Authors: Delos W. Lovelace
"I don't see why. It seems to me he'll more likely be hunting something to eat."
Denham, clinging doggedly to the theory he had revealed to Driscoll, shook his head.
"Kong," he insisted, "is the one thing outside the wall that is something more than beast. He's one of nature's errors, like all the others, but he was nearly not an error. And in that huge head of his is a spark. Ann means something to him."
Englehorn made a doubtful sound.
"Yes she does," Denham declared. "If I didn't believe that I wouldn't have a solitary hope of seeing her again. You don't suppose he took such care of the native girls they tied to the altar, do you?"
Englehorn conceded that Kong probably hadn't. He had gathered in his brief talk with the chief that the natives had been surprised when Kong carried Ann with such care into the dark shadow of the precipice.
"He sensed that Ann was different," Denham said, seizing upon the Skipper's concession. "He hadn't the faintest notion why she is different. And he doesn't in the least know what to do with her. But when he looked on her something inside him gave way. It was Beauty and the Beast over again."
Speaking solely to Englehorn ... as a matter of fact, the sailors, after listening for a little in perplexity, had shaken their heads and pushed forward their preparations for the hunt ... Denham once again outlined his theory of how Beauty softens and attracts and in the end encompasses the destruction of the Beast.
"He'll lose Ann in the end," Denham said. "One way or another. And after he does, he'll never again be quite the same king of the forest. Brute strength will have yielded to something higher, and by the extent of its yielding will be weakened for its future battles with other brutes."
"A very pretty theory," Englehorn murmured, "but in my opinion, Mr. Denham, it isn't worth the rust on a single hull plate. It's moon talk and nothing more. Kong was attracted by Ann's bright head, I'll grant you. But only because it was strange. Only as a magpie is attracted by a shining stone. And he'll tire of her brightness just as the magpie does. When he gets hungry he'll drop Ann. And my prayer is that when he does, Driscoll will be there to pick her up."
"We can trust Jack," Denham said confidently. He looked at his watch. "I wish to heaven it was time for me to do my share."
Kong was following no beaten trail; but he left his great tracks plainly upon bruised leaves, and broken branches, and sodden jungle floor. Driscoll had far less difficulty in pursuing him than he had anticipated. Even without the telltale marks he would have been seldom puzzled. Kong bothered so little about the noise he made that the crash of his heavy progress was often a guiding echo through the thick wood. It helped, too, that his gait was leisurely. He seemed in no hurry at all; and if there were enemies about he certainly did not seem to fear them.
Only one aspect of the beast-god's march indicated that the district might not be as empty of dangers as it appeared. This was the fact that he travelled by no well defined paths. All along the way there were crossing and criss-crossing of trails which could have belonged only to the great creatures of the incredible island. But Kong broke a way through virgin jungle. He used no old path which his enemies could have come to know.
Driscoll found the pursuit so easy that on occasion he misjudged his own speed and got too close. He always had a moment of panic when this happened, and had to swerve hastily for cover. He was still convinced that his one hope of rescuing Ann, either by himself or by keeping contact until a larger rescuing party caught up, depended upon his success in arousing no suspicion of pursuit. If Kong discovered he was being followed, anything might happen. So Driscoll kept well back, following by sound rather than by sight.
Around noon, despite his care, he emerged into one border of a clearing as Kong disappeared on the other. And because he had been so long without any reassuring glimpse, he risked the briefest of inspections.
Ann was, apparently, still unconscious. He prayed that she was not merely motionless from fright. In any event she made no movement while Driscoll had her in view. Even one drooping arm seemed utterly without life. She lay in the crook of one of the beast-god's enormous arms. She might have been in a swing-seat she rode so easily, the curved prop giving with every stride and every shift of Kong's loose-jointed body. The last pin had fallen from her hair and it foamed down her back in a bright cascade made more bright by its contrast with Kong's black snarl of fur. One sleeve of her dress had been torn, so that her right shoulder was bare. The soft, white rondure made another, more startling contrast with her captor's sooty bulk.
