locked. But the 
 door itself proved to be cut in an immense 
 sliding panel, so delicately hung on rollers 
 that it opened a little with the first touch. 
 
 He stepped out. The machine-shop 
 seemed more absurdly impossible than 
 ever. It was sheathed with corrugated iron.
 
 ii6 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 A tall chimney rose at one corner. On the 
 other side of a large inclosed area were sev 
 eral workmen's cottages. None of them 
 showed any signs of immediate occupancy. 
 But this might have been in the suburbs of 
 Paterson, New Jersey, or of Essen, for that 
 matter. And yet, all around, in their un 
 sullied majesty, rose that now-familiar 
 wilderness of virgin peaks crowned with 
 eternal snow. 
 
 But Purdy did not look long at the moun 
 tains. A gate clicked. Someone was enter 
 ing the inclosure. Briggs, of course. That 
 hunched figure with the bandaged arm and 
 eager face was unmistakable. And with 
 him there came no mere lock of hair, this, 
 but a woman.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 INTERRUPTED CONFIDENCE 
 
 THIS is Mamzelle Marie, she calls 
 herself," said Briggs, advancing 
 shamefacedly. " I found her dismiss- 
 in' her guides. She would come on, without 
 a nag or anything, I had to bring her." 
 
 He put down the bulging kit-bag he was 
 carrying, and mopped his forehead. The 
 woman, who was dressed in riding boots, 
 khaki-coloured breeches, and an army offi 
 cer's tunic, smiled ravishingly upon him. 
 Then she dropped a curtsey in Purdy's 
 direction, quite in the grande dame manner. 
 Marie would have been extraordinary 
 anywhere. Though too generously framed 
 to be termed exactly petite, she was unutter 
 ably feminine. A woman's hopes, fears, 
 loves, and hates glowed mysteriously in the 
 
 "7
 
 n8 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 dark depths of her wide and luminous eyes. 
 Her attire, masculine as it was, failed to 
 detract from her quality, and not even the 
 boots were able to hide the instinctive grace 
 of her movements. 
 
 But what was most surprising was the 
 marble-like whiteness of her skin. With 
 those eyes; with that hair, almost blue in 
 the intensity of its blackness, her skin 
 should have been olive. No doubt there 
 had been some odd crossing of currents in 
 her ancestry, something Andalusian, say, 
 mixed with a strain from one of the Balkan 
 provinces, something almost Oriental, per 
 haps just a trifle Jewish. But her pallor 
 an unnatural quality. Purdy had seen the 
 like in the victims of barbarous atrocities, 
 bled white almost to the point of death. 
 Even when a flush stole momentarily across 
 her face it was as if the red tide rose with 
 difficulty, and not quite to its original 
 height. 
 
 Any woman would have astonished him.
 
 INTERRUPTED CONFIDENCE 119 
 
 This one added the final touch to the un 
 believable, and he half expected to see the 
 whole scene vanish from before his eyes. 
 For it was undoubtedly she who had locked 
 him in the Presidente's vacant guard room. 
 
 "Ziss iss charming, to meet up here a 
 gentleman!" she exclaimed, in mincing ac 
 cents. And then, coming closer and speak 
 ing without moving her lips : 
 
 "Act as if you didn't recognize me, don't 
 show surprise at anything, and watch for a 
 chance to speak to me alone." 
 
 "Who are you, anyway?" Purdy was 
 thrilled in spite of himself by the new and 
 unexpected depths of those barely audible 
 tones. 
 
 "A friend if you'll try not to be de 
 ceived by appearances. But be careful. 
 Nobody must see that we have met before." 
 
 "There is nobody here to see it excepting 
 Briggs, and another gentleman whose ac 
 quaintance, I believe, you have already 
 made."
 
 i2o JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 They had reached the entrance of the 
 machine-shop, and his tone was slightly 
 ironical. He had suddenly remembered a 
 murder case on Park Row which he had 
 covered during his reporter days. Yes, it 
 was certainly this same girl who had ap 
 peared there as the representative of some 
 European welfare society or other. She 
 might easily have been a spy, even then. 
 And he had not forgotten their last meeting 
 nor what had happened as the result of his 
 taking her at her word on that occasion. 
 It made him angry every time he thought 
 of it. And here she was trying to be gra 
 cious, asking him not to judge by appear 
 ances. The very devil must have sent 
 her. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she was saying; "it is that 
 other one but wait." 
 
 They entered. Tommy was sitting up, 
 rubbing his eyes. At sight of Marie, he 
 started, staring into her face as if petrified. 
 
 "Where where is Mr. Krieg?" the
 
 INTERRUPTED CONFIDENCE 121 
 
 woman barely whispered, after a swift glance 
 around. 
 
 "Oh! that gentleman! He is also an ac 
 quaintance?" asked Purdy. "We seem to 
 have lost track of him for the mbment." 
 
 "Gone? You have let him go ? And he 
 doesn't know that I am here. My God!" 
 
 She leaned back against the wall. A 
 flush which had just begun to mantle her 
 cheeks drained quickly away, leaving them 
 as white as chalk, while her eyes dilated with 
 pure fright. There could be no mistake 
 whatever about the emotion. It was fear. 
 
 "Quick!" she went on. "We must get 
 away if there is yet time. When did he 
 
 go?" 
 
 "That means you are anxious to get us 
 away from this place; why?" Purdy de 
 manded, though there was no longer the 
 same suspicion in his manner. 
 
 " Because we are all in very great danger 
 while we stay." 
 
 "You think he might come and find us?"
 
 122 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "Then, truly, he does not know you are 
 here?" 
 
 Her relief seemed genuine, but Purdy felt 
 his doubts returning. His profession had 
 taught him that eternal distrust is very 
 often the price of liberty, and even of life 
 itself. Distrust did not come naturally. 
 Especially was it hard for him to believe 
 that a young and beautiful woman, under a 
 cloak of marvellous acting, had deliberately 
 tried to stampede him into an ambush; 
 and seeing that he didn't stampede, was 
 now endeavouring to hide her defeat under 
 more acting still. It would be hard for any 
 man with good warm blood in his veins to 
 believe. At the same time not to be cau 
 tious would be idiotic. 
 
 "I don't think he knows we are here," 
 Purdy ventured. "Indeed, I am not posi 
 tive that a certain person I have in mind is 
 really he. But before I answer any more 
 questions, isn't it time you told me who 
 you are?"
 
 INTERRUPTED CONFIDENCE 123 
 
 "I am Mary Kocian." 
 
 "I mean, of course, what you are, and 
 what you are expecting to find up here?" 
 
 "That I hardly know, myself." A 
 fathomless look came and went in the depths 
 of her eyes. " But where is Mr. Krieg or 
 the person you are not quite certain is he or 
 not? You you haven't killed him?" 
 
 Again there was some flicker of hidden 
 emotion, and no; it was not hope. 
 
 Purdy shook his head, more disturbed 
 than he would have cared to confess. Then 
 the feeling passed. After all, was it un 
 natural to find a young woman shrinking 
 somewhat from the idea of violence ? True, 
 she did not look like one who would shrink 
 from anything, if the pinch came. But it 
 was absurd to expect her to hate this absent 
 monster. Why, he was only just beginning 
 to realize that he hated him himself. 
 
 "I fancy he is rather hard to kill," Purdy 
 went on, "while we would be rather 
 easy "
 
 124 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "For him, yes. He has invented some 
 thing maybe you know what." 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 "Not in detail. But if he once sees 
 you " 
 
 "He has seen me already if he is that big 
 fat toad with weak eyes " 
 
 "That is he! If you succeed in rejoining 
 him, never let him out of your sight again. 
 Follow him wherever he goes. Will you 
 try to remember that? I've taken con 
 siderable trouble to warn you." 
 
 Was it a woman's dread of violence which 
 was moving her once more? Hardly. It 
 looked more like a genuine friendly interest. 
 
 "See here," said Purdy, suddenly, "there 
 is something which I have often thought 
 about, though I have never mentioned it 
 before. Somebody translated a cipher mes 
 sage for Presidente Lara a short time ago. 
 It just occurs to me that it might have been 
 you." 
 
 "How could it have been I?"
 
 INTERRUPTED CONFIDENCE 125 
 
 i 
 
 "You might be one of us, and have the 
 key." 
 
 "And have used it as a traitor?" 
 
 All this time they had been standing, 
 she with her back to an open window, he 
 facing her. Purdy now moved to her side, 
 and pretended to be looking out at the 
 hills. His voice was scarcely distinguish 
 able above the wind almost miraculously 
 mild for that altitude which murmured 
 in the nearest tree-tops. 
 
 "Why not a traitor? Such things have 
 been. You were very close to Lara. May 
 be you were sent to watch him and double- 
 crossed us. And then, after you had been 
 forced to lure me into a trap, perhaps you 
 relented. What was to have happened may 
 have been too unpleasant, let us say. 
 So somebody wrote a note which let me 
 out. It all seems to hang rather well to 
 gether." 
 
 "And what if I should confess that you 
 are right?"
 
 126 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "Then I would be inclined to believe 
 that some very strong pressure had been 
 brought to bear." 
 
 "You would be inclined to excuse me?" 
 
 "You might have been compelled, by 
 some motive I know nothing about.*' 
 
 He felt the intensity of her look, and turned 
 to meet it. She seemed to be studying him. 
 
 "Isn't it just possible," she said, "that 
 Lara was the one I double-crossed, if I 
 double-crossed anybody?" 
 
 "Those who are deep enough in the Ser 
 vice to be allowed to play that game," ob 
 served Purdy, slowly, " have a way of telling 
 each other. There is a password." 
 
 The girl neither flinched nor changed 
 countenance. But her lips remained sealed. 
 Then slowly she began to smile, showing 
 two rows of large, flashing white teeth of a 
 wonderful translucency. 
 
 "If you want my confidence, Mademoi 
 selle Marie Kocian, you are not going about 
 in the right way to get it."
 
 INTERRUPTED CONFIDENCE 127 
 
 "Who said I wanted it? Perhaps I 
 don't too much of it. That might be the 
 most unfortunate thing of all." She looked 
 away, and spoke as if to herself: "And yet, 
 at least you might take my advice that is, 
 assuming that Mr. Krieg is still alive." 
 
 "I said I hada't killed him." 
 
 "But you didn't say he wasn't dead. 
 Mr. Briggs was telling me about the explo 
 sion. Besides, I heard it." 
 
 "Nevertheless, it's safe to assume that 
 he is alive, I think." 
 
 "Then find him, and keep near him." 
 
 "That is rather strange advice. It might 
 be only another way of getting us out of 
 here." 
 
 "But can't you see? If you are with 
 him you can deal with him as you would 
 with any man. While he is away you 
 can't." 
 
 " Exactly what is likely to happen if he 
 finds out we are here?" 
 
 "I can't tell you exactly. If he once
 
 128 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 arrives, nothing. Perhaps if you are sure 
 he didn't follow you at a distance, we'd 
 better stay. I can fix myself a place in 
 one of the cottages. They are empty, aren't 
 they?" 
 
 "Yes; but don't you think you've adopted 
 a rather unconventional way of travelling ?" 
 
 "Shockingly so. Chaperones are rather 
 scarce in my line of business." 
 
 "What is your line?" 
 
 A flash of hatred, as if she had seen a 
 feared and detested object, passed before 
 her inner vision; of hatred and despair, such 
 as he had never in his life dreamed of, trans 
 formed the woman's features for an instant. 
 Then she relaxed. 
 
 "I am the Queen of Sheba, come to life 
 and looking for a Solomon." 
 
 "You look it now I must confess," he 
 assented, joining in her laugh. 
 
 Whatever might be the power exercised 
 by the absent Krieg, it was evident that 
 Marie had a power of her own, and possibly
 
 INTERRUPTED CONFIDENCE 129 
 
 even more subtle and dangerous. Irresisti 
 bly, against his will, the conversation had 
 turned into the eternal path which runs be 
 tween man and woman. They might have 
 been starting out to keep a dinner engage 
 ment on Broadway for all the hostility there 
 was now in their manner. 
 
 This insidious friendliness was even more 
 apparent when they joined the others, 
 found a stock of provisions, and sat down 
 all together to a mid-morning meal. Briggs 
 was already a maudlin captive, and Tommy, 
 as soon as he had recovered from the final 
 effects of the drug, went over unreservedly 
 to Marie's side. 
 
 " I suppose she's just about the worst diffi 
 culty weVe run into yet," he whispered to 
 Purdy, while Marie went to reheat the coffee 
 by the open fire. "But I don't care. I'm 
 for her. Did you ever see such a stunner in 
 your life ? And maybe she's all right." 
 
 "Maybe she is, and oh, hang it all! 
 I'm with you. Let's have a jolly party.
 
 130 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 We don't live but once, and it won't make 
 the next encounter with battle, murder, and 
 sudden death anymore uncomfortable." 
 
 And a jolly party it was, Marie's foreign 
 qualities disappearing more and more every 
 minute beneath an easy, American good- 
 fellowship. And jolly it remained until 
 Briggs, his eyes wandering in curiosity about 
 the shop, chanced to discover a solitary cap 
 hanging upon a nail so conspicuously that 
 he had at first overlooked it. An ordinary 
 cap it was, of a dirty, well-worn blue. But 
 its effect on the miner was startling. He 
 leaped up, rushed forward to examine it, 
 and turned back to the table with a face 
 from which all expression had completely 
 gone. 
 
 " Weisner ! " he was mumbling. " Do you 
 see the name Weisner here inside the sweat- 
 leather? Weisner was my partner. This 
 here cap is hisen. And he's been missin' for 
 three months." 
 
 A chill descended upon Purdy's spirit.
 
 INTERRUPTED CONFIDENCE 131 
 
 Had or had not Marie started at the name 
 Weisner? And anyway, there is always an 
 uncomfortable sound to that word "miss 
 ing"; and the sight of something belonging 
 to a missing person never suggests pleasant 
 things. A more careful examination of the 
 whole place was undoubtedly in order. 
 
