King Kong (1932) by Delos W. Lovelace

Author:Delos W. Lovelace
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-08-26T22:12:23.041000+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Stumbling toward the ravine, the weary survivors of the searching party showed none of the confidence which had been so high in them when they trotted away from the great gate. They were picked men. Every one had been proved more than ordinarily resourceful. Again and again when confronted with sudden danger they had revealed and sustained that high courage which is the adventurer's final salvation, more potent than any weapon. Cast away in any ordinary wilderness they would have boldly combined their wisdom and ingenuity and won out. But here, for the first time, they knew the meaning of utter helplessness. Of what use was such guile and wit as theirs against the huge fantastic beasts of this nightmare island? Their frail knives, too, were useless. As they ran it was borne home upon them that along with their rifles and bombs had sunk their last hope. Armed with these they could have fought on. Lacking them they were as helpless as the trapped tricerotop and its mate slowly smothering to death back in the morass. No one, not even the buoyant Jimmy, stood ready now to say that the odds were fifty-fifty.

Hard, sullen oaths dropped from their lips as they ran; not oaths of defiance, but the bitter, resentful bursts of men who have been enmeshed through no fault of their own and who see no way of escape.

Only Driscoll and Denham fought against this mood of surrender. Leading the tired flight the young mate cudgeled his brain for the trick which would help his weaponless hands to free Ann from her strange captor. Trailing in second place Denham ordered his wits to call up a picture of the trail they had taken out from the village. They must go back, if they could. One man must stay and try to keep track of Kong; but the others must go back for more rifles, more bombs. Then they would have a chance.

From the rear came the crash of a heavy body ploughing among the trees.

"That damned three-horned brute is hunting us," one of the crew called out.

"Wait, Jack!" Denham said as Driscoll started across the log. "We've got a minute. The tricerotop can't cross after us. And we've got to talk."

He sketched his plan in as few words as he could manage.

"Right!" Driscoll agreed. "I'll stay. You go for the guns and bombs."

"You'd better get across the ravine," Denham said. "But we won't cross unless we have to. If that brute back of us will only get it into his crazy head that we aren't the ones who hurt him we'll be saved a big walk."

As Driscoll started across the giant log Denham looked down. The ravine was very deep, with a thick deposit of mud and slime at the bottom. Alongside this reeking deposit, and indeed all the way up the steep sides, were narrow mouthed caves and long, jagged fissures in the rock. Denham looked up from all this to watch Driscoll's progress with silent anxiety.

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