CHAPTER XV
THE FLYING MEN
For a breath the boys stood petrified and then Billy hastily slippeda cartridge into the rifle he had taken from the dead slave-trader.But even as he did so the lioness curved her lithe body, as if herbackbone had been a steel spring, and launched her great formthrough the air.
That minute would have been Billy's last--for in his excitement hepulled the trigger before he had brought the rifle to his shoulderand the bullet whistled harmlessly into the air--but for a strangething that now occurred.
While the tawny brute was in mid-spring, her cruel claws outspreadto maul the unhappy reporter, a great spear whizzed straight at herand buried itself in her heart just behind the left shoulder. Witha howl of pain the brute fell short in her spring and, before shecould make another attack, Billy had reloaded and sent a bulletcrashing between her eyes. As the lioness rolled over dead, thetall form of a. savage sprung out of the jungle and stood for asecond gazing at the boys, as much astonished, it seemed, at them asthey were at him.
Billy, seeing that the best plan was to be pacific, threw down hisrifle and cried:
"Seesenab," (peace); the word be recollected hearing the big Kroomanuse the day that he attempted to take his unlucky photographs.
"Seesenah--white boys," replied the other, the latter words in fairEnglish and in a deep guttural tone, coming forward with the head ofhis other spear held downward in token of peace. "From where comethe white boys--what do they in our land?" was his next question.
"We are lost," explained Billy, "and we are also, blamed hungry," headded, in a burst of confidence.
The savage smiled and rubbed his stomach.
"That's the idea," cried the irrepressible reporter."Heap--empty--savee?"
The man leant over the dead lioness and, using his spear-point as askinning knife, rapidly stripped her of her hide. Then, swingingthe pelt over his shoulder he motioned to the boys to follow him.
"I don't know where the dickens he means to take us," confided Billyto Lathrop as they obediently trailed along behind, "but so long aswe get something to eat I'm so hungry that I don't care if we geteaten the next minute."
"That's just the way I feel," agreed Lathrop, "and anyhow he seemsto be a pretty decent sort. He saved your life, that's one thingsure."
"I guess I'll never make a mighty hunter," said Billy dolefully,"there was a chance to make real Bwana Tumbo shot and I missed it."
The savage stalked along in front of them for some distance tillthey suddenly emerged on a small clearing by a river bank, in whicha rough native camp had been pitched. The tents of grass occupiedby the hunters being of a peculiar conical shape, like the pointedcaps that used to be labeled "Dunce."
Much excitement was created by the arrival of the two boys and theircompanion, and the hunters crowded round the chums while their guideexplained with a wealth of gesture the incident of the killing ofthe lioness, and also the fact that the boys were very hungry.
Several of the men instantly filled wooden bowls with something froma pot that simmered over the fires and the bowls were thrust beforethe two ravenous boys. As there were no forks of course the boysused their fingers. But this did not interfere with their appetiteand after they had put away two bowls apiece the savages' opinion ofthem evidently rose considerably. Among the West African natives abig eater is esteemed as a mighty man. Lathrop was considerablyembarrassed, however, while he satisfied his hunger by the attentionthe hunters bestowed on his red hair. Several of them came upbehind him and rubbed their hands in it as if they imagined itpossessed some sort of medicinal value. Had any one at home daredto take such liberties with the boy's rubicund locks there wouldhave been a fight right away, but Lathrop felt that the best policyto assume in the present situation was silence, and as the old shipcaptain said to his mate, "dem little of that."
"I say, Billy," whispered Lathrop suddenly, as, after eating thestew, they watched the hunters piling their belongings into theircanoes, "you don't suppose they mean to fatten us up to eat us, doyou?"
"Well, we can't starve even if that is the reason," replied thepractical Billy, "but so far they seem friendly enough. They havenot even taken my rifle away."
"That looks encouraging, certainly," replied Lathrop; "if only weknew where Frank and Harry and good old Ben were we might find thisall very interesting, as it is though--"
"We've got to make the best of it," chimed in Billy, "come on. Seeold job-lots is signing to us to come down and get in a canoe."
"Whatever they mean to do with us they seem determined to make uscomfortable," remarked Billy, as the boys took their seats in acanoe in which skins had been piled to make an easy seat.
For most of that afternoon they paddled steadily up the brown river,the savages singing from time to time an unending sort of chant,that sounded like nothing so much as a continuous repetition of:
"I-told-you-so. I-told-you-so. I--told-YOU-SO."
"Hum," commented Billy, "if anyone had told me so I'd have stayed inNew York."
At length after what seemed endless hours of paddling and chantingthe river took an abrupt turn and the boys found themselves at thefoot of a steep cliff that towered up, it seemed, for six hundredfeet at least. It was formed of black basalt and was crowned with afringe of contrasting vegetation, but the most remarkable thingabout it was that its surface was literally honeycombed with smallholes from which, as the canoe cortege drew up, innumerable headswere poked.
An astonishing thing, however, about the men who scrutinized thelads from their lofty watch-towers, was that they were severaldegrees lighter in complexion than the boatmen and almost as whiteas the boys in fact. Their features, too, were different. As theboys looked in wonderment at this extraordinary dwelling-place andits equally strange inhabitants, Billy gave an excited shout:
"Great jumping horn-toads, look at that!"