 But they found nothing new to attract 
 their attention until they came to that 
 pump-like contrivance near the door. The 
 frost-covered pipes proved, on closer exami 
 nation, to go down through the floor. In 
 the floor also was a large steel plate set 
 flush with the cement surface and rendered 
 almost indistinguishable from it by a thin 
 coating of dust. The plate was fitted with 
 a sunken ring, and lifted without difficulty 
 upon hidden hinges, revealing the top of a 
 small round tank nearly filled with some 
 thing having a dark, burnished surface. 
 Purdy stooped down. In the semi-trans 
 parency of its depths there were long, 
 wisp-like filaments of green. Filaments of
 
 i 3 2 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 green, as in the pool at the cave ! And they 
 had been making merry within three yards 
 of it. 
 
 At the same instant he saw something 
 fall from Briggs's hand. 
 
 Since coming upon the cap, the miner 
 had gone about with his pocket-knife open 
 and ready as if for an immediate attack. 
 But on looking down into the tank his whole 
 body began to tremble violently, making it 
 plain that another mystery was really more 
 than he could bear. And now the knife 
 slipped from his ringers and plunged straight 
 for that malignantly glittering, green- 
 ^treaked surface. 
 
 Purdy watched it fall as one might watch 
 the approaching end of the world. Ages 
 seemed to elapse, though there was not 
 time for him to move a muscle. He re 
 membered what had happened at the cave, 
 and already he could feel the machine- 
 shop and all in it and around it simply dis 
 integrating into their original elements.
 
 INTERRUPTED CONFIDENCE 133 
 
 The knife struck. There was a tinkle, 
 as of metal against metal. That was all. 
 The surface of the tank's contents was not 
 even dented. Solid! And he had thought 
 that it was a liquid. Surely this same sub 
 stance had been a liquid in the cave. He had 
 seen tiny ripples. Perhaps it was frozen. 
 That was it frozen by the ice-machine. 
 Danger lay not in a blow or jar but in fire. 
 
 " I think it's all right," he said, motioning 
 the others back and carefully closing the 
 trap. " But I hope there's no electric wire 
 concealed in that stuff." 
 
 "Do you suppose it's explosive?" asked 
 Tommy. 
 
 "Rather!" 
 
 "That isn't what got loose up in the hills 
 yesterday, you don't mean?" 
 
 Purdy nodded, but his eyes were fixed 
 upon Marie. Her warning against the 
 machine-shop as a place of residence seemed 
 to be justified. 
 
 "No, it isn't that," she answered to
 
 134 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 his gaze, "it isn't an explosive the thing 
 we're looking for. At least, I don't think 
 so." 
 
 "Neither do I," agreed Purdy, remaining 
 beside her while the others went back to 
 the table. "Though after all, what is an 
 explosive but a sudden release of force? 
 We're not looking for a new kind of artillery, 
 or anything like that, I am certain. But an 
 explosive it might be one of the forms 
 which it takes the thing, whatever it is. 
 Did you ever stop to think what would 
 happen if a man could overcome material 
 resistance absolutely in every direction and 
 quite at his will ? Why, just to move faster, 
 just to be a little stronger than anything now 
 existing would make him practically om 
 nipotent." 
 
 He had forgotten his suspicions. Were 
 they not comrades in danger ? 
 
 "I have a plan," she suddenly broke 
 out. "If I tell you if we work together 
 do yu think you ceuld hide the fact
 
 INTERRUPTED CONFIDENCE 135 
 
 from everybody and under all circum 
 stances?" 
 
 "Try me," said Purdy. 
 
 As he spoke, the door opened. There 
 stood the man with goggles.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A CRISIS 
 
 f pP T^HE goggles were thrust back upon 
 j his forehead now, revealing a pair of 
 
 -*- small blue eyes the most repulsive 
 eyes that Purdy had ever seen. They 
 looked like pig's eyes rendered pale and 
 weak from much reading. The rest of the 
 man more resembled a blond, hairless 
 gorilla grown fat from want of physical 
 exercise. It was this incongruous combina 
 tion the beast sicklied o'er with the pale 
 cast of schoolmaster which made him so 
 monstrous. For what would not a beast 
 turned schoolmaster be capable of? 
 
 Purdy's first, instinctive movement was 
 
 toward Marie. His impulse was to protect 
 
 her from even a sight of this intruder. But 
 
 she evaded him. and with a cry ringing 
 
 136
 
 A CRISIS 137 
 
 with relief and joy threw herself literally 
 into the intruder's arms. Yes, she, the 
 friendly Queen of Sheba of their feast ! 
 
 Purdy shivered, and cursed himself for 
 his simplicity. Here he had been on the 
 point of collaborating with her on some 
 plan something designed, perhaps, with 
 the sole idea of destroying him. This inter 
 ruption was providential. And he cursed 
 himself again for the twinge so much like 
 jealousy which shot through him as he saw 
 the brutal kiss which descended time and 
 time again upon her full, unflinching lips. 
 
 "You haf come to me!" gloated that 
 guttural voice. 
 
 "But yes! And look who I have found 
 here. Messieurs, you have met Mr. Krieg, 
 my husband ?" 
 
 Her husband! And Krieg the man of 
 the casa, of the mountains, of the book of 
 blasphemies against sound reason they 
 were one, r sure enough. Marie had ad 
 dressed him in her natural voice as one who
 
 138 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 knew her in her true character; but she be 
 gan to mince her words when she turned to 
 the others, and the glance which she cast in 
 Purdy's direction was altogether mocking. 
 Well, didn't such stupidity as his deserve all 
 the ridicule it could get? He should have 
 recognized that hair at once; so black, and 
 yet with a sub-tint that was only a dark, 
 dark blue, as of steel. 
 
 Krieg looked up and seemed to see them 
 for the first time. 
 
 "My peoble?" he cried. "Nein! Some 
 pigs." 
 
 He went over to the hutch which Purdy 
 had already investigated, took one of the 
 guinea pigs, dropped it to the floor, and 
 wantonly ground out its life beneath his 
 heel. There was a gasp of horror from 
 three men. But the outrage was over be 
 fore they could stir. Marie merely smiled. 
 
 "This is a liddle pig," Krieg continued, 
 with a bellow of a laugh. " I haf also a nice 
 reception ready for der big ones. It is only
 
 A CRISIS 139 
 
 necessary that we leaf them alone. Come ! 
 I take you with me/' 
 
 Here threatened the very situation which 
 Marie had warned against. Was it certain 
 to prove desirable just because of that ? To 
 be left alone, and Krieg knowing where they 
 were Purdy did not like the idea. But he 
 could do nothing. He had left his auto 
 matic at the cave. Briggs was not only 
 wounded but practically unarmed, or he 
 would never have drawn a mere knife when 
 frightened by the finding of the cap. As 
 for Tommy but why speculate ? There 
 was no chance for a word with Tommy. 
 And even should Tommy attempt to draw 
 of his own notion the probabilities were all 
 against success. Krieg's little eyes had in 
 them a look of watchfulness, and his move 
 ments that sly rapidity not infrequently 
 met with in men whose superfluous flesh 
 has a substantial foundation in bone and 
 muscle. No; Purdy could do nothing, not 
 even if he were certain what he wanted to do.
 
 140 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 But Marie was endeavouring to keep 
 Krieg there. No doubt of that. Her Hans, 
 she insisted, was tired and hungry. He must 
 eat and rest. Also he was fearfully cut and 
 bruised. His hurts must be attended to. 
 What was she up to? Had she really a 
 woman's natural horror of murder (and who 
 knew how dreadful might be the form of 
 that which impended?) when it applied to 
 human beings and not guinea pigs ? Or was 
 there something, after all, in that plan which 
 she had pretended to have thought of? A 
 plan which must be hidden from every 
 body and under all circumstances, she had 
 said. 
 
 It would not do to go too far in distrust 
 any more than in confidence. He must 
 watch and wait. Certainly the way she 
 clung to that room seemed to have method 
 in it. It was as though her soul's salvation 
 depended on her presence there. Nothing 
 could have exceeded the ingenuity with 
 which she put off the hour of leaving.
 
 A CRISIS 141 
 
 Krieg's wounds and bruises were bathed and 
 bandaged with a care and tenderness that 
 concealed an enormous amount of slowness. 
 Then she engaged him in a long-whispered 
 conversation, which brought at first a look 
 of ferocious cunning to his face, and later a 
 fatuous expression, like that of a king who 
 had just heard of tardy but to-be-expected 
 homage proffered him by some rebellious 
 tribe. From the way in which he shook his 
 head it seemed evident that the tribe was to 
 be punished nevertheless ; but the fat gorilla 
 was pleased. 
 
 Purdy, waiting breathlessly for some mo 
 ment when his enemy should be definitely 
 off guard, for some opportunity to get the 
 upper hand, rested his foot with elaborately 
 feigned negligence against the base of one 
 of the open-work, structural-iron supports 
 which held up the centre of the roof. In 
 stantly he was aware that he stood at the 
 base not of a support only but of a ladder. 
 The goggled man seemed to deal in ladders.
 
 i 4 2 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 Or were these regularly spaced crosspieces 
 but the accidental result of structure ? 
 
 The question interested him, and took 
 his mind for an instant from the general 
 situation. Then a heavy hand fell upon 
 his shoulder and jerked him several paces 
 to the rear. 
 
 "Keep away from dod!" Krieg was fum 
 ing, and gesticulating in his face. "I vill 
 haf no climbing about, no monkey tricks." 
 
 Purdy said nothing, but at the first op 
 portunity he glanced aloft, and saw just 
 under the rafters something which looked 
 like an electric circuit-breaker. He had felt 
 Krieg's fingers creeping over his person, 
 looking for weapons, and now he saw him 
 searching Briggs, disarming Tommy. Some 
 thing had evidently aroused his sense of 
 caution. Had the circuit-breaker anything 
 to do with it ? 
 
 Purdy glanced at Marie, who was begin 
 ning to prepare another meal. A look like 
 despair rested for a moment on her face.
 
 A CRISIS 143 
 
 That plan of hers! Was it real? Had it 
 miscarried somehow and just at this par 
 ticular instant? But no. It was not de 
 spair, it was resolution which he saw. His 
 eyes had deceived him. Painful, agonized 
 resolution, perhaps; but still resolution, 
 determined, immovable. And by the time 
 that Krieg was ready to partake of the food 
 which she set before him with all the anxious 
 solicitude in the world, she had become 
 wholly the devoted slave, every thought 
 apparently absorbed in the task of serving 
 her lord. 
 
 "She says you know something of my 
 power my plans my glorious future," 
 said Krieg at last, emptying his mouth to 
 address Purdy. "Iss it so? You would 
 like to join to the great revolution which I 
 make against this foolish idea of der peoble 
 rules?" 
 
 " I came to fight you," said Purdy, quietly. 
 He had been trying to grasp fully in all its 
 ramifications a vague idea suggested by the
 
 144 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 circuit-breaker, and this sudden summons to 
 reality was something of a shock. 
 
 " But I am beginning to see that resistance 
 is useless," he went on. " Yes, we would like 
 to help you." 
 
 Tommy gave a start. Krieg, who had 
 never yet for more than a moment stationed 
 himself so that he could not see everybody 
 in the room, appeared not to notice, but 
 stood up and began to rant like a soap-box 
 orator. 
 
 "I do not need help. Power iss in mein 
 hand. But I may need der lieutenants. 
 And if none of my work is to waste here, I 
 need der labourers. You make three strong 
 men. If I use you it iss like gifing you your 
 lives. Do you see dod iss so, or do you 
 want : 
 
 "We have seen enough!'* interrupted 
 Purdy in a tone which would pass as ad 
 miring. "Tell us what to do, and we will 
 do it. Afterward you can reward us as you 
 think fit."
 
 A CRISIS 145 
 
 "Goot!" cried Krieg, clapping his hands. 
 "You put yourselves on the side of der 
 strong. My servants! I let you lif!" 
 
 Could it be possible that the creature 
 had been duped? That he would reveal 
 his secret if they merely humoured him for 
 awhile? Credulous, bombastic stupidity 
 fairly dripped from his heavy jaws. Had 
 that look of crafty intelligence been a mask, 
 hiding the soul of a fool? But no! The 
 fellow was doubtless a little mad. A dis 
 quieting gleam was never absent from his 
 eyes. Only the iris was pale. Within the 
 pupil there was a flame. And neither as 
 fool nor savant could he ever be trusted. 
 
 Work began at once, without further 
 promise and with but little explanation. 
 Krieg turned certain valves and moved a 
 lever. The low hum of an electric motor 
 was heard; the pistons of the pump began 
 to move. 
 
 " Power now iss coming from a waterfall," 
 Krieg did condescend to remark. "Der
 
 146 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 work mit boiler and engines iss finished. 
 You need not be afraid not yet." 
 
 From time to time came a sharp hiss, as 
 of escaping gas, and there was an ever- 
 increasing odour of ammonia. Purdy, al 
 though he had rather shirked lab. at college, 
 knew what to expect even before a stream 
 of clear, sparkling, colourless liquid started 
 trickling into a receptacle from a faucet. 
 The "pump" was a compressor. Certain 
 compressed gases, when released, produce in 
 tense cold. And cold and pressure together 
 will liquefy any substance known. The 
 trickle was liquid air. 
 
 Other levers were moved. The pistons 
 came to rest, and a few seconds later the 
 ice began slowly to melt from about the 
 lower ends of the pump-pipes, just where 
 they disappeared into the floor. Purdy 
 wondered now if he had done well to trust 
 himself and his companions to an enterprise 
 involving the use of such machinery. Evi 
 dently it could blow hot as well as cold.
 
 A CRISIS 147 
 
 Yet Krieg's presence promised safety, for 
 the time being at least. He might have a 
 liking for homicide. But suicide, now that 
 one had a good look at him, did not seem 
 to be at all the sort of a thing likely to en 
 gage his attention. 
 
 Length after length of the festooned cord 
 which proved to be of some soft, absor 
 bent material, smoothly braided about a 
 fine wire to give it strength was taken 
 down from the rafters. The spool-like ob 
 jects, heretofore of no apparent usefulness, 
 now revealed themselves as spools indeed. 
 They were light metal cylinders, some foot or 
 more in diameter and about three feet in 
 length, with a wide flange about the edges 
 and with hollow cores. These cores fitted 
 over the square-cornered, projecting shaft 
 of a power winch, and when the spools were 
 mounted, one after another, upon the winch, 
 they could be made to revolve at will. To 
 wind them with the braided rope was like 
 winding huge bobbins, and after a dozen of
 
 148 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 them had been thus filled they looked quite 
 ready to furnish satan's sewing-machine with 
 appropriate thread. 
 
