Dracula of the Apes 3, стр. 35
Once Seward went into the water, he had sunk as deep as he could. The old ranger was pretty banged up by then, so he had no trouble faking a state of lifelessness—and for the first few seconds he’d actually thought that perhaps he had reached the end of his days.
But there was a strong cool current that pulled south out past the natural bulwark of broken rocks jutting out where he fell in, and this took him quickly along, and far enough from the Lancet that he could rise up and catch a breath of air without the mutineers seeing him in the chop.
Eventually, he’d lost sight of his companions as he drifted behind the stones.
He had other things to worry about anyway, since he was bleeding in several places and he had read about sharks and other man-eating fish that swam in the African coastal waters.
Regardless, Seward dove down and let the current carry him along again, always south, through waters that showed a rocky bottom with lots of colorful fish.
On his third time to the surface, he had seen distantly and with great relief that the mutineers had turned the ship about. Thick black smoke pumped from its funnel, and he gauged that they were steaming hard to the west.
The ranger had considered that a positive sign, suggesting that the mutineers no longer had the stomach to retrieve the women.
Seward remembered his fists connecting hard with more than a couple skulls, and he had broken enough bones over his career to know that he’d seriously demoralized the bandit crew, and likely shortened a few lives.
They had probably decided to cut their losses.
Seward’s own injuries must have been playing on him too, because he had blank spaces in his recollection of his time in the water before finally crawling out of the ocean much farther south than he knew.
He had been exhausted and there wasn’t a square inch of him that did not hurt, so he limped up the beach to find the first tree he could climb where he could rest. Seward knew he’d need his strength if he was going to try to find the Quarries.
So, he spent the rest of that day and the night high up on a stout branch with his arms wrapped around the Peacemaker—wishing he was a younger man.
At sunup, he had barely been out of the tree when he saw a 3-foot snake coming up out of the water. The old ranger had made a dive for the serpent and lopped off its head with his knife since there was no sense in wasting a bullet on breakfast.
The slippery varmint was of a variety of snake he’d never seen before, though uncooked, it tasted as good as any raw snake could—which wasn’t saying much. He washed it down with rainwater that had collected in big bowl-like leaves at the jungle’s edge.
Then he had headed north along the beach, hoping he’d see some hill or tree that he’d recognize from when he was drifting the day before.
He did come across a set of naked human footprints around midday which set his nerves on end. Seward still hadn’t fired his gun, and he didn’t want to test the cartridges’ dryness in a fight.
Just the same, he had his knife, and proof that there were people about had goaded him to search the flotsam along the way until he found a good-sized piece of weathered hardwood that he could use as a club.
The ranger had been more than willing and in the mood for a fight, though it had been years since he’d tangled with a real savage. He’d read stories about the black warriors of Africa, and figured them to be similar to the warlike Comanche he’d helped to subdue in his early years of rangering.
He couldn’t imagine they’d be any harder to kill than an Indian, and now that his blood was up a part of him almost looked forward to meeting one and seeing if that was true. Surviving against the odds had a way of bringing out the best in him, just as action made him crave more action.
Seward had been only too happy to move Lilly, the Quarries and their help the hell out of London. By reading between the rattlin’ sabers, he was certain that war could break out in Europe at any time now that the German Kaiser was putting on airs and talking tough.
Of course, what Seward had read about South Africa gave little comfort since that country was not long out of its “Boer” Wars and old grudges were smoldering and sending up sparks, and what with the Afrikaner fellows itching to run riot over the land no matter what the British had to say about it.
At 62 years of age, the ranger still preferred action to tea parties, but outright war was a bit more trouble than he liked, especially with the Quarries under his protection.
He preferred life in Texas where he knew the dangers and delights, and now that all the Indians were in reservations or sent off to their happy hunting grounds the threats were of a manageable variety.
When the retired ranger had first heard that old “Gusher” Quarrie needed a bodyguard, he had jumped at the opportunity. Gusher was a well-known patron of the rangers, and made sizeable donations to be sure the lawmen were properly mounted and armed.
“I don’t mind working for Gusher,” Seward had told an old compadre who’d been joshing him about going to seed. “Not every rich man knows the name of the fellow guarding his livestock.”
The old ranger spent years as Gusher’s bodyguard until Quarrie’s fortunes exploded like one of the striking wells for which he was named. Seward had known something was up when he’d been asked to hire on a couple former lawmen that could