Bride of the Serpent God | Page 5

hulk," he called out sharply. "I meant only for you to bring him to the river bank and throw him into the water, thus erasing all trace of his body. Quickly now, throw him over the side."
Helene fought at her bonds, and succeeded in straining her head up to plead with Basru. He ignored her tumbling words, and the two men nearest Ki-Gor, rose and caught hold of the Jungle Lord. Through reddened tear-wet eyes, Helene saw the natives lift the limp and unresisting Ki-Gor and toss him out over the low side of the war canoe. She heard the loud splash as he struck the water. Simultaneously, Basru's harsh voice called out a command and the boat jumped forward and with steadily increasing speed cut its way Upstream through the sluggish current.

II. - Amnesia
KI-GOR'S long heavy frame struck the water hard as the two natives threw him overboard. The flat shock caused an instinctive reflex in the jungle-bred giant, a sudden tightening of his muscles even though his mind was fogged deep in unconsciousness. The spark of life in this powerful man was not easily quenched. The will to live burned in him, conscious or unconscious, more strongly than it would in any civilized man, because this will, above all else, was the sustaining force which had brought him through innumerable seemingly hopeless situations.
The shock of the fall, the tensing of his muscles sent a faint glimmer of feeling along his stunned nerve centers. The cool water pressed further awareness into his numbed body, and then as he sank below the surface, the water bit into the deep gash on his head. This abrupt burning pain jerked Ki-Gor back to semi-consciousness. He awoke in choking blackness, and without reasoning, he threw his energies into an immediate, frenzied fight.
Where it would have seemed impossible for a normal man to have will or strength left for a struggle, Ki-Gor's jungle heritage rallied his waning energies. Flailing ponderously, gulping great quantities of water, he fought his head above the surface.
The big man's body was an agony of hurt and weariness. His eyes saw nothing. His lungs labored and fought to sustain his failing strength. But an inner force pushed him on, calling forth from his spent muscles another, and still another, effort. It was an eternity of time, a burning stretch of aeons, that he floated and sank, and floated again, until through luck, his own unseeing efforts, and the eddying movement of the slow current, he came into a shallow stretch of water near the bank.
Ki-Gor tried to walk in the shallow water, but his legs refused to sustain him. He stumbled and fell repeatedly, each time having even greater difficulty in rising again. But each time he did rise. He came finally to the low bank, and with one last mighty effort, he pulled himself up on the dry land, and fell face downward.
The big white man lay in a tumbled heap, his long body pressed into the gently waving growth of river ferns and grass. Blood from the ugly gash on his head ran down over his face and dripped on the warm earth. He slept the deep, black sleep of utter exhaustion and painful hurt. Africa's ever present clouds of venomous little insects sought him out and feasted their greed, but Ki-Gor, wrapped in black forgetfulness, was unconscious of their torturing bites. The slender shadows of the grass fronds steadily lengthened across his body as the sun departed westward in a hot and shimmering sky.
Shadows crept out from the great trees along the bank, and slipped over Ki-Gor to dull the surface of the water. A faint breeze sifted down the river and with it came night. A mist, gray and ominous, rolled along the river, gathering in density, and rolling out wetly over the banks. Still Ki-Gor lay unmoving in the damp grass, his breath coming with a hard deep regular rhythm. .
Once a large buck, followed by two does, came out of a lane in the forest, and on soundless feet in the soft turf, picked its way to water. With the man-scent blanketed by the mist, the daintily stepping feet of the buck were almost upon Ki-Gor before the wary creature sighted the white form. Instantly the animal froze, his nostrils swelling out in search of danger. Reassured by the absolute quiet of the white body, the buck soon swerved off to the left and continued to the water's edge, obediently followed by the two does.
The long night was merging into dawn when a lone jackal, after hours of luckless foraging for easy prey, came panting down to the river to fill its hungry belly with the cool water. The dirty, bedraggled, jungle scavenger picked its way along in the natural cringing gait of its