 Purdy noticed that the winch projected 
 just over one of the edges of the hidden tank, 
 and that there was another one like it, 
 fitted with an empty spool, over the opposite 
 edge. So, when the last spool had been 
 wound and left in place, and the end of its 
 rope attached to a tiny hook on the flange 
 of the empty one, the rope passed directly 
 above the centre of the tank. He began to 
 get an inkling of what was going to be done. 
 
 Krieg ordered the fire on the hearth ex 
 tinguished, and then himself carefully in 
 spected the embers for sparks, though a 
 pail of water had been poured over them. 
 
 "Now listen," he said. "Everyone his 
 matches over here in this table drawer put, 
 where I will lock them up. One of you 
 might forget und start to schmoke. Be 
 careful how you walk. A spark from a 
 boot-heel, it might do no harm, or it might
 
 A CRISIS 149 
 
 mein Gott! I must take time und perfect 
 this brocess. Not much danger at ordinary 
 demperatures, aber it iss crude yet. I go 
 up to show you a liddle substance I call 
 'novalitt' Do eferything slowly. We haf 
 blenty of time." 
 
 He lifted the iron floor-plate on its hinges, 
 but his hand shook and his face was pasty. 
 Purdy felt a sudden admiration for this 
 lubberly creature whose very cowardice gave 
 to his conduct a sort of heroism. It is some 
 thing to have cowardice and yet defy it. 
 For years he must have lived hand in hand 
 with death. 
 
 The substance was now liquid, for when 
 the full spool began to unwind, the slack 
 cord sank slowly beneath the surface. After 
 some minutes, during which almost the 
 entire contents of the spool disappeared, 
 Krieg set the opposite spool in motion so 
 slowly that the coated rope now swollen 
 to about the size of a lead pencil and of a 
 glossy, greenish tint was quite dry when
 
 ISO JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 it settled into place on the growing coil. 
 Now and then a drop of novalite would in 
 deed trickle back into the tank, but it was 
 never from any great distance above it, 
 and by the expression of Krieg's face it 
 was evident that all was going well. 
 
 The operation continued with scarcely a 
 word being spoken. As a spool was emptied 
 of honest fibre, it would be shifted to the 
 other winch and refilled with fibre trans 
 formed by the simple process of dipping, or 
 trailing through the tank transformed into 
 that sinister, snake-like thing into which had 
 somehow crept the soul of Krieg's invention. 
 The loaded spool would then be slipped into 
 a tight cylinder of thin steel having a screw 
 cover. Into each cylinder also went a 
 quantity of liquid air. 
 
 About midnight the work was done. 
 Krieg re-froze what remained of the novalite 
 in the tank, and lowered the floor-plate into 
 place. All was ready for what ? It was im 
 possible even to guess.
 
 A CRISIS 151 
 
 "Let us rest," he panted, flinging himself 
 down on the floor near the fireplace and 
 motioning the others to do the like. 
 
 Marie, who had assisted at the prepara 
 tions (and had somehow managed to hinder 
 rather than help), came forward and lighted 
 his pipe. Then she rebuilt the fire, found a 
 chair for Krieg's better comfort, and curled 
 herself Turkish fashion at his feet. 
 
 He began to talk. 
 
 At first it was good talk about himself, 
 his youth, his studies, his employment by 
 his native government in scientific re 
 searches, his removal to South America, and 
 the beginning of the war. He had stolen 
 his first idea, he openly boasted, from a 
 Frenchman, and then his experiments had 
 begun to promise something so prodigious 
 that the authorities hurried him into the 
 wilderness. The secret must be hidden 
 and it was a secret difficult to hide. Having 
 begun by frightening the -natives intention 
 ally with a few simple tricks, he had later
 
 152 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 found himself interfered with and nearly 
 destroyed by fear-maddened mobs. Since 
 then he had set death-traps everywhere 
 like that one in the cave which had come so 
 near to catching him and Purdy together. 
 
 It was only late in his investigations into 
 the nature of force that he began to appre 
 ciate to the full the possibilities that lay 
 within his reach. And when he did, he 
 thought, why give them up to a Kaiser? 
 To a War Board? Why give them up at 
 all? 
 
 "It was too simble!" he cried, excitement 
 and pride once more bringing him to his feet. 
 "My force can be condrolled by heat and 
 cold. Condrolled by one man as well as a 
 million. I decide to be Kaiser more than 
 Kaiser myself." 
 
 And then came the armistice, the Central 
 Powers on their knees; and he with his 
 secret undivulged save in a few official re 
 ports, totally inadequate and far from up- 
 to-date.
 
 A CRISIS 153 
 
 "They go to surrender!" Krieg shouted, 
 as if his little audience were an applauding 
 multitude. "They talk about a rule by der 
 peobles. Und I I, Hans Krieg, that men 
 have spit upon, I am here alreaty to be 
 master of all. To-morrow efening we start 
 -in New York!" 
 
 "In New York?" Purdy involuntarily 
 echoed. 
 
 " Ja ! There I did not pay them their 
 damn moneys. They turn me out into der 
 street. They die that do it and many 
 more. Die! Die! Die!" 
 
 Krieg could speak calmly of world-con 
 quest, but the thought of private revenge 
 went to his head. 
 
 Purdy stirred uneasily. Not only this 
 but the whole thing was so preposterous. 
 Here, while the world was almost delirious 
 in its first joy over returning peace, was a 
 madman already hard at work to bring 
 back the discredited reign of frightfulness. 
 And he was certainly not altogether un-
 
 154 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 equipped for the task. The New York 
 trip might take a little longer than he 
 claimed, but that he had an unexplained 
 and highly efficient way of killing people 
 was beyond a doubt. It must not be! He 
 must be stopped now, before any more 
 lives were lost. God! The world had 
 given up its best already. Had not Verdun, 
 the Marne, Picardy satisfied even hell with 
 human sacrifices ? 
 
 Tommy, seated in the chimney corner 
 half behind Krieg's back, tapped signifi 
 cantly on his forehead. Purdy nodded. 
 But he had already ceased thinking directly 
 of Krieg and his grandiose schemes. He 
 was thinking of Marie. It was not only 
 the world at large, not only a few ungrateful 
 merchants and landlords in New York over 
 which this fellow sought power. Anyway, 
 big schemes can generally be depended upon 
 to break down under their own weight. It 
 was the power which was already being 
 exercised over this young woman that was
 
 A CRISIS 155 
 
 beginning to take first place in Purdy's 
 imagination. She might be probably was, 
 in spite of all his vague hope to the contrary 
 his own most deadly enemy. But her en 
 mity was more and more clearly involun 
 tary; the evidence that she was under some 
 unspeakable sort of duress, though subtle, 
 was becoming certain. 
 
 "Her plan! Her plan! What was it?" 
 Purdy's racked brain kept shouting within 
 him. 
 
 Krieg had dropped his wild harangue and 
 was talking to the girl in a manner more 
 absurdly sentimental than threatening, but 
 there were signs of the awakening of a more 
 primitive passion. 
 
 Purdy rose and took a step, seemingly 
 aimless but in the direction of the roof 
 support. Krieg did not appear to notice. 
 He took another. Krieg was saying: 
 
 "We haf spent time here enough. These 
 stupid fellows serf me only for their lifes. 
 They do not see how the whole worlt is to
 
 156 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 come to my feet. We now go und make 
 ready a place for you in the cottage I haf 
 selected." 
 
 Marie offered no objection. She let him 
 put an arm around her, and soon they were 
 both on their feet and moving toward the 
 door. But just as she was about to cross 
 the threshold she shot Purdy a glance 
 so sudden and intense that it was obviously 
 involuntary, the last backward glance of a 
 doomed soul that has not yet reached hades 
 but finds itself upon the brink. 
 
 Her plan ! But what did it matter ? Too 
 clearly the time for it had passed. Perhaps 
 it had fallen through with the seizing of 
 Tommy's revolver. Purdy had ceased to 
 think of it. With the turning of Krieg's 
 back he had reached the foot of the roof- 
 support. In another instant he was half 
 way up to the circuit-breaker, shouting at 
 the top of his voice : 
 
 " Stop where you are, you swine ! Not an 
 other step. Not another step on your life !"
 
 A CRISIS 157 
 
 Krieg spun on his heel, and showed a 
 ghastly face distorted by sudden fright. 
 Purdy's hand was already on the circuit- 
 breaker. If he were shot he would un 
 doubtedly close the connection as he 
 fell. 
 
 " Gott in Himmel ! Don't you know what 
 you do? There iss enough yet of novalite 
 in der tank to blow us all und for miles 
 around into adorns. Don't touch that 
 switch. There iss a wire it turns on one 
 great blast of heat. In a minute nodding 
 could safe us!" 
 
 So, it was true, the vague idea which had 
 moved Purdy to strike almost at random. 
 Like so many other deranged geniuses, 
 Krieg had prepared a final, grandstand exit 
 from the world if ever he should be pressed 
 to the last extremity. No matter now if 
 Marie had never had a plan. Purdy had 
 one, and he rather thought it would not only 
 improve the present situation, which was as 
 far as possible from his liking, but enable
 
 158 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 him to discover Krieg's secret and maybe 
 live to tell the tale. 
 
 "Nothing can save us in a whole lot less 
 than a minute and you know it!" he de 
 clared. "If you don't come back and take 
 a few orders now from me, I'll send you and 
 the girl and all the rest of us into kingdom 
 come. If it's a case of dying, Fd rather go 
 this way than trust myself in any more of 
 your traps." 
 
 Krieg assented to this call to parley with 
 that alacrity which has made the word 
 Kamarad a byword. 
 
 And Marie? She said nothing, and her 
 eyes were fathomless. Purdy, after order 
 ing Krieg disarmed, came down from his 
 strategic position for a closer view. But 
 the eyes remained inscrutable. He could 
 read nothing in their opaque depths noth 
 ing whatever.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE THING 
 
 rTT^OMMY was quite jubilant as he 
 
 I assisted in searching Krieg and tying 
 
 -* him securely to a chair. 
 
 "An ounce of cold lead out of his own 
 gun is what he deserves. But I guess if we 
 pack him back with us to the little old capi 
 tal, the reign of terror in these parts will be 
 about due to collapse." 
 
 " Pack him with us and turn him over to 
 Lara?" inquired Purdy, standing so that 
 no one, not even Marie, could get between 
 him and his aerial post. 
 
 Tommy's face fell. 
 
 "That's so. I'd forgotten that old Span 
 iard. We ought to kill him, then. It's 
 rotten to do for a man in cold blood, but I 
 for one am game for leaving him here to die." 
 
 159
 
 160 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "Oh, no, you're not, Tommy! And you 
 are forgetting another thing. We didn't 
 come here to kill him, but to find out some 
 thing." 
 
 "What is it you want?" put in Krieg. 
 
 "We want you to go ahead with your 
 scheme," Purdy answered. " Count us in on 
 it until we reach civilization. After that, 
 I warn you, it is every man for himself." 
 
 " Wohl ! That is vot I was going to do. 
 But we will haf first to make a long tramp. 
 A woman could hardly do it." 
 
 "I don't believe it's so very long. But 
 there is no need for her to do it." 
 
 "Goot! You come with me. She vait 
 here for us." 
 
 "No; she will wait here, and so will the 
 rest of us for you.' 
 
 "You'll let me go alone?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You're not going to trust the brute, you 
 don't mean?" gasped Tommy, incredulous. 
 
 "I'm going to let him go, if that's trusting
 
 THE THING 161 
 
 him. Hurry up! Untie him. We've 
 wasted time enough." 
 
 "But, Mr. Purty," put in the hitherto 
 silent Briggs, "what hold have we got over 
 the critter if we let him slip his halter? 
 But maybe I didn't hear straight. I'm a 
 little deef." 
 
 "You heard all right. We'll have our 
 hostage, that'll be hold enough. He's no 
 more anxious to slaughter the young lady 
 than we are. Did you ever hear of Achilles' 
 heel?" 
 
 Purdy spoke confidently. He had found, 
 he believed, the vulnerable spot where 
 Krieg was played upon by a force much 
 older than his boasted Right Hand of the 
 Will; and he meant to take full advantage 
 of it, though there was no denying that it 
 went against the grain. 
 
 Tommy reluctantly cut the bonds which 
 he and Briggs had tied with such satisfac 
 tion only a few moments before. Krieg 
 stood up.
 
 162 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "It iss a pargain," he announced, with a 
 relieved grin. "You are right to dake 
 pregautions. But we shall be friends. I 
 make you great men. Do not be afraid." 
 
 He tried to take a step toward Marie, 
 but Tommy put himself in the way. Noth 
 ing was in the way of her smile, however. 
 Purdy, forced to keep guard over every 
 thing, saw the smile and the look of sinister 
 intelligence with which Krieg answered. 
 He had been prepared for some such mani 
 festation. If she were playing a part with 
 Krieg, the smile was an almost indispens 
 able bit of stage business. But why should 
 she keep up a part now that Krieg was 
 powerless ? 
 
 "I am a fool!" Purdy said to himself. 
 "Of course he is in our power only because 
 he thinks she is on his side. Otherwise 
 he could plan to kill us all together with 
 whatever it is that he uses for wholesale 
 work." 
 
 And yet he disliked that smile more than
 
 THE THING 163 
 
 he had disliked anything since coming into 
 the mountains. It made his blood heat 
 furiously. How glad he was when Krieg 
 finally went. Now, at last, there would be 
 a chance for explanations. 
 
 But none were forthcoming. Marie 
 pleaded a headache, and withdrew herself 
 to a corner of the fire, quite in the manner 
 of a spoiled child. It was ridiculous. Was 
 this a parlour ? Were they to be treated in a 
 matter of life and death as if they were a 
 lot of dancing-men quarrelling over a waltz 
 with the belle of the evening? Purdy 
 walked resolutely to Marie's side and sat 
 down. 
 
 "Now," said he, "let's put all our cards 
 on the table." 
 
 "Zie table, ett iss la has over yonder," 
 she responded, relapsing into her mincing 
 speech. 
 
