Chapter 25

CHAPTER XXV--THE HEAD-HUNTERS

The morning's action had been settled the night before. Tudor was
to stay behind in his banyan refuge and gather strength while the
expedition proceeded. On the far chance that they might rescue
even one solitary survivor of Tudor's party, Joan was fixed in her
determination to push on; and neither Sheldon nor Tudor could
persuade her to remain quietly at the banyan tree while Sheldon
went on and searched. With Tudor, Adamu Adam and Arahu were to
stop as guards, the latter Tahitian being selected to remain
because of a bad foot which had been brought about by stepping on
one of the thorns concealed by the bushmen. It was evidently a
slow poison, and not too strong, that the bushmen used, for the
wounded Poonga-Poonga man was still alive, and though his swollen
shoulder was enormous, the inflammation had already begun to go
down. He, too, remained with Tudor.

Binu Charley led the way, by proxy, however, for, by means of the
poisoned spear, he drove the captive bushman ahead. The run-way
still ran through the dank and rotten jungle, and they knew no
villages would be encountered till rising ground was gained. They
plodded on, panting and sweating in the humid, stagnant air. They
were immersed in a sea of wanton, prodigal vegetation. All about
them the huge-rooted trees blocked their footing, while coiled and
knotted climbers, of the girth of a man's arm, were thrown from
lofty branch to lofty branch, or hung in tangled masses like so
many monstrous snakes. Lush-stalked plants, larger-leaved than the
body of a man, exuded a sweaty moisture from all their surfaces.
Here and there, banyan trees, like rocky islands, shouldered aside
the streaming riot of vegetation between their crowded columns,
showing portals and passages wherein all daylight was lost and only
midnight gloom remained. Tree-ferns and mosses and a myriad other
parasitic forms jostled with gay-coloured fungoid growths for room
to live, and the very atmosphere itself seemed to afford clinging
space to airy fairy creepers, light and delicate as gem-dust,
tremulous with microscopic blooms. Pale-golden and vermilion
orchids flaunted their unhealthy blossoms in the golden, dripping
sunshine that filtered through the matted roof. It was the
mysterious, evil forest, a charnel house of silence, wherein naught
moved save strange tiny birds--the strangeness of them making the
mystery more profound, for they flitted on noiseless wings,
emitting neither song nor chirp, and they were mottled with morbid
colours, having all the seeming of orchids, flying blossoms of
sickness and decay.

He was caught by surprise, fifteen feet in the air above the path,
in the forks of a many-branched tree. All saw him