WEAKENED by the terrific loss of blood from his many wounds Jan did not recover consciousness for some time. When he did, he noticed that beneath him there was some thing softer and more pleasant to lie upon than he had ever felt in his life before. Borno, who squatted near him watching anxiously, had brought one of his own blankets to throw over the rough excelsior.
As Jan opened his eyes, Borno talked soothingly to the youth, who lay there, too sick to show either resentment or appreciation. Presently the Negro, who knew from experience the thirst that comes to the severely wounded, proffered the pan of water. Jan made a feeble effort to sit up, but his head swam and he sank back.
His huge hand gentle as that of a woman, Borno helped the youth to raise his head and held the pan to his lips. Jan drank eagerly, deeply—then looked his thanks at the big Negro and lay back once more, closing his eyes.
Borno rose and quietly left the room. Mounting the ladder, he met Santos
“Pardon, m’sieu’, but I don’ theenk zat boy need to be chain’,” he said. “He’s ver’ seeck boy.”
“Weeth our own eyes we saw what he did to Señor Grubb,” replied the captain. “Me, I would rather see el tigre loose on my ship.”
As Santos’s native language was Spanish and Borno’s Haitian Creole, the common ground was English, which both understood fairly well, as did the members of the mestizo crew, who were from Jamaica and Trinidad.
“Zat boy ees need planty sunlight—fresh air,” persisted Borne, “or he’s gone die.”
“Maybe you like to make the cage for heem on deck,” suggested Santos. “Then we can take off the chain.”
“I make ze cage, m’sieu’,” promised Borne eagerly.
And so it came about that in a few days, during which the Santa Margarita had sped steadily southward, Jan and Chicma were installed in an airy, sunlit cage on the deck, where they could breathe the fresh salt breeze, uncontaminated by the scent of bilge water, mildewed excelsior, and the lingering ghosts of previous smelly cargoes which haunted the hold.
Borno insisted on not only feeding, but personally attending to the wants of the boy and ape. And both soon became so friendly toward him that he could enter the cage without fear of attack, although if Santos, the steward Audrey, or any of the others approached the bars they met with unmistakable signs of hostility.
From the start, Borno attempted to establish communication with the boy through speech, using broken English rather than his Haitian Creole, as it was the language spoken on the ship. Failing in this, he resorted to simple words and signs. It was not long before he found that Jan only knew four words: his own name, that of Chicma, and “Mother! Kill!”
The big Negro then set out to teach him to speak, and with considerable success. Despite his former lack of human association, Jan had a quick, bright mind, and once he discovered the purpose of the Negro’s patient drilling, was eager to learn. Each day he added a few words to his meager vocabulary, which, when Borno was away, he took great pleasure in repeating over and over again to Chicma, much to her puzzlement.
From a number of tanned jaguar skins, which had been rejected by New Orleans fur buyers because of shot holes and other imperfections, Borno fashioned three garments. Understanding the imitative nature of Jan and Chicma, he entered the cage and put on one which he had made for himself. He did this several times before Jan followed his example and donned the garment which Borno had given him. Several days later Chicma also put on her jaguar skin. And within two weeks all were wearing them.
Borno tried taking his off, but this wouldn’t work, for each time he did this the youth and ape promptly removed theirs. So he was forced to go about in his primitive attire, much to the secret amusement of the other members of the crew—secret, because they all feared the mighty thews of the giant Negro.
The captain said that as soon as they made port the exhibition would commence. Borno was to represent an African savage who had assisted in the capture of the chimpanzee and wild boy in their native haunts. Santos was composing a colorful and highly imaginative ballyhoo to be used as soon as he could get a tent erected in the first South American port.
But before they could make port there was an unforeseen occurrence which the carefully laid plans of the embryo showman had not included.
Borno was returning from feeding his two charges, when he encountered Santos, very much agitated. The sails were flapping idly—barely moving the ship through the water.
“Peste!” he said. “I don’ like! That damn’ barometer she’s drop to beat hall”
“I sink a storm ees come, man capitain,” replied the Haitian. “Borno smell it in ze air.”
“Me, I know it too damn’ well,” said Santos, savagely flinging his cigarette butt overboard. “Another day and we would ’ave made the port, but now—I don’ know.”
The storm struck two hours later, and so terrific was its force that, despite the fact that every bit of canvas except the jib had been tightly reefed, the foremast cracked and went by the board with the first impact. Santos ordered a small staysail rigged in front of the mainmast, but it was instantly torn to shreds and a seaman was lost.
This threw the ship completely out of control, had any slight measure of control indeed been possible in the swirling, foaming, roaring maelstrom of wind and water that followed.
A helpless plaything of wind and waves, the schooner twisted, turned, rose and plunged, cavorting obediently at the whim of its undisputed master, the storm. The decks were constantly awash, and despite the battened hatches much water leaked into the hold.