 "I think I've done enough for you now 
 to warrant your dropping all this non 
 sense." He controlled his temper with diffi-
 
 164 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 culty. She tossed her head and shrugged 
 her shoulders in a manner evidently meant 
 to be as nearly insulting as her assumption 
 of French politeness permitted. 
 
 "Oh, if you are going to remind me of all 
 you have done for me, m'sieu!" 
 
 "No, I am not going to remind you of 
 that at least never again. And if you 
 are afraid to show your hand I'll begin by 
 showing mine. I am an agent of the Secret 
 Service of the United States, and I still 
 rather think it possible that you are. At 
 least you are on the same side with us in 
 investigating a matter, which, if it doesn't 
 concern the peace of the world, at least 
 involves the life of a great many people. 
 You are married, you say, to this man 
 Krieg. I can see myself that you have got 
 him under your thumb. A very clever piece 
 of work. 
 
 "And yet you detest him and all his do 
 ings. That is what I am banking on. You 
 have been playing him as a necessary pawn
 
 THE THING 165 
 
 in your game. And I am here to relieve 
 you of that particular detail. To tell the 
 truth, clever as it is I don't like to see it. 
 Such things are hard for an American to 
 stomach. You may have to pretend to 
 like him for a while yet while we're giving 
 him line and making him show us what he 
 is up to. But I've got the upper hand of 
 him now, and I think I can keep it without 
 a great deal of help. It will be merely a 
 matter of seeing to it that all the weapons 
 are in the right pockets. But I want to 
 understand your plans. We can't work to 
 gether in the dark." 
 
 Marie had listened with every sign of 
 growing impatience. Now she leaped up 
 and stamped her foot in the conventional 
 tragedienne manner. 
 
 " Do you think that men like you can get 
 the upper hand of Hans Krieg?" she de 
 manded, speaking at last in her own reso 
 nant voice. "Do you think that a woman, 
 with such a choice offered her, would take
 
 i66 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 sides with you ? " She burst into con 
 temptuous laughter. "Why, he holds you 
 in the hollow of his hand. And if he spares 
 you in the end it will only be because he is 
 great and good and you are too insignificant 
 for him to stoop to punish. Men like you 
 can't appreciate greatness when you see it. 
 You have no minds, no imagination. Leave 
 me alone. Don't come near me." 
 
 "I don't know but what that's a little 
 too much overdone to be convincing," 
 Purdy observed, by no means certain that 
 it was not all an evil dream. 
 
 " Overdone ? I hate you ! " 
 
 There was no mistaking the cat-like fury 
 of the aspirate, nor the sudden stir of mascu 
 line indignation which it awakened. 
 
 "Very well, Miss Spitfire. I don't pre 
 tend to make you out. But if that's the 
 way you feel you will please hand over the 
 little revolver I'm sure you're hiding some 
 where about that male attire of yours." 
 
 Marie fought; she screamed; she even
 
 THE THING 167 
 
 used her teeth. Tommy and Briggs inter 
 fered on her behalf, and Purdy found him 
 self confronted not only by hysteria but 
 by insubordination. Yet he insisted upon 
 his point, and finally carried it. 
 
 "You will be sorry we shall all be sorry. 
 I don't blame you, but I don't know what 
 to do!" said the enigmatical girl, all at 
 once becoming quiet and offering Purdy a 
 small, elegant, but still very business-like 
 weapon which she had concealed, woman- 
 fashion, in the bosom of her blouse. 
 
 "I hate to leave you unarmed," he con 
 fessed, in some embarrassment. " But what 
 can I do after what you have told me?" 
 
 There was no answer. Tommy and Briggs 
 went back to their places. Purdy finally 
 went on in a tone which only she could hear: 
 
 "If there comes an emergency do you 
 really want me to leave you alone ?" 
 
 "No!" She looked him full in the face. 
 Then her eyes fell. "Do not let us sepa 
 rate. Do not let me out of your sight what-
 
 168 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 ever happens. Give me your word as a 
 gentleman." 
 
 With that her demeanour altered. She 
 sank back into her chair, and covered her 
 face with her hands. 
 
 "Oh, what am I saying! I I am not as 
 strong as I thought. You must pay no 
 attention to me. Only if you do leave me 
 alone, will you will you give me back my 
 revolver?" 
 
 Her eyes were lifted again. There was 
 not a trace of irony in her voice, and her 
 words had all the ring of melancholy sin 
 cerity. Purdy bowed and sat down by 
 himself to think. 
 
 Whatever might be the motive of Marie's 
 conduct (and. that plea for the revolver 
 was certainly open to suspicion) it was 
 clearly not her intention that he should 
 either toast her or distrust her altogether. 
 She wanted 'him. tawork in the dark. Why? 
 That was the problem which he set himself 
 to solve. And the solution would not come.
 
 THE THING 169 
 
 It was clear that she was not a mere 
 operative like himself. She was more like 
 a fanatic, whose motives were more in 
 volved, deeper, and more personal. Like 
 a leaf, she was being blown along by the 
 invisible that is to say, the irresistible 
 but always toward her hidden goal. Noth 
 ing would stop her; he saw that. And, 
 if it came to the pinch, she would stop at 
 nothing. Regarding her attentively, he 
 could not help thinking of pictures he had 
 seen of Charlotte Corday upon the trail of 
 Marat, of Jael standing by the tent with 
 Sisera. Whose and what wrongs were urg 
 ing her ? Into exactly what counter-purpose 
 was she seeking to drive the dagger or the 
 nail? It looked like vengeance, but was it 
 certain that it was vengeance against Krieg 
 that she was seeking ? Obviously not. She 
 might just as well be after vengeance against 
 some enemy of his. To none of these ques 
 tions was there a definite answer. 
 
 The night slipped away, and Krieg did
 
 170 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 not return. Purdy, unconscious of having 
 slept, sat up suddenly. A ghostly dawn 
 crept in at the windows. The others also 
 were stirring, as if they, too, had been dis 
 turbed. Moved by a common impulse, they 
 made their way to the door. 
 
 "I don't know why, but I feel as if the 
 bottom were going to drop out of things," 
 began Tommy in little better than a whim 
 per in Purdy's ear. " I was having an awful 
 dream, and all at once " 
 
 It did not need Purdy's clutch upon his 
 elbow to stop him. Though it was still 
 an hour to sunrise, the zenith had suddenly 
 blazed as at mid-day, and an appalling, 
 green-tinted sun or, to describe the appear 
 ance more accurately, a comet, a whirl of 
 fire swept overhead. The air filled with a 
 screaming noise, like the cry of a million 
 sentient but inarticulate creatures in agony, 
 and a huge object, vague and dark, could be 
 seen rushing ahead of the flames as if trying 
 to escape.
 
 THE THING 171 
 
 It was dark for an instant after the appa 
 rition had passed. And then a single point 
 of light was seen to glow in mid-zenith, as 
 if a lantern had been lit and hung high up 
 beneath the tent of the sky. Soon, how 
 ever, the lantern changed. It became to 
 all appearance a mass of molten metal, in 
 creasing in bulk and spreading in every di 
 rection with the frightful rapidity of the 
 Essence of Evil itself let loose. In a few 
 seconds it covered the entire sky with a 
 dazzling, unbearable sheet of flame. 
 
 And then abruptly an irregular black 
 hole appeared in its centre. Not that, 
 either. It was something having substance 
 of its own, opaque or nearly so. It, too, 
 assumed enormous proportions, until it was 
 like an enormous pall, the edges of which 
 hurled themselves toward the cardinal 
 points where the four horizons were held on 
 high by the mountains. Midnight returned 
 while something that was not so much a 
 sound as the stir of the very atoms of the
 
 VFRROR 
 
 universe shook the earth as though the 
 earth were a piece of jetty* 
 
 The shock aU hut crushed die onlookers 
 to the ground. When they had recovered 
 sufficiently to again look up, die heavens 
 had cleared. Faint stars twinkled from the 
 sky 
 
 "What are we going to do now?** chat 
 tered Tommy, choking with die poisonous 
 gas with which die air was filled. 
 
 * We mast wait for Krieg,** said Purdy, 
 ""After all, nothing has happened, but ** 
 
 He broke off. Coming toward them, his 
 goggles swinging in his hand, an unconcerned 
 smile on his face, was Krieg himself. And 
 behind him diey saw something which inv 
 mediately took their attention from all other 
 otters.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 GOOD-BYE* EAftTH 
 
 EWAS an object about fifty feet long 
 md eight or ten feet high, shaped iome- 
 ivbat Eke a fish and having what looked 
 like a row of eyes afl along its side. It 
 was covered with scales, too heavy, over 
 lapping plates, apparently of steel, green 
 with damp fungus and coated in places 
 with mod and aqjaatic plants. To com 
 plete its resemblance to a firing thing, a 
 soft purring note, fike that of a hire of 
 bees grrtiijg ready to 
 r DOJR wjthm. 
 
 Krieg offered no objections when Purdy, 
 with Tommy at his beds, started forward 
 for a nearer view. 
 
 "It's only some new kind of 
 tank," said Tommy, ihiatlieg his bead
 
 174 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 through a large square opening that yawned 
 in the rear. "Rather nifty inside. Looks 
 like a cabin on board a yacht. But it 
 doesn't account for things." 
 
 Purdy, who was looking where the head 
 tapered to a sharp, horizontal edge a pro 
 truding lip as formidable as it was ugly 
 gravely dissented. 
 
 "Not only a tank, Tommy. In my opin 
 ion it accounts for everything. See, it's 
 been under water, hidden at the bottom 
 of the lake most likely. Remember those 
 unaccountable waves? And look what's 
 printed here on the bow." 
 
 " Scorpion" read Tommy. " Pretty name ! 
 But I don't see how she could have 
 smashed those trees, let alone scorching 
 them. There doesn't seem to be any propel 
 ler, or wheels, or anything to make her go." 
 
 Further remarks were barred by the ap 
 proach of Krieg with orders to load the 
 Scorpion at once with provisions, with the 
 spools of coated rope, and with certain other
 
 GOOD-BYE, EARTH 175 
 
 objects some spherical, some cigar-shaped 
 and of varying sizes, which he unearthed 
 from a hidden cache. 
 
 It was a task, for everything had to be 
 carried by hand and put exactly in the 
 place prepared for it. For instance, the 
 objects which were obviously bombs were 
 loaded into chutes closely resembling tor 
 pedo tubes, while the spools of novalite rope 
 were taken from their cylinders and care 
 fully fitted upon perpendicular shafts, six 
 upon each side of a slightly raised platform 
 in what might be called the Scorpion s bows. 
 When in position, each spool was a com 
 plete windlass in itself or at least looked 
 like one. And as each windlass was inclosed 
 in a long, narrow box with a strip of glass in 
 its front, the result was an arrangement 
 unpleasantly suggestive of two rows of 
 upright coffins. Liquid air was put in the 
 coffins. 
 
 "To keep the stiffs from spoiling," Tommy 
 remarked.
 
 176 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 But there was little mirth in his tone. 
 
 The morning was long past and the after 
 noon nearly spent before all was done. 
 
 " Yezt I " cried Krieg at last, with a ma 
 jestic wave of his hand. 
 
 It was as if he had shouted, "All aboard!" 
 
 "Keep together," Purdy cautioned his 
 companions. "Take my word for it, there 
 is considerably less danger inside now than 
 out." 
 
 And now occurred an incident which was 
 destined to linger long in his memory, not 
 only because it gave a striking and unex 
 pected point to his words, but because there 
 came with it the first inkling of a new idea 
 the idea that Krieg, himself, was not 
 without a baffling problem to contend with, 
 something outside of and beyond him, dis 
 turbing his dreams and for which he could 
 only watch and wait. 
 
 Krieg had been walking behind the others. 
 A low exclamation from his lips caused 
 everybody to turn. He stood staring up
 
 GOOD-BYE, EARTH 177 
 
 into the branches of a tree. And there, 
 almost directly above his head, extended at 
 full length on an overhanging limb, was a 
 dark-coloured, cat-like beast, of the size 
 of a half-grown tiger yes, unquestionably 
 a black jaguar come up from the jungles. 
 
 There was at first sight nothing especially 
 remarkable in this, for jaguars may be 
 found almost anywhere in South America 
 where there are trees, though the boldness 
 of the creature was beyond belief. Wild 
 cats do not, as a rule, stalk human beings 
 in broad daylight, to say nothing of stalking 
 a party of five within a stone's throw of 
 their habitation. But Krieg! The self- 
 styled Kaiser of the World was actually 
 trembling at the knees. 
 
 Purdy, who was carrying Krieg's revolver, 
 let his glance travel slowly from man to 
 beast, took careful aim at the crouching 
 cat, and fired. He felt sure that he could 
 not have missed. 
 
 The jaguar did not stir.
 
 178 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "One might see too much a beast hiding 
 in a tree and not afraid of bullets." 
 
 The words of the peon he had met upon 
 the march came back with all their uncanny 
 suggestion. But what was even more dis 
 turbing was Krieg's agitation now raised 
 to fever heat. Whether it was due to fear 
 or rage it was difficult to tell. But he raged, 
 all but frothing at the mouth, shaking his 
 fists, clearly beside himself with some un 
 governable passion. 
 
 "Teufel!" he fairly screamed. "We 
 stand loafing here, und Devil ! A thousand 
 devils!" 
 
 Purdy felt relieved when all were at last 
 within the Scorpion s cabin. Whatever 
 they were going to meet, it was evident that 
 they were at least leaving some curiously 
 unhealthful things behind. 
 
 Krieg went forward to a sort of switch 
 board covered with levers and push-buttons. 
 He touched something. It was like driving 
 the plug out of the flue of a blast furnace.
 
 GOOD-BYE, EARTH 179 
 
 There was a deafening roar, a sudden belch 
 of fire. The outside world disappeared in a 
 whirl of sparks and flame. The air seemed 
 to wither in an intolerable breath of heat. 
 
 But it was only for a moment. And then 
 everything flames, tumult, and all seemed 
 to sink into the earth, leaving only normal 
 daylight, and a thin, metallic shriek a 
 shriek whose violence was unlike anything 
 which Purdy had ever heard in his life. It 
 gave him the curious impression of something 
 chasing after him at frantic speed but unable 
 quite to keep up. 
 
