tion>Robert Ames Bennet
Into the Primitive
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4064066189839
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I WAVE-TOSSED AND CASTAWAY
CHAPTER II WORSE THAN WILDERNESS
CHAPTER IV A JOURNEY IN DESOLATION
CHAPTER V THE RE-ASCENT OF MAN
CHAPTER VII AROUND THE HEADLAND
CHAPTER X PROBLEMS IN WOODCRAFT
CHAPTER XI A DESPOILED WARDROBE
CHAPTER XII SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
CHAPTER XIII THE MARK OF THE BEAST
CHAPTER XIV FEVER AND FIRE AND FEAR
CHAPTER XVI THE SAVAGE MANIFEST
CHAPTER XVII THE SERPENT STRIKES
CHAPTER XVIII THE EAVESDROPPER CAUGHT
CHAPTER XX THE HURRICANE BLAST
CHAPTER XXI WRECKAGE AND SALVAGE
CHAPTER XXII UNDERSTANDING AND MISUNDERSTANDING
CHAPTER XXIII THE END OF THE WORLD
CHAPTER XXIV A LION LEADS THEM
CHAPTER XXV IN DOUBLE SALVATION
CHAPTER I
WAVE-TOSSED AND CASTAWAY
The beginning was at Cape Town, when Blake and Winthrope boarded the steamer as fellow passengers with Lady Bayrose and her party.
This was a week after Winthrope had arrived on the tramp steamer from India, and her Ladyship had explained to Miss Leslie that it was as well for her not to be too hasty in accepting his attentions. To be sure, he was an Englishman, his dress and manners were irreproachable, and he was in the prime of ripened youth. Yet Lady Bayrose was too conscientious a chaperon to be fully satisfied with her countryman’s bare assertion that he was engaged on a diplomatic mission requiring reticence regarding his identity. She did not see why this should prevent him from confiding in her.
Notwithstanding this, Winthrope came aboard ship virtually as a member of her Ladyship’s party. He was so quick, so thoughtful of her comfort, and paid so much more attention to her than to Miss Leslie, that her Ladyship had decided to tolerate him, even before Blake became a factor in the situation.
From the moment he crossed the gangway the American engineer entered upon a daily routine of drinking and gambling, varied only by attempts to strike up an off-hand acquaintance with Miss Leslie. This was Winthrope’s opportunity, and his clever frustration of what Lady Bayrose termed “that low bounder’s impudence” served to install him in the good graces of her Ladyship as well as in the favor of the American heiress.
Such, at least, was what Winthrope intimated to the persistent engineer with a superciliousness of tone and manner that would have stung even a British lackey to resentment. To Blake it was supremely galling. He could not rejoin in kind, and the slightest attempt at physical retort would have meant irons and confinement. It was a British ship. Behind Winthrope was Lady Bayrose; behind her Ladyship, as a matter of course, was all the despotic authority of the captain. In the circumstances, it was not surprising that the American drank heavier after each successive goading.
Meantime the ship, having touched at Port Natal, steamed on up the East Coast, into the Mozambique Channel.
On the day of the cyclone, Blake had withdrawn into his stateroom with a number of bottles, and throughout that fearful afternoon was blissfully unconscious of the danger. Even when the steamer went on the reef, he was only partially roused by the shock.
He took a long pull from a quart flask of whiskey, placed the flask with great care in his hip pocket, and lurched out through the open doorway. There he reeled headlong against the mate, who had rushed below with three of the crew to bring up Miss Leslie. The mate cursed him virulently, and in the same breath ordered two of the men to fetch him up on deck.
The sea was breaking over the steamer in torrents; but between waves Blake was dragged across to
