Under the Andes eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 335 pages of information about Under the Andes.

Under the Andes eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 335 pages of information about Under the Andes.

From every side I heard it—­closer, closer—­until finally I felt the hot, fetid breath in my very face.  My nerves quivered in disgust, not far from terror.

I sprang to my feet with a desperate cry to Harry and swung toward him.

There was no answering sound, no rush of feet, nothing; but I felt my throat gripped in monstrous, hairy fingers.

I tried to struggle, and immediately was crushed to the ground by the overpowering weight of a score of soft, ill-smelling bodies.

The grasp on my throat tightened; my arms relaxed, my brain reeled, and I knew no more.

Chapter VII.

The fight in the dark.

I returned to consciousness with a sickening sensation of nausea and unreality.  Only my brain was alive; my entire body was numb and as though paralyzed.  Still darkness and silence, for all my senses told me I might have been still in the spot where I had fallen.

Then I tried to move my arms, and found that my hands and feet were firmly bound.  I strained at the thongs, making some slight sound; and immediately I heard a whisper but a few feet away: 

“Are you awake, Paul?”

I was still half dazed, but I recognized Harry’s voice, and I answered simply:  “Yes.  Where are we?”

“The Lord knows!  They carried us.  You have been unconscious for hours.”

“They carried us?”

“Yes.  A thousand miles, I think, on their backs.  What—­what are they, Paul?”

“I don’t know.  Did you see them?”

“No.  Too dark.  They are strong as gorillas and covered with hair; I felt that much.  They didn’t make a sound all the time.  No more than half as big as me, and yet one of them carried me as if I were a baby—­and I weigh one hundred and seventy pounds.”

“What are we bound with?”

“Don’t know; it feels like leather; tough as rats.  I’ve been working at it for two hours, but it won’t give.”

“Well, you know what that means.  Dumb brutes don’t tie a man up.”

“But it’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible.  But listen!”

There was a sound—­the swift patter of feet; they were approaching.  Then suddenly a form bent over me close; I could see nothing, but I felt a pressure against my body and an ill-smelling odor, indescribable, entered my nostrils.  I felt a sawing movement at my wrists; the thongs pulled back and forth, and soon my hands were free.  The form straightened away from me, there was a clatter on the ground near my head, and then silence.

There came an oath from Harry: 

“Hang the brute!  He’s cut my wrist.  Are your hands free, Paul?”

“Yes.”

“Then bind this up; it’s bleeding badly.  What was that for?”

“I have an idea,” I answered as I tore a strip from my shirt and bandaged the wound, which proved to be slight.  Then I searched on the ground beside me, and found my surmise correct.

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Project Gutenberg
Under the Andes from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.