 He approached a small disc of heavy glass 
 that was set in the cabin floor, and looked 
 down. Those discs, which from outside 
 looked so much like eyes, were everywhere, 
 and afforded a view in every direction. 
 What he saw first was a whirlpool of fiery 
 billows that appeared to be boring its way 
 into the ground. Through it he caught 
 occasional glimpses of white. But he could 
 not understand why the noise, which must
 
 i8o JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 still be terrific, should suddenly sound so 
 feeble and far away. 
 
 Then the view cleared. There was utter 
 silence save for that purring note which he 
 had noticed on first approaching the Scor 
 pion's side. The glimpses of white re 
 solved themselves into a vast panorama of 
 snow-capped mountain peaks the Cordil 
 lera Real like an ocean frozen in the midst 
 of a storm, and lying beneath him at the 
 distance of at least a mile. The wingless, 
 propellerless Scorpion was flying. 
 
 Krieg touched another button. A spurt 
 of flame shot out from beneath the car and 
 became a writhing, twisting serpent of fire, 
 but extending this time almost horizontally. 
 The frozen sea became a rapidly flowing 
 cataract, which seemed to pour upward out 
 of some chasm farther ahead. Yet the 
 waves which were mountain peaks receded 
 to an ever greater distance. This contradic 
 tion between the real and apparent motion 
 gave rise to a horrible dizziness. But Purdy
 
 GOOD-BYE, EARTH 181 
 
 could not take away his eyes. The scene 
 was terrific, yet beautiful beyond words. 
 
 It was clear now that the car moved on 
 the principle of a skyrocket. Each spool 
 of rope coated with its highly explosive no- 
 valite could be made slowly to unwind 
 through a pipe reaching from its box to the 
 mouth of a funnel beneath the Scorpion s 
 head. Later Purdy discovered that there 
 was a second funnel above. At the wind 
 lass, the explosive was at the temperature 
 of liquid air, far below zero. At the funnel 
 it was fired by an electric spark, producing 
 an endless series of explosions. Direction 
 was determined by the angle of the funnel, 
 which could be altered at will. Speed de 
 pended upon the rapidity with which the 
 rope was paid out. Here was unlimited 
 power under perfect control. No wonder 
 it was so quiet. They were travelling faster 
 than sound. Only those vibrations made 
 by the funnel-mouth itself ever reached 
 them. The rest were left behind.
 
 1 82 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 As for the purring note, it proved to 
 come from two enormous rollers set at right 
 angles to each other and revolving rapidly 
 in a framework suspended from the roof. 
 Beneath the projecting end of each axle, 
 and almost touching it, rose an upright post 
 from the floor. When the car tipped, one 
 of these posts came in contact with an 
 axle. And then, in obedience to the ten 
 dency of all revolving bodies, be they tops 
 or gyroscopes, to assume a position perpen 
 dicular to any supporting surface, the whole 
 contrivance would gather its tons together 
 and attempt to stand on its head, thus forc 
 ing the post back to where it belonged. 
 So delicate were the adjustments that this 
 incessant wobbling was confined within the 
 limits of a quarter of an inch, and the floor 
 continued apparently as level as a rock. 
 
 Beneath the gyroscope was an open grat 
 ing through which a chill wind began to 
 pour with an increasing violence which 
 finally attracted Purdy's attention. The
 
 GOOD-BYE, EARTH 183 
 
 power had been again shut off. The car 
 was falling. He hurried forward to Krieg. 
 
 "What are you trying to do commit 
 murder and suicide all at once?" 
 
 Krieg turned half around, and laughed. 
 
 "You don't like it ? Up ve go." 
 
 The symphony of bursting atoms was 
 resumed and left behind. The view ahead, 
 though already as wide as seemed well 
 possible, began to spread yet farther in all 
 directions, as if it had been a lordly cupful 
 of batter suddenly dumped upon an infinite 
 griddle. Purdy, forgetting all sense of dan 
 ger, gave himself up to sheer childish won 
 der. He had made several trips in airplanes 
 but had never experienced anything at all 
 resembling the intoxicating sense of mastery 
 which now swept through his veins. In 
 an airplane one merely soared like a bird. 
 In the Scorpion one seemed to control the 
 heavens a foolish illusion enough, unless 
 one also controlled the Scorpion ! 
 
 And all this time Tommy was left alone.
 
 184 JT&FGLE TERROR 
 
 He had wandered to the rear of the car, and 
 was standing by the opening through which 
 they had entered. Two heavy steel plates, 
 he saw, were ready to slide over it. But 
 as yet it gaped with no safeguard save a 
 railing and that hardly higher than one's 
 knee. 
 
 At first the newspaper man had been 
 quite stunned by the sudden turn of events, 
 by being hurled skyward when he expected 
 only to plunge off through the forest. Grad 
 ually he had mastered himself, after a fash 
 ion; and realizing that he must not look at 
 the abyss, had tried to fix his attention upon 
 affairs within the cabin. He saw Krieg on 
 his platform, gazing ahead and gesticulating 
 wildly, like a madman on the bridge of a 
 racing steamer. He saw Briggs, crouching 
 unnoticed in a corner. He saw Purdy 
 quietly examining the mechanism of the 
 revolving rollers. And all the time he 
 noticed Marie. He could not help noticing 
 Marie. She was casting covert glances at
 
 GOOD-BYE, EARTH 185 
 
 Purely. And therein Tommy read love 
 love as plain as day. No matter what other 
 mysteries there might be about her, the 
 secret of her heart was out. Tommy had 
 no doubt of it at all. And so, whether she 
 eventually became the prey of Krieg (which 
 God forbid !) or the prize of his friend, it was 
 borne upon Tommy that never, never would 
 she be his. He had utterly succumbed to 
 Marie from the start, had taken her part 
 through thick and thin, and learned to live 
 upon the kindness with which she treated 
 him. And now! 
 
 He permitted himself to look at the abyss 
 with eyes which welcomed instead of trying 
 to avoid its appalling depths. It was only 
 a momentary weakness. In normal sur 
 roundings he would soon have fought such 
 nonsense out of his head. But all at once 
 the abyss seemed friendly. Its terrors died 
 away. He sighed, like a man released from 
 a long and intolerable anxiety. 
 
 Just then the view was cleared of the veil
 
 1 86 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 of burning chemicals which had been hurt 
 ling across it, and the cry of the novalite 
 leaped a full octave. The air lost substance, 
 and Tommy had to swallow continually to 
 relieve the inner pressure on his ear-drums. 
 He shivered. Drowsiness invaded his 
 senses. 
 
 Yet it was not the drowsiness which 
 comes to men lost in storms and perishing 
 from cold. It was rather a delicious insensi 
 bility from which he was afraid to awake. 
 Afraid that was it. For slowly an awful 
 temptation was crawling into his mind. 
 Unless he could lose consciousness altogether 
 he would have to face and grapple with it. 
 There lay the earth, becoming more and 
 more like a far, unattainable paradise. He 
 seemed to be tethered to it by a multitude 
 of living wires. As he was dragged away, 
 they tore him. The pain was intolerable. 
 It would not let him drowse. He was lost. 
 
 The knowledge swept him suddenly, and 
 brought him fully back to his senses. But
 
 GOOD-BYE, EARTH 187 
 
 his body had acquired a volition of its own. 
 Fiercely he battled against it. Was he not 
 being torn loose from his tethers? Soon 
 he would be free, if he could only hold out. 
 Soon ! But his body would not endure the 
 torture for it seemed to be his body that 
 suffered. It would not obey him, not even 
 to cry for help. Would nobody see, and 
 save him? 
 
 That vertiginous emptiness without! It 
 changed. It had become a monster now 
 and flung itself upon him, throttled him, 
 hung like a millstone about his neck. And 
 when he finally did manage to give voice 
 to a cry, it was too late. His legs had al 
 ready hurled him into the void.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE ABYSS 
 
 PURDY, wheeling just in time to see 
 what had happened, turned sick at 
 heart as the body of his friend dis 
 appeared. Krieg gave a snort of impatience, 
 and began moving about with the agility of 
 a monkey. There was a touching of levers 
 and buttons, a break in the sound of the 
 funnel below the floor, followed by a terrific 
 burst from the funnel set in the roof. 
 
 Their upward motion had ceased. Purdy 
 felt it literally in his bones. He lost all ap 
 parent weight. His feet hardly seemed to 
 touch the floor. Not only had rising ceased, 
 but the car was falling with a rapidity that 
 soon became appalling. In another second 
 he was borne up against the ceiling, as 
 though the power of gravity had been re- 
 
 1 88
 
 THE ABYSS 189 
 
 versed. Most wonderful of all, the body of 
 Tommy came into view beyond the opening, 
 and appeared to be floating upward through 
 space. The Scorpion was driving earthward 
 faster than a body left to itself could fall. 
 
 Krieg shut off the upper funnel, and 
 Tommy's apparent rising came to an end. 
 He now rested, if the eye could be trusted, 
 motionless just outside. 
 
 " Schnell ! Drag him in ! " shouted Krieg. 
 
 Purdy moved to obey, and became con 
 scious, as he reached out toward his friend, 
 that he might if he chose step bodily forth 
 into emptiness without sinking below the 
 level of the car. Drop as he might, it 
 would drive at least as fast. During the 
 instant it took this thought to rush through 
 his mind, he caught Tommy by the arm. 
 Fingers, clawlike and as cruel as those of a 
 drowning man, sank into his flesh. He was 
 locked fast. In case of the slightest hitch 
 he would inevitably be jerked into destruc 
 tion. Nevertheless, he was cool as he hauled
 
 190 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 Tommy safely aboard. The world was too 
 topsy-turvy for ordinary excitement. 
 
 The sense of weight asserted itself vio 
 lently in the normal direction. The roar 
 of the lower funnel, recently resumed, be 
 came absolutely deafening. And all was 
 growing dark. Purdy looked back. The 
 sun was just sinking with supernatural 
 rapidity beneath the horizon. It had still 
 been day in the heights. They had dived 
 into evening. And below them stretched 
 an unfamiliar country broken into ridges 
 of low hills. Its surface was right at hand. 
 All that dizzy intervening space had dis 
 appeared. Total destruction was a matter 
 of yards, of seconds. 
 
 He felt the grasp of a hand. And the 
 secret which Tommy had read in Marie's 
 eyes became in that instant Purdy's own. 
 No matter now what she had set out to do. 
 No matter his own doubts and perplexities. 
 In that moment of crisis doubts and per 
 plexities were swept away. It was as if
 
 THE ABYSS 191 
 
 two human souls had met, determined to 
 crowd an eternity of understanding into 
 the pitiful remnant of time that was left 
 them. A surprising rush of happiness over 
 whelmed him. He had not known that he 
 cared like this. Everything was over; but 
 that was of no consequence. There was no 
 opportunity even for regret. A single glance 
 was the sum total of existence. Their lives 
 would be blotted out before their lips could 
 so much as meet in a kiss. 
 
 And yet second after second passed. 
 Purdy knew it by the beating of his heart. 
 Nothing happened. The sense of weight 
 became crushing. It bore them to the floor. 
 But it was not the terrific crash which would 
 mean the end. The car brushed the ground, 
 but it did not strike. It bounded skyward 
 again. They were saved . 
 
 But were they? Krieg had turned his 
 back to his switchboard, and was regarding 
 them with malignant fury. He had seen 
 everything. There came a sound like the
 
 i 9 2 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 slamming of heavy doors. The steel plates 
 had been shot across the rear opening, and 
 shutters closed the ventilating grate be 
 neath the gyroscope. What was the gorilla 
 man about to do ? 
 
 Purdy turned to Tommy, who lay on the 
 floor without any signs of life. Here was 
 a duty which could not be neglected what 
 ever threatened. Purdy had noticed while 
 performing the rescue that the air felt thick 
 to the touch, like a liquid. After all, the 
 difference between liquids and gases and 
 solids, for that matter lay only in the readi 
 ness of their particles to move aside before 
 foreign bodies. And when the intrusion 
 was sufficiently rapid the moving aside 
 became relatively slow, even in a gas. 
 Tommy had been literally drowned. Purdy 
 began to apply the usual methods to restore 
 arrested respiration. . 
 
 "Where are you taking us?" he heard 
 Marie inquire of Krieg. 
 
 "Straight up into der Himmel" came the
 
 THE ABYSS 193 
 
 answer. "You like that you and your 
 lover?" 
 
 "Don't be foolish, Hans. He just hap 
 pened to be near me, and I was frightened, 
 I have no lover only you." 
 
 How beautiful she looked! What in 
 finite cajolery lurked in her eyes. Of course 
 it was the wise thing to do, to coax this 
 brute back into good humour. But Purdy 
 felt a new and sudden alarm. One might 
 lose one's life that was but the ordinary 
 chance, taken every day in a calling such as 
 his. And also, it now appeared one might 
 lose one's faith a far more disturbing 
 matter. He fought against the doubt which 
 her words awakened. But could he ever 
 forget again that she was, by her own saying, 
 the monster's wife ? 
 
 The wonder was that he had ceased to 
 remember it. And now that he came to 
 ponder over what had happened back there 
 in the face of death, wasn't her present ex 
 planation a good one? Finding him near
 
 194 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 she had grasped his hand a reflex action, 
 that was all. And the emotion which he 
 had read in her eyes passionate indigna 
 tion, that was it. At the time he had taken 
 it for something else, but passionate in 
 dignation quite described it. Had she been 
 enraged to think that fate was about to 
 destroy them at the very moment when 
 their love stood confessed? Or wasn't it 
 more likely that she had felt the bitterness 
 of finding herself near him, him and not 
 somebody else, and no time to move or to 
 say a word ? 
 
 In retrospect, his notion that she hated 
 Krieg as much as he did seemed flimsy and 
 founded on very little. He had never been 
 able to fathom her motives. She was 
 moved by a profound purpose too pro 
 found to be accounted for by any data in 
 sight. That was all he could be certain of, 
 unless he admitted to himself the genuineness 
 of her love for Krieg. And why shouldn't 
 he? Women take strange whims.
 
 THE ABYSS 195 
 
 He ought to be on his guard; doubly so, 
 now that his heart had played him false. 
 He must keep his head. He owed that to 
 Briggs, who seemed utterly stupefied, and 
 to Tommy, now slowly coming to his senses. 
 True, he himself had the revolvers. But 
 he could not be sure that he had them all. 
 Even Marie might have another hidden 
 about her person. And anyway, there was 
 no bluffing Krieg. He too plainly held the 
 fate of all in his hands he with the thousand 
 and one instruments of destruction that 
 might be hidden among the devices con 
 trolled by his infernal levers and buttons. 
 