One of the light-colored men had emerged from his, hole and with aslittle concern as if he were taking a walk had suddenly launchedhimself into space. But instead of falling to the ground or intothe river, as the boys had fully expected to see him do, he floatedgracefully to the opposite bank of the river with as little effortas a settling bird.
"Good land of hot-cakes, Lathrop, do you realize where we are?"almost shrieked the excited Billy.
"In the village of the Flying Men," stammered Lathrop, as, one afteranother, the inhabitants of the rock holes dropped from their aeriesand floated groundwards. As the boys watched they saw distinctlythat each man, from his wrist to his side, was possessed of a sortof leathery fiber like that of bat's swing, and that as their armswere of unusual length this fiber supported them in their downwardflights like a parachute.
"I'll never call any one a liar again as long as I live," choked outBilly, as one after another these strange beings gathered in achattering group on the river bank.
"But they can't fly upward," exclaimed Lathrop, pointing eagerly towhere some of the gliders, having swum the river, were nimblyclambering up a grass rope-ladder to their homes.
"Oh, gee! if I only had a camera," groaned Billy.
"It will be no use telling anyone about this even if we do get outof here, they'll say that we have had a rarebit dream."
"That's so," assented Lathrop, "and honestly, Billy, are you sure weare awake?"
"Sure," replied the reporter giving himself a vicious pinch, andexclaiming "Ouch!"
But there was no time to talk further. Their guide now came up tothem and jumping into their canoe paddled them to where the end ofthe rope-ladder dangled in the stream. He pointed upward for themto ascend. But Billy's curiosity would not let him mount before hehad asked a question.
"Who are these people?" he asked in, for him, an awed tone.
"Very old-time people," rejoined their guide. "We hunt for them,work for them. They the same as fetish."'
The boys mounted the ladder slowly.
Unused as they were to such a contrivance it required all theirnerve t
o keep on going up, as they swung at a higher and higheraltitude above the river. Neither of them dared to look down, asthey were certain that they would be overcome by dizziness.
With their eyes glued to the rock in front of them, they mountedwhat seemed to be endless rungs till at last they found themselvesat the top of the ladder and facing a large opening cut in the rock.
As they found out later, this was the main entrance to the dwellingof this strange community and from it various galleries and passagesbranched off to their separate dwelling-places. Each family livedin a rock house exactly adapted to the size of the circle. Therewere six stories, so to speak, of these dwelling-places, but theyall communicated, either by means of stair-ways cut in the rock orinclined galleries, with the main passage at the entrance of whichthe chums now stood.
Their guide, who was immediately behind them on the swaying ladder,took the lead as soon as the three stood side by side on the summit,and escorted them down the long passage. Before they started hetook from a bracket in the wall a kind of torch, made of someresinous wood unfamiliar to the boys. Striking piece of flintagainst his spear blade he soon produced light and holding the torchhigh above his head, so that its light shone on the walls, renderedglossy by the rub of uncounted ages of greasy elbows and bodies, heled the way down the passage. The boys could feel that afterwalking a short distance it took a sudden rise and yet further acool wind began to blow in their faces.
About a hundred yards from the spot where they first noticed the airstirring in their hair the boys and their guide emerged on a scenewhose beauty at first shock almost took the lads' breath away.
Before them stretched a fertile valley neatly divided into patches--eachhedged off in squares in which flourished all sorts of vegetables,including sweet corn and potatoes and several other less familiarvarieties. In pastures, fenced in with mathematical regularity byhedges of the African cactus thorn, herds of humped cattle were feedingcontentedly in the mellow glow of the setting sun, occasionally lowingsoftly, which latter made Billy, as he expressed it, "long for the oldfarm."
The Winged Men likewise cultivated, it seemed, fruits of many kindsand had also stockades in which poultry, of breeds strange to theboys, but undoubtedly sprung from the aboriginal African fowl, wereabundant.
It seemed as if they had struck a land in which the inhabitantslived an ideal life, surrounded as they were by every comfort andnecessity that one could imagine; but that even they were distressedby the raids of enemies transpired when the boys' guide, whose namethey had learned by this time was Umbashi, pointed to the west inwhich the setting sun was now kindling a ruddy glow and said:
"Sometime elephant come--then much trouble."
Of the full significance of those words, however, neither boydreamed as, after a supper of fresh corn, bitter melon, stewed deermeat and a dessert formed of some sort of custard they sank to sleepon their couches of skins, spread for them by Umbashi's direction ina vacant dwelling in the cliff face.
Their slumber senses carried them back to New York and Billy was inthe midst of escorting Umbashi in full war paint through the officeof the New York Planet, followed by hordes of joshing reporters andinquisitive office boys, who wanted to know whether he'd match hisdusky friend to fight Jim Jeffries, when he was awakened by Umbashihimself, who in a few words told him it was morning and time to getup and dress swiftly, as the King of the Flying Men wanted to seehim and his young companion at once.