The clearing proved to be the beginning of thinner vegetation. The trail, which had led for a time gently downward from the crest of the ravine, sloped up again. Gradually the tangle of vines and lush undergrowth disappeared. The trees, taller now, stood by themselves with no cluttering brush at their roots. By mid-afternoon Driscoll began to catch glimpses of the tip of Skull Mountain. And by that time Kong's purposeful travel made it additionally plain that he was on his way to his lair.
That lair could be nowhere except up the slope of the island's highest peak, Driscoll reasoned; some fastness accessible only to a mighty climber. Such a spot, far from the vegetation which nourished most of the other beasts, would be doubly attractive since it would have no attraction to draw the rarer, meat-eating creatures. The likelihood of all this became more evident as the curious pursuit continued, the dogged man-animal clinging to the trail of an enemy twenty times as large.
Toward twilight the chase led more steeply upward through a boulder-strewn region, and Driscoll tired rapidly. His body throbbed from falls and blows of branches; he was hungry, besides; and his feet and legs were numb from exhaustion as he stumbled along after the sounds Kong made.
It was only tardily that he noted a phenomenon which confronted him after one long swing to the left. This was a great spout of water bursting from the very side of the mountain itself. A white, misty torrent, it had dug a deep pit under its point of egress and from this it spilled into a narrow channel to tumble down and disappear into the jungle below.
Upon Driscoll's mind, grown hard from fatigue, the existence of this stream made at first only the faintest of marks. A stream! But the mark deepened as it came to him that this might well be the beginning of the stream which far back widened into the lagoon of the dinosaur, and which still farther poured softly over that slide leading down to the Plain of the Altar. He was contemplating this possibility when he rounded a jutting corner of rock and discovered Kong scarcely a hundred yards ahead and in full view.
Only a frantic speed which brought an added protest from his tired muscles got him back behind the shield of rock in time.
Peering out from his hiding place he saw that Kong had come to a fall stop in a great, natural amphitheater which was encircled in three-quarters of its circumference by a curving cliff. A broad black pool lay just forward of the beast-god, and at this he was staring with greater and greater suspicion. It was a curious pool, as still as it was black, and seemingly without any source. At one point it came to within a few feet of the base of the cliff. High up on this last a ledge ran, and at one place the ledge broadened to make a wide platform before a cave.
Nowhere was there any sign of flowing water which fed the pool. On the contrary, on the side unfettered by wall, Driscoll caught sight of a whirling movement which could mean only an outlet. An underground outlet of considerable size, too. The mystery broke clear for him then, and simultaneously he realized that his conclusion about the spout of water seen earlier had been only half right. The spout was one beginning of the stream, but not the beginning. That was here, in the black, still pool. From somewhere, doubtless from a source far below in the ocean's bed, this water welled up to the pool. There, through the ages, it had eaten away a fault in the rock to make a subterranean passage. By this it broke at last through the mountain's side.
Why Kong should stare suspiciously at this pool, Driscoll could not imagine; and he was all the more puzzled as he remembered the cave on the high ledge and the full significance of this dawned. For the cave was in a dead-end path. There was no road beyond the pool. If Kong wished to leave he must go by the way he had come. And this could mean only one thing. Kong was home. The cave was his lair. And since it was his lair, the spot must be familiar to him. So, Driscoll pondered, why should the ape-beast be suspicious?
Puzzled, he peered around his jutting rock. Then he saw the cause of Kong's delay. What had before seemed an added blackness in the deepening evening light became a solid something, a crawling bulk whose upraised head faced Kong on the rocky margin while its serpentine length disappeared into the pool.
Kong crouched as the thing twisted farther out of the pool. He gave back a few steps to drop Ann roughly at the base of the cliff. Leaping forward again he stood erect and rolled out his deep challenge.
Driscoll had never thought to hear that thunder of rage without terror. But when it beat upon his ears, with its accompanying tattoo of mighty hands upon mighty chest, he was no more than a breath away from a supporting shout. He had never thought to see Kong barring the way to Ann with any emotion save hate. But when the crouching ape-beast swung before the white shoulder which marked Ann's place against the dark rock the mate could have cried out in thanks.