 Purdy stared up through one of the look 
 outs, hoping to rid himself for a moment of 
 the vexations of the tangled human problem 
 which confronted, and yes, to avoid seeing 
 Marie's smiles and the sullen irresponsive- 
 ness with which Krieg was meeting them. 
 
 The sky, to his surprise, had turned from 
 blue to the utter blackness of space, and 
 the stars had come out, enormous, bright,
 
 196 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 crystalline, without a vestige of the ordinary 
 friendly twinkle. And yet at this altitude 
 it was not night. One could still see the 
 sun. The sun? Was that the sun, that 
 unfamiliar ball, too bright to be endured, 
 which floated over the far horizon? It 
 must be. But it shed no diffusive glory 
 beyond its own sharp-cut disc; and it was 
 tinged an appalling blue. So might look 
 the sun of another system. There was, it 
 appeared, an abyss above as well as below, 
 and they had entered it. 
 
 Purdy's very soul filled with the loneliness 
 of desolation. He turned his gaze down 
 ward, and felt his blood stand still. The 
 earth did not seem to be so much beneath 
 him as away, and it had taken on an un 
 precedented luminosity. What he saw was 
 not daylight in the ordinary sense. No; the 
 surface had commenced to shine. And it 
 was beginning to be distinctly convex. The 
 earth had become a planet. Of course it 
 always had been a planet, but there was
 
 THE ABYSS 197 
 
 something hideous about the word now. It 
 came to his mind with the force of a 
 blow. 
 
 We all know that we live upon the ex 
 terior of a ball, but in our heart of hearts 
 we do not believe it. Every work-a-day 
 experience shows our habitat to be flat, and 
 the theories of astronomers remain cold and 
 meaningless abstractions, like the knowl 
 edge that all must die, which some instinct 
 prevents us usually from applying to our 
 own particular selves. 
 
 What was to hinder the Scorpion from 
 going on and on till it reached the place 
 where the tether of gravity would snap? 
 It was not likely that the driving force of 
 the novalite depended entirely upon the 
 resistance of the air against which it im 
 pinged. Some of it must come from the 
 inertia of its own atoms. It carried its 
 fulcrum in itself, like a bombshell, which 
 will explode and hurl its pieces even in a 
 vacuum. The Scorpion was but the piece
 
 198 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 of such a shell whose explosion never ceased. 
 Its possibilities were frightful. 
 
 And yet who has never felt a longing to 
 cross the gulf which separates us from our 
 celestial neighbours ? Purdy, standing nearer 
 to the stellar universe than his species had 
 ever stood before, was seized by a reckless 
 curiosity. What experiences might not be 
 in store, what knowledge, before the inevit 
 able end ? 
 
 He was recalled to himself by a peculiar 
 feeling of vertigo. Invisible hands were 
 pressing him toward the cabin wall. What 
 had happened? The power was now shut 
 off. There was nothing to obstruct the 
 view as he again looked down. 
 
 Surely they could not have drifted over 
 the pole? And yet the earth, once more 
 approaching and at a fearful rate, was clearly 
 revolving about an apparent axis directly 
 beneath them. Of course it was an illusion. 
 Something had gone wrong. The car, not 
 the earth, was spinning. That was it.
 
 THE ABYSS 199 
 
 That long, perpendicular flight had given the 
 novalite, which left the funnel with a certain 
 twist, a chance to impart its own motion, and 
 the air had grown too thin to offer any re 
 sistance. In other words, they had lost 
 their steerage-way, and in a few minutes 
 ererybody on board would become as in 
 sensible as a stone.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 PURDY DEALT WITH 
 
 MARIE was standing, her back 
 pressed against the cabin wall. 
 There was an exultant look in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "You like it?" snarled Krieg, his whole 
 fat body seeming to swell with venom as he 
 turned to look at her. 
 
 "I have done my work," she murmured, 
 dreamily, the rotation beginning to affect 
 her. "Your power has killed itself. We 
 shall die. And I die happy. 
 
 "Why not?" she finished with a laugh. 
 "Am I not dying with you?" 
 
 "Die, then! Auber I had forgotten!" 
 
 "The Jaguar! I had forgotten, too. We 
 have one hatred in common. Let us live." 
 
 Purdy comprehended dimly that some 
 
 200
 
 PURDY DEALT WITH 201 
 
 mysterious passage at arms had taken place, 
 and that Marie, after a momentary advan 
 tage, had lost. As the funnel began speak 
 ing again, arresting the Scorpion's antics 
 and sending it once more forward, her face 
 grew haggard almost old. She had re 
 sumed, one could guess, some intolerable 
 burden. Another thing was certain: that 
 dizzy whirl had been no accident. Krieg 
 had never lost control of his machinery. 
 And Marie had mentioned the jungle 
 beast ! 
 
 The cabin began to glow with electric 
 lights. It had long since been evident that 
 there were arrangements for maintaining 
 an equable temperature and an adequate 
 supply of oxygen regardless of altitude. 
 With liquid air and an electric plant no 
 doubt with a storage battery on board, the 
 means employed were easily surmised. And 
 now, with all openings to the outer world 
 still closed, the interior was positively cheer 
 ful. A hinged panel lowered itself from one
 
 202 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 side of the frame of the gyroscope, forming 
 a table. A long, upholstered seat, or divan, 
 ran already along the wall at a convenient 
 distance. It was like a Paris cafe. 
 
 "We haf hunger," said Krieg, grinning 
 in Marie's direction. Either he had dis 
 covered a new reason for satisfaction, or 
 had determined on a change of tactics. 
 
 Purdy lifted Tommy to a place on the 
 divan. Marie set out provisions. 
 
 Everybody was hungry, and even Krieg 
 grew in a measure human as the uniquely 
 circumstanced meal progressed. He ex 
 plained how he had attached parachutes to 
 some of his bombs for producing those weird 
 aerial effects which had been so startling 
 when seen from below. A parachute, an 
 improved sort of Greek fire, and a high ex 
 plosive to spread it horizontally the com 
 bination was quite enough to cover the 
 visible heavens with a shimmering umbrella 
 of flame. Substitute smoke-power for Greek 
 fire, and one had a contrivance which could
 
 PURDY DEALT WITH 203 
 
 blot out the flames as with a spreading of 
 the fiend's wings. It was all very simple. 
 
 He answered a question, too, in regard to 
 the Los Altos railroad. 
 
 "Some foolish official people make me 
 build der extension to help me ship subblies 
 to my foundry as if I would make one 
 sign-post for the first Yankee along to see! 
 Official people like the ostriches behave. 
 They think nobody see something because 
 they put their own heads in der sand. So 
 I lay their rails in one liddle wrong direction, 
 and for myself make a road, too good but 
 the rails lead all spies astray. Maybe der 
 officials foresee what I would do, and not so 
 stupid. Ich weis nicht." 
 
 The Scorpion had sometimes plowed along 
 the broader trails. That explained the na 
 tives' avoidance of open lanes. But Krieg 
 denied any knowledge of how Purdy's llama 
 met its death. The circumstance, when re 
 lated, seemed to cause him uneasiness. He 
 cursed under his breath and looked at Marie.
 
 204 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 Purdy studied the switchboard. If he 
 could but learn to run the car 
 
 But Krieg, when the dinner was over, 
 seemed bent on bewildering him with a dis 
 play of its complications. He was showing 
 off, perhaps. At one moment the electrics 
 would be blazing, and the car to all appear 
 ances at rest. Then the lamps would fade, 
 and after a mad plunge earthward, unbe 
 lievable sunlight would pour through the 
 circular windows. A few minutes later 
 it would be night again, with the unknown 
 interior of a continent lost in the shadows 
 below. 
 
 "Tommy," whispered Purdy, after one 
 of these miracles. "The way I reckon it, we 
 are travelling faster than the earth rotates 
 that is, more than a thousand miles an 
 hour. Krieg has produced something new, 
 after all. We might call it speed. Or, for 
 practical purposes, you might call it 
 omnipotence." 
 
 "Look after Marie," said Tommy, weakly.
 
 PURDY DEALT WITH 205 
 
 The unlucky journalist was right. Help 
 less as he was, body and brain both to all 
 intents and purposes useless from the shock 
 he had undergone, he had stumbled upon 
 the crux of the situation. The mechanics 
 of Krieg's discovery did not matter. It was 
 his purpose his immediate purpose, what 
 ever it might be beneath this new pretence 
 of affability which must be fathomed and 
 dealt with. 
 
 It was becoming plainer and plainer that 
 he was not travelling at random. No, he 
 'was searching for something. Hour after 
 hour the Scorpion darted hither and thither, 
 frequently at such a low elevation that the 
 glare of its funnel cast a disc of brightness on 
 the ground in the manner of a searchlight. 
 At times the fantastic artillery of its equip 
 ment would be turned loose. Smoke-bombs 
 and fire-bombs fell, or exploded in mid-air, 
 producing phenomena likely to attract the 
 attention of half a world. But all the time 
 Krieg peered anxiously forth, sometimes at
 
 206 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 the zenith, sometimes toward the horizon. 
 Marie was watchful, too. She favoured this 
 enterprise, whatever it was. Seated on a 
 distant corner of the divan, she scarcely 
 lifted her glance from the transparent disc at 
 her feet. But if it did chance for an instant 
 to wander to Krieg, its loathing was undis 
 guised. Since her openly expressed prefer 
 ence for death she seemed less mistress of 
 herself. Or was it that it was useless now 
 to resume the mask? 
 
 Thus far, there had been no show of real 
 destructive power. Could it be possible 
 that, apart from the devastating outpour 
 of its funnel, the Scorpion had no sting? 
 But already a change was coming over 
 Krieg's demeanour. His persuasive efforts 
 had failed. His childish fireworks had 
 awakened no signs of admiration in any 
 body. And Marie was like an image of 
 stone. Perhaps this piqued his ire. Per 
 haps the non-success of his search had be 
 come too much for his patience. But
 
 PURDY DEALT WITH 207 
 
 whatever the reason, his face darkened, be 
 coming ferocious, frightful. 
 
 The car was flying very low and at a lazy 
 snail's pace, casting but a faint illumination 
 upon objects beneath it. They appeared 
 to be crossing a forest. Then came open 
 fields, and the distinct outlines of a village. 
 So far as size and appearance went, it might 
 have been Los Altos. But its streets were 
 filling with a shouting and gesticulating 
 throng, aroused from sleep by the apparition 
 above them. 
 
 Instantly Krieg brightened and began to 
 dance about on his platform. He gave the 
 impression of one who has found a forgotten 
 trump card up his sleeve and now means to 
 play it. Defy him, would they, by their 
 insolent aloofness, these men whom he had 
 deigned to make his companions, this woman 
 who confessed to bearing his name? Very 
 well; let them watch. He would give them 
 a sample of what he could do. After that, 
 perhaps they would be glad of his favour.
 
 208 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 And if they did not yield their homage 
 willingly, there would remain yet other 
 ways of compelling it. 
 
 Something like this could be read in his 
 face as he circled slowly. Every moment 
 the crowd and the excitement below in 
 creased. Krieg shut off the power, and 
 swept down like a hawk. He pulled a lever. 
 And into that helpless cluster of huts, into 
 that host of upturned faces, something 
 dropped. This time there was no smoke, 
 only a blinding flash, which wiped the village 
 off the earth as a sponge wipes a picture 
 from a slate. 
 
 Marie, with a low moan, sank to the floor 
 and began to drag her rebellious body toward 
 the author of this new horror. The car, 
 beat upon by the waves of the explosion, 
 bounded like a light rubber ball into the 
 desecrated heavens, and the cacophony of 
 its own motive power resumed its sway a 
 sobbing shriek which seemed but to echo 
 the shrieks of agonized men and the sobs
 
 PURDY DEALT WITH 209 
 
 of mutilated twomen and children. But 
 Marie persisted in her act of abnegation. 
 
 "Hans! Hans!" she choked. "No more 
 of this. Do what you will with me. I I 
 was wrong. I submit." 
 
 It was Krieg's own terrible hour. Ignor 
 ing the suppliant, he shouted and waved 
 his arms. 
 
 "Der earth iss mine und der fullness 
 thereof!" he chanted. 
 
 Then he turned and threw a piece of rope 
 in Purdy's direction. 
 
 "Tie up that liddle beast hand and 
 foot," he ordered, pointing to Tommy. 
 
 Purdy, playing for time, pretended to obey. 
 
 "Now take him; and throw him out!" 
 
 The opening clanged wide. The cool 
 night air crept in. Purdy did not stir. 
 
 "Oh, enough!" cried Marie. "Don't 
 punish me any more. I can't bear it. 
 These killings! God! Is there nothing 
 else in the world? Don't I belong to you, 
 Hans ? Aren't you satisfied ? "
 
 210 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "You say it? You pelong to me? Then 
 prove it. Weisner must be dead, I think. 
 Maybe my traps catch big jaguar. We are 
 alone. I don't count these pig. Come 
 here! Come here to me yetz!" 
 
 His features were distorted with passion. 
 His eyes seemed to devour the girl crouch 
 ing before him. The thick lips worked con 
 vulsively. He held out his arms. 
 
 She flushed red, then grew perfectly 
 white. With a shudder she drew back. 
 
 "You make fool of me again!" Krieg 
 shouted, bending down and dragging her to 
 her feet. "I vill teach you!" 
 
 His fat fingers fastened themselves in the 
 neck of her blouse and tore it away. 
 
 Purdy had been looking on, stupefied 
 with horror. But now, as the brute in 
 front of him half turned his back, he came 
 to himself. Here was opportunity. Let 
 what might happen to the car. Better face 
 any consequences than let this scene endure 
 a moment longer. He reached for his re-
 
 PURDY DEALT WITH 211 
 
 volver. Krieg had left him two, relying no 
 doubt upon the safety which hedges a cap 
 tain when no one else knows how to run the 
 ship. Well, let him find out his mistake. 
 Earth could no longer endure such a mon 
 ster. 
 