Penned in their cage, which was lashed to the mainmast, Jan and Chicma were overwhelmed by wave after wave of seething water. Jan nearly strangled on the first one, but after that learned to do his breathing during the intervals when his head was above water. Chicma seemed to know such things instinctively.
For hour upon hour the storm continued without slackening its violence. Then the forward hatch was ripped off by a huge wave, and water began pouring into the hold.
As suddenly as it had begun, the storm abated, but in the meantime the schooner had shipped so much water she was likely to go down at any minute. Knowing the hand pumps would be useless against this deluge, and feeling his ship sinking beneath his feet, the captain ordered a lifeboat launched, cursing luridly as he took his place in the stern.
Every member of the crew was aboard and the boat was ready to be launched, when Borno who stood in the prow, still wearing his jaguar suit, suddenly leaped back to the, deck.
“Zat boy!” he said. “I mus’ turn heem loose!”
“Come back, fool! ’Ave you gone loco?” roared Santos. “We ’ave no time!”
“I mus’ save zat boy,” replied Borno, whipping his heavy machete from his belt as he hurried toward the cage.
“Es wan damn’ fool,” shouted Santos, to no one in particular. “Lower away.”
There was a creaking of davits, a whining of rusty pulleys and the boat splashed to the water. Heavy oars wielded by brawny arms pushed it away from the ship’s side. The lifeboat disappeared in the trough of a huge wave, rose on the crest of another, disappeared once more, and was soon far from the ship.
But Borno had not even looked back to note its progress, as intent on his mission of mercy, he chanted a prayer to Ogour Badagris, the Voodoo storm god, and started on his perilous way to the cage. Though still lashed to the mainmast, it had broken some of the ropes and was sliding around on the slippery deck with each lurch of the ship.
Twice the huge Negro was knocked flat by the rushing waters, and twice he regained his feet before he reached his objective. He did not pause to open the wet knots which held the door in place, but slashed them with his machete. As he flung the door wide an immense wave swept over the ship and the last lashing broke. The cage, with its two occupants still inside and Borno clinging to one of the bars, was carried overboard.
As the huge wave swept the cage into the seething water, Jan held his breath, hopefully awaiting the opportunity to breathe which had always come in a reasonable length of time before, and clinging to one of the thick bars. But this time it seemed to him that the opportunity would never be forthcoming. His lungs began to hurt; the pain became intense torture. Involuntarily he took a breath, and the torture was magnified a thousandfold as several ounces of salt water rushed into his lungs. Then, blessed relief just in time, the bar to which he was clinging rose above the surface of the water.
Strangling and choking, he inhaled great lungfuls of air. Clinging to a bar beside him, Chicma seemed to be in like case. And swimming beside the floating cage, gripping its door with one huge black hand, Jan saw Borno.
The cage was floating bars up, its opened door swung outward over the edge and causing one side to sag. Jan tried to climb out through the door, but before he had half of his body out of the water the entire cage went under, ducking Chicma. He subsided into the water once more, and the bars of the cage emerged. Chicma chattered angrily, and Borno told him to “Keep down.”
Thereafter Jan held his head only above the surface of the water that sloshed about in the cage. Borno continued swimming with one hand while he held to the door with the other.
Presently Jan heard a roaring sound that seemed familiar. Then he remembered the sound he had heard shortly before his first sight of salt water—the roaring of breakers on a beach. He wanted to raise himself once more to look out, but the memory of his last experience restrained him.
The roaring grew louder, and great foamy waves began sweeping over the cage, rocking it violently. Suddenly the bottom struck something solid, and with its two startled and half drowned occupants still clinging to the bars, turned over and over. It stopped with the bars down, half full of water, waves spanking against one side. Jan and Chicma sat there in the water, barely able to see the interior of their prison by the dim light that filtered through the cracks between the planks.
Above the roaring and slapping of the waves Jan heard a thudding sound. Presently more light came in, and the blade of Borno’s machete flashed downward again and again, cutting a great V in one of the planks. To Jan, sitting there in his soggy prison, the time seemed interminable before the board was cut in two.
Borno sheathed his weapon and, seizing a half of the plank, pulled it toward him, bending the spikes that held it at the corner. Jan and Chicma quickly squirmed through the opening, and the three, hurled forward again and again by the breakers that raced in from behind them, quickly reached a white, sandy beach.
Apparently exhausted by his efforts, Borno threw himself on the sand. Chicma, also, squatted on the beach to rest. She was quite old for a chimpanzee, and her recent experience had tired her. But Jan, save for a slight soreness in his lungs and nasal cavities from the salt water: he had inhaled, was feeling not only fit but ravenously hungry.
Just above the matted jungle growth that fringed the beach, three coconut palms reared their crowns, dangling their fruit invitingly. With a wordless cry of delight, Jan plunged through the undergrowth toward them. He was about to spring up the nearest tree, when two powerful brown hands, reaching from behind him, suddenly gripped his throat.
Unable to cry out because of the strangling pressure on his windpipe, Jan was dragged, kicking and struggling, back into the dark depths of the South American jungle.