Roaring, Kong charged into battle. Somewhere, upon a rock at the bottom of the pool, the monster's tail had taken hold and this gave it added strength to meet Kong's rush. Kong fought with hands and long, flashing teeth. Even more than these his feet were factors. They gripped the uneven rocks and withstood the tug of the submerged tail as the monster coiled around the beast-god's pillar-like legs and tried to slip back into the pool.
Unlike Kong's earlier conflicts this was a silent fight. The water beast had no voice and Kong, after the first roar which announced his assault, had breath only for an occasional enraged whisper. His teeth slashed at the crushing coils and his hands struggled to hold the monster's head.
Driscoll, watching from behind his corner of rock, could see no advantage on either side for long minutes. The coils seemed to bind as terribly as ever. Kong's teeth slashed unrelentingly, and his hands still fought the monster's swinging head. When the end did come it came so suddenly that Driscoll had no warning. Kong dropped into a slightly lower crouch, his legs spraddled a little more widely apart, his arms snatched the monstrous head close against his deep breast. That was all. But in that all but imperceptible series of efforts were both the seed and the fruit of another victory for the beast king who dominated the lost world of Skull Mountain Island. The water boiled as the monster's tail let go in agony. The huge coils dropped to make a writhing rest for the crushed head which Kong flung down.
Kong swayed and all but fell. He was so drained of breath and strength that for a space he could not even step outside the twisting mound of flesh which still encircled his feet. He shivered, so full he was of the loathing his species has had of reptilian things since the dawn of time, but he was too spent to move. And when he had recovered enough to raise Ann once more to the crook of his arm and toil slowly up to the ledge and his lofty cave, he was still too stupefied from his struggle to look around for any other danger.
For the first time in the long pursuit, Driscoll felt no fear of detection. He came out from behind his rock and, knife in hand, half considered an attack. But he put that thought down quickly. The great hands might have spent their best strength upon the monster, but they still had strength to crush him. Reluctantly, he drew back again into hiding and prepared for what would be the hardest hours. Now, in spite of fatigue, he must keep awake to watch and listen for the rescue party; more, he must watch and listen for the moment when Ann might need him.
Where he stood was all darkness now, a safe hiding place from which to watch Kong's ascent to the ledge. Slowly, by pushing foot and lifting hand, the beast-god made his way. There was no path, but each jutting rock was good for a gain of feet. Driscoll marked the course and told himself that if need be he could climb it too.
Standing finally before the cave, Kong put Ann down between his feet. As she lay there, unmoving, he drew deep breaths. His strength came back with every inhalation. His head began to weave and his arms to swing. The arms swung higher and higher, and then they were at his chest drumming in a wild ecstasy while from his swelling throat there lifted a long peal of triumph.
High above, in the star-lit sky, a great birdlike monster soared and seemed to listen. Kong redoubled his cry and flung it upward, challengingly.
Driscoll, in the darkness below, saw Ann stir and sit erect. Uncertainly, she twisted around to look up toward the voice above her. Then she screamed, as she had screamed on the Plain of the Altar.
Kong broke off his own savage speech and looked down. In the faint light Ann was now no more than a shadow except where her dress was torn. There, however, her shoulder was white and softly gleaming. Kong squatted down. His hand went first to the foaming hair which he last remembered as brightly shining. He pulled it, as though puzzled that a thing could be so different, by night, from what it was by day. He fingered it, shook it off, and reached out to the inviting whiteness of the shoulder.
Ann screamed again. Kong snatched at her. His hand caught in her dress and the dress tore in his huge fingers. More whiteness was revealed. Kong touched the smooth revelation. He pulled again at the torn dress. Then, holding Ann tightly, he began to pluck her clothes away as a chimpanzee might clumsily undress a doll. As each garment came free into his hand, he felt it excitedly, plainly trying to find some connection between the frail tissue and the whiteness he had exposed.
Ann cried brokenly and Driscoll, darting out from his hiding place, began to climb up to the ledge. There had been no sign of a rescue party but he could wait no longer. His muscles were too tired to perform their usual service and he slipped again and again. Once he all but pitched back to the bottom. Breathless, he hung for a space, and then climbed again.