 What Purdy had not counted on was a 
 tiny mirror set in the switchboard. Krieg 
 saw his danger just in time, jerked the long- 
 handle of a lever out of its socket, and 
 struck down Purdy's arm. 
 
 The revolver clattered to the floor, and 
 the men grappled. The combat, it ap 
 peared, was to be settled by jungle law. 
 So be it. Purdy felt his hand come in con 
 tact with a throat into which his fingers 
 sank with a strangely delicious thrill. His 
 enemy grossly over-matched him in weight, 
 but weight must yield in time before the 
 lithe strength which comes from a life lived 
 hard and clean. It was no grassy slope 
 that they fought on now. The odds were 
 fair.
 
 212 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 And after all, it was only a wrestling- 
 match. The weapon which Krieg still 
 clutched was a toy. Purdy had caught 
 hold of it, and it was worth as much to him 
 as to the other. True, he possessed but 
 little science of the sort now needed most, 
 and his position exposed him to the blows 
 of his enemy's left fist. But the blows were 
 growing weaker every second, and to a cer 
 tain extent he could block them with his 
 arm. Krieg seemed about to collapse, and 
 permitted himself to be thrust back against 
 the switchboard. 
 
 That thrust back was a mistake. This 
 was Purdy's last coherent thought. For 
 Krieg's free hand had dived into a cunningly 
 hidden receptacle. There was the sound 
 of a shot. But Purdy did not feel the bullet 
 which struck his forehead. All the darkness 
 of all the nights in the world overwhelmed 
 him.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 KRIEG'S LEGACY 
 
 PURDY was aware that his physical 
 senses had been awake for an indefi 
 nite period. He had been hearing, 
 seeing, feeling but comprehending noth 
 ing. For instance, that electric light bulb. 
 His eyes had been resting upon it for a long 
 time. He knew this because he had found 
 them already open and looking at it. And 
 he half remembered what was it ? a sob 
 bing beside him; his face being bathed with 
 something cool and refreshing; two darkly 
 shining eyes, streaming with tears. Or had 
 he dreamed it all? Where was he? What 
 had happened ? How long had he been lying 
 thus, flat on his back on a bed as hard as a 
 plank ? His pillow was soft enough, but that 
 did not account for the hardness of the bed. 
 
 213
 
 2i 4 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 Scattered bits of recollection returned. 
 For some reason or other he had fought with 
 Krieg, and that dull pain in his head was 
 where Krieg's bullet had struck. He re 
 membered now having caught one flashing 
 glimpse of the levelled muzzle. The bullet 
 must have stunned him, glancing along the 
 bone. Now the wound had been bandaged 
 he could feel it. A very good job, too. 
 As for the hard bed, it was nothing but the 
 floor of the Scorpion. 
 
 He started, for the pillow had suddenly 
 stirred beneath him. Why, it was Marie's 
 arm. And a voice was saying: 
 
 "Quick, dear! Can you run the car?" 
 
 It sounded like Marie's voice. But of 
 course his mind was wandering. He had 
 merely slipped from one dream into an 
 other. Marie was his enemy, as nearly as 
 he could recall. At least there was some 
 thing strange about her which prevented an 
 understanding. This idea of her calling 
 him "dear" was a pleasant delusion. He
 
 KRIEG'S LEGACY 215 
 
 wished it would last. Perhaps she had 
 merely said: 
 
 "Quick! Here, can you run the car?" 
 
 It would have sounded about the same. 
 
 But running the car that was Krieg's 
 business. It was absurd to think that Krieg 
 would let him run the car. He shook his 
 head at the very notion. Then his eyelids 
 grew heavy and closed of themselves. 
 
 "It is useless," said the voice. "There! 
 I'll let you sleep. Perhaps it's all the better. 
 How could I want to wake you?" 
 
 He slipped away into another world. 
 
 "I want to wake you." 
 
 Those were the words he carried with him. 
 Wanted to wake him, did they ? Of course. 
 He was a boy. He had spent the night at 
 his aunt's. And he did not like his aunt. 
 She doted on him, and was always laying 
 down terrible rules of conduct for his good. 
 Waking up at unearthly hours of the morn 
 ing was a hobby of hers. In another min 
 ute she would be kissing him. It was the
 
 216 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 way she always woke him up as if that 
 were a sugar-coating for the pill. Yes, 
 something soft and warm certainly brushed 
 his lips. 
 
 He frowned, lifting himself suddenly on 
 his elbow. 
 
 "Why can't you " 
 
 He stopped. He was awake. And after 
 all it was Marie crouching there beside him. 
 A soft feeling of elation stole into his heart. 
 Never talk to him about instinct or intuition 
 again. Why, it must have been Marie 
 
 But no. This was a very different Marie 
 from the one he had been dreaming of a 
 minute ago the one who had said "dear." 
 There was not so much as a sign of welcome 
 upon her painfully flushed face. One might 
 almost say that she was sorry to see him 
 coming back to life. A woman surprised 
 when she was about to administer a dose of 
 poison might look like that. And now she 
 rose hastily and walked to the other side of 
 the car.
 
 KRIEG'S LEGACY 217 
 
 He glanced around. Unless his eyes de 
 ceived him, Tommy was lying in a corner, 
 tied up like a package of merchandise. 
 But Briggs? Krieg? No sign of either of 
 them. They were gone. It was ridiculous 
 to suppose that any one could have left the 
 car. And yet, gone they were. Was the 
 car on the ground, then? No; the roar of 
 the funnel was unmistakable. The earth 
 was far off very, very far, to judge by the 
 difficulty of breathing and the chill which 
 pervaded everything. 
 
 " But if we landed, how did we come up 
 again, without " 
 
 "We didn't land," interrupted the girl, 
 speaking over her shoulder. 
 
 "But Krieg?" 
 
 "Briggs threw him out. They both fell 
 out together." 
 
 It was Tommy w r ho spoke, and the tone 
 was rasping, impatient, utterly unlike Tom 
 my's. But it brought back the whole situa 
 tion: the terrible danger which had threat-
 
 218 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 ened Marie. And he, Purdy, had failed in 
 her defence, had fallen helpless at the critical 
 moment. What had taken place? Was 
 that what ailed the girl ? 
 
 " When did he throw him out ? " Desper 
 ately he tried to keep his anxiety out of his 
 voice, for he felt that if he did not keep 
 tight hold of himself now he would go to 
 pieces again. 
 
 "It was in time," Marie answered for 
 herself. "Nothing happened to me, if that 
 is what you mean." 
 
 But she spoke indifferently, and Tommy 
 was beckoning with an almost imperceptible 
 motion of his head. It was truly strange 
 that Tommy should be in bonds. 
 
 " How in the world did you get into such 
 a fix as this?" asked Purdy, struggling to 
 his feet and going toward him. How fright 
 fully his head ached when he moved. It 
 was almost impossible to think. The effort 
 of getting out a knife to cut his friend free 
 almost made him numb.
 
 KRIEG'S LEGACY 219 
 
 "Krieg tied me up right after shooting 
 at you," said Tommy. "He didn't want 
 to take any more chances with us, I 
 guess. 
 
 "And she," he added in a whisper, indi 
 cating Marie who was looking off into the 
 distance, "she hasn't had any time to 
 loosen me. There was no possibility of my 
 knowing how to run the car. She's been 
 working over you. But listen. There's 
 something I want to tell you." 
 
 Purdy stooped lower to catch the words, 
 and cut the last of the fetters. Tommy 
 went on: 
 
 "I love her. I don't care who or what 
 she is. But I've got to tell you something. 
 Krieg went crazy, I think. After laying 
 you out he began dropping bombs. He 
 let loose everything in the shop. It looked 
 as if the whole world would be blown to 
 pieces. Briggs threw himself on him while 
 he was doing that got hold of him and held 
 his arms down and dragged him out. He
 
 220 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 may have been a hunchback, but he fought 
 like a bear. 
 
 "And in the midst of it," Tommy choked; 
 "in the midst of it, with me lying here not 
 able to stir, Marie tried to help Krieg, and 
 nearly went out with him trying to save 
 him. No, she didn't want him to die. God ! 
 I wish I hadn't lived to see it." 
 
 "All right," said Purdy, speaking aloud 
 and hiding his feelings with an ability which 
 surprised him. " I'll see what I can do with 
 the machinery. Where are we? A good 
 way up by the way it feels." 
 
 "Yes; we've been gradually getting higher 
 for a long time. But I've no idea where we 
 are and I didn't know how to shut the 
 door." 
 
 It was Marie who had come forward, and 
 in her hands was a glass. 
 
 "Here, drink this. It will make you feel 
 better." 
 
 He drank what proved to be brandy, and 
 did feel better immediately. Tommy
 
 KRIEG'S LEGACY 221 
 
 what had Tommy been saying ? Oh, some 
 thing monstrous! His brain reeled again 
 as he realized that it had really been said 
 was not a part of some horrible nightmare. 
 Marie's supposed antagonism to Krieg must 
 have been mere pretence, then. Yes, it was 
 monstrous. He staggered as he made for the 
 switchboard, unable to look her in the face. 
 
 "Wait!" she admonished him. "Don't 
 touch anything yet. There is something I 
 want to tell you. 55 
 
 Tommy's exact words! Purdy waited. 
 What would he be hearing next ? 
 
 "Just at the last minute, when he was 
 begging Briggs to let go, Krieg made a 
 threat. He said that if he died we'd find 
 that he'd left something behind for us to 
 remember him by. What if he has fixed 
 the machinery so that it can't be run? He 
 knew you had been watching him. He 
 might have prepared, in case he was at 
 tacked again why, it might explode, or 
 anything!"
 
 222 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 Their common peril was drawing them 
 together. Her voice was more natural. She 
 had come near and was looking over his 
 shoulder. Confound it, it was impossible to 
 distrust her! He knew very well that if she 
 had fought on the side of Krieg it was not 
 merely to save the Scorpion's one competent 
 engineer. Another woman might very well 
 have hesitated to trust herself in a flying 
 monster of steel without the man who knew 
 how to keep it flying yes, and have tried 
 to save him though he were the devil him 
 self. But Marie must have had a deeper 
 reason. She was not frightened even now. 
 The anxiety of a lieutenant on the eve of a 
 desperate charge is not personal fear. Very 
 well. Might she not have had a better 
 reason, then? 
 
 Comforted in spite of himself by a re 
 newed sense of companionship, Purdy 
 touched an electric button and the cabin 
 lights went out. The mistake was soon 
 rectified. Another button, and the car's
 
 KRIEG'S LEGACY 223 
 
 rear opening closed. Yet another, and 
 artificial heating and air-supply was re 
 established, as was soon evident by in 
 creased comfort. Matters were progressing 
 famously. And then, while he hesitated 
 as to what to do next, a shudder-like 
 tremor passed through the very founda 
 tions of the car. It did not exactly lurch, 
 but the old sense of stability was alarm 
 ingly gone. 
 
 "What was that?" asked Marie, still at 
 his side. 
 
 "I don't know. I thought we struck 
 something but of course that's impossible." 
 
 He shut off the power by a lever he had 
 seen Krieg use. It became very quiet. 
 Too quiet. An element was missing from 
 what they had grown accustomed to regard 
 as silence. 
 
 "I know!" cried Purdy. "The current 
 has been disconnected from the gyroscope. 
 It's running down." 
 
 As he spoke, the Scorpion lunged sharply
 
 224 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 forward, then turned completely over and 
 began to roll and plunge like a bird that has 
 been wounded in full wing and falls help 
 lessly to its death. The confusion on board 
 was indescribable. 
 
 But Purdy clung desperately to his levers. 
 The switchboard was as if alive. It flung 
 him this way and that. One instant he 
 would be thrown violently against it; the 
 next it would try to escape from him alto 
 gether. Now it would be right side up; now 
 upside down. But always he clung to 
 what was before him. Sometimes it was 
 by only one hand but he clung, manipulat 
 ing one thing after another as it came within 
 reach, determined to find the right bit of 
 mechanism to bring order out of chaos. 
 Once the power came on at one of the fun 
 nels and made matters only the worse. 
 But finally, in a fortunate moment, just as 
 his strength was about exhausted, he moved 
 the proper switch. The gyroscope, taking 
 up its note, gradually brought the car to a
 
 KRIEG'S LEGACY 225 
 
 level. He wiped a trickle of blood from his 
 face, and looked around. 
 
 The others had come through the terrific 
 shake-up better than could have been ex 
 pected. Tommy had indeed suffered many 
 bruises, but declared himself alive and with 
 out serious injury. Marie had found a post 
 to hold fast to, and was practically un 
 scathed. Her eyes were shining. 
 
 "That was splendid what you did then," 
 she said. "You'll save us yet." 
 
 "Yes, I think so," he assented with a 
 shade of doubt. 
 
 He had discovered something was be 
 ginning to understand what sort of a legacy 
 Krieg had really taken pains to leave behind 
 him. It was something more than a dis 
 connected gyroscope.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 WEISNER 
 
 THOUGH the car had lost a great deal 
 of its former altitude, it was moving 
 quite at his will now above an endless 
 expanse of white, broken clouds, lighted by 
 a low western moon. It was fairyland. 
 But he had been looking at the inclosed 
 windlasses that row of upright, glass- 
 lidded coffins on either side of the switch 
 board. In one a spool of novalite turned 
 slowly. The others were empty. There 
 was an arrangemnet, he saw, which per 
 mitted the spools to be dropped in lieu of 
 bombs through a chute in the floor. Krieg 
 had thrown overboard the extra supply of 
 power. Only that single spool was left. 
 Would it be enough to take them safely 
 
 down? 
 
 226
 
 WEISNER 227 
 
 Purdy watched it unwind. Altitude was 
 being maintained, and the windlass scarcely 
 moved. The barometer showed two and a 
 half miles. Yes, as he roughly calculated 
 it, there was enough, if one did not put off 
 descending too long and nothing happened. 
 
 What could happen? They were alone 
 in the universe. No rocks or shoals in this 
 supernal sea. But it might be well to de 
 scend below the clouds and find out what 
 sort of a country awaited them. No use 
 landing in the midst of a wilderness if it 
 could be helped. And it could not be 
 denied an unreasoning terror possessed 
 him. Everything seemed right. Yet every 
 thing was somehow wrong. And he longed 
 as never before to be out of it all and back 
 to solid earth. 
 
