Albert DeWitt, a South African miner, has a daughter, Anna. Charles Egbert, a young prospector, passes the miner’s home and meets Anna. In the course of time Egbert learns through the girl that the old man has quite a score of valuable rough diamonds. Egbert obtains the diamonds and runs away with them and Anna. The father is grief-stricken, and finally goes in search of his daughter. Egbert and the girl become lost in the jungle. He builds a small hut for temporary shelter for them, for the girl has developed a fever which grows rapidly worse. Egbert, seeing she cannot live, deserts her. After days of horrible suffering, Anna dies. A year passes. One day, while riding along the road at the foot of a cliff, a hunter and Egbert see what is apparently a wild man poised on the edge of the cliff, in the act of raising a huge rock to hurl down upon him. Just as the rock leaves his hands the ground upon which the wild man is standing gives away and he is pitched forward and falls to the bottom of the cliff. Though unconscious, the man still lives, so Drake picks him up and carries him away to his cabin. The fall has restored the old man’s memory, which for the past few years has been an utter blank. He tells his story to Drake and his partner. It is the story of the elopement of his daughter years ago. Into the face of Drake’s partner comes a look of horrified terror as he stares at the face of the old man. We then get a flash of the old man searching for his beloved one. He is seen wandering through the jungle. Darkness overtakes him. Morning dawns. Through worry and the terrors he has experienced the old man has lost his memory and his reason. The old man makes friends with a baby leopard, which, when grown, shares his prey with the old man, even as the old man shares with the leopard what food he may himself obtain. The old man tells how that day he had been roaming about in search of food, when suddenly far below him he saw a horse and rider. Instinctively he sought to kill them. He was about to hurl a rock down upon them, when - Here the story fades back to the scene showing the old man lying unconscious at the foot of the cliff, of Drake hastening to aid him and of the old man regaining consciousness. As the old man finishes his story Egbert is seen to start with a look of guilty fear. Drake busies himself with the old man, while Egbert, casting fearful glances toward the old man, steals over to the corner of the room and reaches out his hand for the bag of diamonds in their hiding place. But just as he is about to touch it a vision fades in, showing Anna, the poor, deserted sick girl, dying of fever and thirst on the rude bed in the jungle hut. The vision fades away, leaving Egbert faint and sick with horror. When the story is all told the old man lays back on the bed, weak and exhausted. As he lies there, there fades in a vision of Mary’s spirit as it appeared when leaving her body in the little hut. She reaches out her arms toward her father and he weakly holds out his arms to her, then he dies. As he dies, his spirit is seen to leave his body and float toward the spirit of Anna. Meanwhile the old man’s pet leopard strikes a scent. He follows the trail down the hill, stops at the foot of the cliff where the old man had lain and finally goes to the cabin where Drake carried the old man, and then into the room where the still form is lying on the bed. The leopard jumps up onto the bed and lies down beside the body of his old comrade and friend. Egbert leaves the cabin and stumbles aimlessly along. In the path ahead of him there appears the vision of Anna’s spirit, seeming to lead him ever on and on. He comes to a stream and gets into a canoe which is lying near the shore. As he drifts idly down the stream, the spirit of Anna can be seen floating slowly ahead of him, leading him on. A scene fades in showing a waterfall, with ragged rocks below. Then it fades out and again is shown a scene on the stream, with Egbert drifting silently and aimlessly along in the little canoe. Next morning, with the break of dawn, an upturned canoe is found on the rocks below the waterfall, and with this scene the picture closes. |
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Ratings: | IMDB: No rating yet | |
Released: | June 24, 1916 | |
Genres: | Short Western | |
Countries: | United States | |
Companies: | Bison Motion Pictures | |
Cast: | Rex De Rosselli Edythe Sterling Colin Chase | |
Crew: | Rex De Rosselli Jay Hunt Allen Watt | |
ffRyDe'85 : Pretty tired of Jack Black. Good movie for the family I guess.