From
THE MONSTER MEN
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
"Bulan, suspecting no treachery, was all anxiety to be
off at once. Barunda suggested that in case of some
possible emergency causing the quarry to return down
the river it would be well to have a force remain at
the long-house to intercept them. He volunteered to
undertake the command of this party. Ninaka, he said,
would furnish guides to escort Bulan and his men
through the jungle to the point at which they might
expect to find Muda Saffir.
And so, with the girl he sought lying within fifty feet
of him, Bulan started off through the jungle with two
of Ninaka's Dyaks as guides—guides who had been well
instructed by their panglima as to their duties.
Twisting and turning through the dense maze of
underbrush and close-growing, lofty trees the little
party of eight plunged farther and farther into the
bewildering labyrinth.
For hours the tiresome march was continued, until at
last the guides halted, apparently to consult each
other as to the proper direction. By signs they made
known to Bulan that they did not agree upon the right
course to pursue from there on, and that they had
decided that it would be best for each to advance a
little way in the direction he thought the right one
while Bulan and his five creatures remained where they were.
"We will go but a little way," said the spokesman,
"and then we shall return and lead you in the proper direction."
Bulan saw no harm in this, and without a shade of
suspicion sat down upon a fallen tree and watched his
two guides disappear into the jungle in opposite
directions. Once out of sight of the white man the two
turned back and met a short distance in the rear of the
party they had deserted—in another moment they were
headed for the long-house from which they had started.
It was fully an hour thereafter that doubts began to
enter Bulan's head, and as the day dragged on he came
to realize that he and his weird pack were alone and lost
in the heart of a strange and tangled web of tropical jungle.
No sooner had Bulan and his party disappeared in the
jungle than Barunda and Ninaka made haste to embark
with the chest and the girl and push rapidly on up the
river toward the wild and inaccessible regions of the
interior. Virginia Maxon's strong hope of succor had
been gradually waning as no sign of the rescue party
appeared as the day wore on. Somewhere behind her upon
the broad river she was sure a long, narrow native
prahu was being urged forward in pursuit, and that
in command of it was the young giant who was now never
for a moment absent from her thoughts.
For hours she strained her eyes over the stern of the
craft that was bearing her deeper and deeper into the
wild heart of fierce Borneo. On either shore they
occasionally passed a native long-house, and the girl
could not help but wonder at the quiet and peace which
reigned over these little settlements. It was as
though they were passing along a beaten highway in the
center of a civilized community; and yet she knew that
the men who lolled upon the verandahs, puffing indolently
upon their cigarettes or chewing betel nut, were all head hunters,
and that along the verandah rafters above them hung
the grisly trophies of their prowess.
Yet as she glanced from them to her new captors she
could not but feel that she would prefer captivity in
one of the settlements they were passing—there at
least she might find an opportunity to communicate with
her father, or be discovered by the rescue party as it
came up the river. The idea grew upon her as the day
advanced until she spent the time in watching furtively
for some means of escape should they but touch the
shore momentarily; and though they halted twice her
captors were too watchful to permit her the slightest
opportunity for putting her plan into action.
Barunda and Ninaka urged their men on, with brief
rests, all day, nor did they halt even after night
had closed down upon the river. On, on the swift prahu
sped up the winding channel which had now dwindled
to a narrow stream, at intervals rushing strongly between
rocky walls with a current that tested the strength
of the strong, brown paddlers.
Long-houses had become more and more infrequent until
for some time now no sign of human habitation had
been visible. The jungle undergrowth was scantier and
the spaces between the boles of the forest trees more open.
Virginia Maxon was almost frantic with despair as the
utter helplessness of her position grew upon her.
Each stroke of those slender paddles was driving her farther
and farther from friends, or the possibility of rescue.
Night had fallen, dark and impenetrable, and with it
had come the haunting fears that creep in when the sun
has deserted his guardian post.
Barunda and Ninaka were whispering together in low
gutturals, and to the girl's distorted and fear excited
imagination it seemed possible that she alone must be
the subject of their plotting. The prahu was gliding
through a stretch of comparatively quiet and placid
water where the stream spread out into a little basin
just above a narrow gorge through which they had just
forced their way by dint of the most laborious
exertions on the part of the crew."
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