 Marie was standing to one side, looking 
 out. She had forgotten to rearrange her 
 hair, and it streamed, long and dark, in 
 disarray down her back. An unwonted ten 
 sity in her attitude attracted his attention.
 
 228 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 He followed her gaze. Far off toward 
 the horizon was a fan-shaped flame. 
 
 "It must be our shadow!" Purdy ex 
 claimed. And then, as a sight of their real 
 shadow a vague penumbra outlined by the 
 moon upon the clouds made him realize 
 the absurdity of his words : 
 
 "Reflection, I meant to say. Watch!" 
 
 He steered toward the phantom: it re 
 ceded. And when he retreated the phan 
 tom followed. 
 
 "Yes, it's a reflection something like a 
 mirage. I've seen them in the desert. 
 Must be a denser current of air somewhere. 
 Acts like a mirror. I wonder how high it 
 extends." 
 
 The Scorpion had practically ceased to 
 move. But the phantom was it not larger 
 than at first ? Certainly; much larger. And 
 it was coming nearer with a rapidity which 
 seemed miraculous. This was no ghost, no 
 mere optical illusion. And the Scorpion s 
 hesitation seemed to have given it courage.
 
 WEISNER 229 
 
 " It's another car like ours," said Purdy, 
 stupefied. 
 
 Marie pronounced a single word: 
 
 "Weisner!" 
 
 Purdy groaned. Weisner had been 
 Krieg's partner, then; a second string to 
 his bow. Or else 
 
 The thing came on and flew past over 
 head. A dark object fell, just missing the 
 Scorpions back. A bomb! No; Weisner 
 had not been Krieg's partner. There had 
 been two cars. The troubled lake by the 
 casa should have told them that. Weisner 
 had stolen one of them; meant now to make 
 it the only one. He was an enemy. That 
 was the secret. 
 
 Purdy drove forward at high speed. 
 The rival gave chase, but failed to keep up. 
 No doubt it was an earlier and inferior 
 model. Purdy breathed easier, and began 
 to descend. 
 
 Marie rushed toward him. 
 
 "We are not running away?"
 
 230 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "No, no! We must fight. Can't you 
 see don't you understand what it would 
 mean to leave a secret, a power like this 
 alive in the world?" 
 
 "I see quite well. But it can't be helped. 
 Krieg I didn't mean to tell you but he 
 dropped all the extra spools. We've hardly 
 enough novalite left to make our landing, 
 let alone staying through a fight." 
 
 "Oh!" She laid her hand on his shoul 
 der. Then: 
 
 "Are you afraid to die, my friend?" 
 
 "I hope not. But you " 
 
 "This is no time to think of me. Turn 
 back! If you only knew my history, my 
 people, what it means to me ! Not death 
 that is nothing. But to leave this mon 
 strous " 
 
 "Have you no idea what I have endured, 
 trying to help capture that creature out 
 there? I could have dealt with Krieg a 
 thousand times. But what was the use,
 
 WEISNER 231 
 
 so long as Weisner was left? And now 
 you talk of saving me!" 
 
 "That's right," cut in the unexpected 
 voice of Tommy. "We've been as blind 
 as bats. Turn back as she says. Let's 
 give it to the beggars/' 
 
 Purdy swung the Scorpion about. Yes; 
 they had been as blind as bats. He saw 
 it now. 
 
 The cars charged directly toward each 
 other, two great bulls of steel brought into 
 being by the perverted genius of man. But 
 instead of locking horns, Weisner at the 
 critical instant swerved aside. Nothing 
 happened save a sharp rasp as the circum 
 ferences grazed and passed. What game 
 was this ? 
 
 Again they wheeled and faced, and again 
 a sudden turn prevented a head-end collision. 
 But this time there was a heavy jar. Purdy 
 began to understand. The other car, if 
 slower, was larger and heavier. If it could 
 be made to strike not too hard, but just
 
 232 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 hard enough, Weisner might win a victory 
 without cost. Purdy must see to it that 
 the next encounter meant death to all 
 concerned. He was ready for anything 
 now. 
 
 The enemy seemed to read his mind, for 
 he circled wide, darted upward, and let fall 
 another bomb. Then began a race for the 
 zenith, which Purdy won by a reckless 
 use of power. 
 
 The night was now dark, or so appeared 
 in contrast with the belching fire of the 
 monsters that fought across it. The clouds 
 had thinned. Blackness covered the abyss 
 as with a treacherous carpet. Only the 
 air, so rarefied that the shrieking funnels 
 sounded like the voices of toy whistles, told 
 of the awful height that had been reached. 
 There was no more time to lose. The 
 enemy, at the distance of some quarter of a 
 mile, seemed to be waiting. Had he no 
 ticed something unskilful in the Scorpion s 
 handling? Full speed after him, then, be-
 
 WEISNER 233 
 
 fore he could take any further advantage 
 of it. Even a stern chase ought to result 
 in mutual wreck if only the novalite held 
 out. 
 
 Purdy' s hand was already on the proper 
 lever, ready to shove it to its uttermost 
 notch. 
 
 But what ailed Weisner? He was ap 
 proaching slowly, unsteadily. A window 
 opened in his car. A bearded face ap 
 peared. Purdy slid back a circular pane 
 and caught the words : 
 
 " will surrender. Help us! For God s 
 sake!" 
 
 "He's short of power, too," breathed 
 Purdy. " He thinks " 
 
 But the flame from Weisner's funnel be 
 gan to pale. His car lost altitude. Sud 
 denly the funnel went black. And gravity, 
 impatient of its long wait, reached out in 
 visible arms. There came a cry which was 
 not of bursting molecules a cry, weak but 
 pitiably human. Purdy, using his funnel
 
 234 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 as a search-light, kept track for a few 
 seconds of a thing of metal which shot 
 to the very bottom of the gulf of darkness. 
 The Scorpion and its crew held undisputed 
 sway in the sky.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A LOST DISCOVERY 
 
 IF ONLY there were some way to bridge 
 the miles between them and safety! 
 Purdy put aside the thought, set the 
 machinery so that the end might be delayed 
 as long as possible, and went over to Marie. 
 In his heart was a measure of contrition. 
 How his foolish brain had fought against 
 her. 
 
 "I was so afraid!" she whispered. "But 
 I'm not, now." 
 
 Here was just a simple woman, clinging 
 to him for strength and comfort. And he 
 was the one in all the world that she wanted 
 to cling to. Her face, her sign of returning 
 courage, told him that. The thousand 
 questions, as yet unanswered, seemed of very 
 
 little consequence now. 
 
 235
 
 236 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "Were you really that creature's wife?" 
 was all that he asked. 
 
 "Only in name," she replied, simply. 
 "We were married the day he left the cap 
 ital two years ago. I had to to keep his 
 confidence." 
 
 "That was too much for even a Secret 
 Service to ask of you." 
 
 "I do not belong to any Secret Service. 
 I really didn't have your password." And 
 her eyes took on a look of indescribable sad 
 ness as she added: 
 
 " I am not an American by birth ; only by 
 adoption. I am a Serbian." 
 
 "Then you were working for " 
 
 "My country! I went back home at the 
 beginning of the war. You do not know 
 what Bulgaria and another nation that 
 I cannot bear even to name has done to 
 my people, to my family, to my own brothers 
 and sisters. Yes, and after I went back, to 
 me. You will never know. I had sworn 
 to avenge these wrongs. I was captured.
 
 A LOST DISCOVERY 2 3 f 
 
 I escaped. Then I learned of this Krieg, 
 of how he had stolen a wonderful mechanical 
 secret, and was developing and perverting it. 
 He murdered the original inventor, an Amer 
 ican, and not a Frenchman as he told you. 
 And he made of it a new machine to kill. 
 Kill! Kill! It was always that. The old 
 reign of brutality was to be renewed, it 
 seemed, just when everybody thought it was 
 passing away forever. I was determined 
 that it should not. So I married him. I 
 would have been willing at that time even 
 
 to have " 
 
 " But why didn't you tell me ? " 
 
 A noiseless laugh parted the woman's 
 
 lips, full of mischief and real amusement. 
 
 " Men are such wretched actors ! I had to 
 
 prevent a perfect understanding between us. 
 
 He would have seen it. Besides, nothing but 
 
 your own heart would have believed me 
 
 without that wretched password. And I was 
 
 afraid if I let you care too much, that you 
 
 might have to see what you couldn't bear."
 
 238 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "But after he was disposed of? After I 
 had said " 
 
 "You said nothing, dear. And I am a 
 woman. I must hear the words. Why, 
 you even woke up scowling after Krieg shot 
 you, and I had just " 
 
 "I thought it was an old aunt of mine. 
 I was dreaming of her." 
 
 Their laughter rang out, as if this was all 
 taking place in some comfortable nook of 
 earth, and not in the pitiless heavens where 
 the Scorpion was slowly creeping to the edge 
 of doom. 
 
 "You certainly can act, if I cannot," 
 Purdy continued. "That is, if you " 
 
 " I did ! I did almost from the first. And 
 it interfered dreadfully with my plans. 
 Krieg became an impossibility after that. 
 Oh, if I have had caprices, you must forgive 
 
 me." 
 
 "Speaking of forgiveness," put in Tommy 
 from across the car, "I've been a miserable 
 cur. I told Purdy "
 
 A LOST DISCOVERY 239 
 
 " I know, Tommy. I heard part of it 
 about my trying to interfere with poor old 
 Briggs. You only did your duty. Krieg 
 to me then was just Weisner's enemy. But 
 how could you know?" 
 
 "I suppose," said Purdy, "that it was 
 Weisner who shot my llama with an airgun, 
 or something." 
 
 "Probably. He was always sneaking 
 around. It seemed to delight him to drive 
 Krieg frantic. From the day he stole the 
 Jaguar " 
 
 "The Jaguar ?" cried Purdy and Tommy 
 together. 
 
 "Yes, that was the name of the other 
 machine. They used to fly with it away 
 off the jungle and camouflage it there under 
 a sheet of painted canvas. It really looked 
 then something like its name, Krieg said, 
 except for size. But Weisner was a clever 
 mechanic, and after working for a while as 
 assistant he got the whole secret. But he 
 wanted to kill Krieg before attempting any-
 
 2 4 o JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 thing big. He used to shoot real jaguars, 
 and put them in the trees around the work 
 shop. You saw one. It made Krieg reck 
 less. He would sometimes spend hours in 
 the woods, hoping to catch him at it. That 
 was what Weisner wanted. But somehow 
 they never met." 
 
 The girl fell silent. The funnel had fallen 
 silent, too. A low whine, the breath of their 
 descent, gradually growing to a hurricane, 
 came in through the Scorpion s armour. 
 
 "Good-bye, you two," said Tommy in a 
 cheerful voice, and turned his face to the 
 wall. 
 
 "Good-bye!" 
 
 There seemed nothing left to say. Marie 
 kissed Purdy once upon the lips, and closed 
 her eyes. There is something lonely, after 
 all, in death. 
 
 Purdy stared off into space with level, 
 unseeing eyes. 
 
 Suddenly he sprang to his feet. A scene 
 of unutterable beauty lay beneath some-
 
 A LOST DISCOVERY 241 
 
 thing near and familiar. They had moved, 
 in spite of their windings, in one vast circle, 
 and were back again near to the starting- 
 point. Surely that landscape in places a 
 desert but serenely pastoral along the 
 streams, with its cattle, its haciendas and 
 their peacefully smoking chimneys was 
 the country about Lara's capital city. And 
 that line of rocks, gleaming like teeth, was 
 the coast. 
 
 Purdy, however, gave it but a single 
 glance. He was working frantically about 
 the windlass. The novalite passed to the 
 funnel through a pipe. When the last end 
 of it left the windlass there would remain, 
 he had just happened to think, several feet 
 of it still in the pipe. If he had, now, some 
 thing by means of which he could move it 
 on! 
 
 The long, slender, lever-handle with which 
 Krieg had once disarmed him! He caught 
 it up, smashed the glass of the coffin-like box, 
 tore loose the end of the explosive strand
 
 242 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 from the spool, inserted the lever-handle in 
 the upper orifice of the pipe, and urged the 
 contents downward. There was little room 
 to work in, but the lever-handle was fortu 
 nately short. If the rope with its core of 
 wire would but permit itself to be shoved ! 
 So terrific was its power that a few inches 
 might be sufficient. 
 
 The experiment promised success. An 
 explosive burst sounded from the funnel 
 below. The Scorpion began to struggle, 
 It hesitated; stood still; drifted past the 
 rocks; began once more to sink. Beneath 
 lay a lonely beach, a land-locked bay. It 
 was not so very far to fall. Purdy opened 
 the sliding doors. 
 
 "Jump the instant before we strike 
 the water!" he shouted. "Jump clear. 
 There is a fighting chance." 
 
 He seized Marie by the hand, and they 
 took the chance together. 
 
 Some days later, at a table in the best
 
 A LOST DISCOVERY 243 
 
 cafe in that shabby little South American 
 city which must still be nameless, sat a 
 sun-browned Yankee. From the ceiling a 
 number of creaking, rotary fans, patterned 
 after Don Quixote's windmills, drove down 
 the hot breath of the Tropic of Capricorn. 
 
 "Tommy," he said, "Krieg and Weisner 
 are where they belong. Their machines 
 are destroyed. Their secret ought to be 
 destroyed, too. We must go back to that 
 machine-shop in the hills and blow it up 
 with what is left of the novalite. There 
 might be blueprints, plans of some sort. 
 I don't want a scrap of paper to escape." 
 
 Marie, who made the third of the party, 
 clapped her hands softly in applause of 
 Purdy's speech. 
 
 "All right," said Tommy. "Only let me 
 get a couple of guides and go alone. I 
 I need the trip." 
 
 This being agreed to, Tommy rose and 
 left the cafe. 
 
 "Poor chap!" said Purdy, after a pause.
 
 244 JUNGLE TERROR 
 
 "But I suppose we've got to forget him, 
 and be happy." 
 
 "We can't help being happy/' said Marie, 
 as a hand reached hers across the table. 
 "And think! In all the future no nation 
 will ever enslave another again, no nation 
 will ever become too strong." 
 
 "At least, let us hope," assented Purdy. 
 
 THE END
 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
 GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
 
 A 000 038 775 3