The Savage Gentleman Read Online Free PDF Page B

faces.

    Stone stepped from cover and whistled. The heads shot up. They stared in stony immobility at the men. But when the men did not make any further sign, they recommenced their browsing.

    "That doesn't look as if there were natives," Stone murmured.

    "Shall we get one?"

    "On the way back."

    "Will it be safe to cross the plain? Maybe they'll charge."

    Stone considered. Finally he began walking toward the animals. They gave him a casual attention until he was within a hundred yards, then, slowly, they began to walk away from him.

    "It's all right," Stone called, and, with the sound of his voice, the zebu-oxen increased their walk to a lumbering trot.

    Stone and McCobb went across the grassy plain gaily.

    "Meat," Stone almost shouted. "By George! McCobb, there's fine meat there. And I wouldn't be surprised if you could domesticate the damn things. Milk them, maybe."

    "And the hides. So far," McCobb said exultantly, "I've seen only monkey fur for our feet. But we can make real leather out of those hides and real shoes. Chaps, too, and boots."

    They plunged into the green ring which encircled the base of the mountain. It was difficult to cross, filled with boulders which had dropped down the steep sides, and thick with a long-thorned brier.

    Snakes lived among the rocks, but already they had learned not to waste ammunition on snakes. A staff five or six feet in length served their purpose.

    They sweat and toiled over the uneven ground, making their way constantly upward. The discovery of the animals on the plain had led them to expect many more surprises. And, with the moment near when they would know the precise size and shape of their island, they felt an increasing tension.

    McCobb, especially, held in his mind a picture of an islet three miles in diameter, of which every nook and cranny could be explored in a few days and which would furnish nothing afterward to break the monotony of their long confinement. His hopes alternately triumphed over and fell prey to his fears. When they had finally worked their way through the green belt and could look back, he turned his head with an unbearable emotion.

    He was depressed. The treetops fell away steeply below them. The plain of the zebus was perhaps a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. Beyond it, and farther north, was the forest that ran to the shore, a blue blur coiling from the chimney of the house which made a white square in the trees, a glint of bay, a view of the stern of the Falcon, looking from the mountain-side like a toy, and the sea. To the west, cliffs fell into the sea.
    A shoulder of the mountain shut out the view eastward and the bulk of the mountain itself lay between them and the south.

    "It's gorgeous," Stone said thoughtfully.

    "Yes," McCobb replied. "Let's get up to the top."

    They scrambled up igneous ledges. They paused to marvel at huge, weather-worn outcroppings of crystals. They skirted a precipice that was fully a hundred feet in height and they came to a rocky shelf where nothing grew and from which, they knew, the top would be reached by a moment's effort.

    They stopped.

    McCobb looked at the pinnacle above.

    "Give you a leg up," Stone said.

    The Scot shook his head. "No. I'll boost you. I haven't the courage to look for myself."

    Stone understood. "It may be a terrible disappointment," he admitted. "I'll go."

    McCobb bent down and Stone stood on his back. McCobb felt the pressure of the feet diminish and depart. He shut his eyes.

    There was a silence so long that McCobb could not endure it.

    "What do you see?" he called.

    "Come on."

    Stone's face appeared at the edge of the short declivity and McCobb knew by its expression that it was not disappointment which awaited him. He took the down-reaching hands and was lifted bodily onto a little, flat summit.

    He looked from the sitting posture in which he had arrived. He gasped. He swore softly.

    The entire island spread beneath their gaze. It was the shape of a sting ray