CHAPTER XVI
FOOLING AN ARAB CHIEF
"Frank, what do you make of it?"
"Harry, I don't know what to think."
"Ain't nuffin fer it but ter keep on hopin' fer the best, as thefeller said when they had a rope around his neck fer horse-stealingand was about to string him up."
The three--Frank and Harry Chester and Ben Stubbs--were standinground the charred remains of their once lively, well-equippedcamp--where they had arrived that morning at daybreak after atiresome night spent circling about in the moonlight trying tolocate it--and now the reason why they had failed to see the whitetents was fully apparent by their blackened sites.
"Billy and Lathrop have been carried off!" It was Harry who spoke.
"Beyond a doubt. I thought at first that the raid must have beenmade by cannibals, but cannibals do not carry rifles, as a rule, andlook here." Frank stooped and picked up half-a-dozen cartridges ofthe kind used by the Arab slave-traders.
"You know there were no shells like that in our party," he went on,"but I can see by the collection of empty shells in the place wherethe tent stood that Billy and Lathrop must have put up a hotdefense."
"Frank, do you--you don't think, do you--" Harry burst out.
"That they have been killed?" Frank finished for him. "No, I donot. Unless they fell in the fight and then we should have seentheir bodies down with the others by the river. No, it is my ideathat they have been carried off to be sold as slaves. They wouldhave a high market value you know."
Harry groaned.
"But don't you think there is a chance of our getting them back?"
Frank's face grew grave.
"Of course we are going to try every means in our power, but once inthe hands of that scoundrel Muley-Hassan it is doubtful if we eversee them again. There is only one thing for us to do."
"And that is--?"
"To get back to the Moon Mountains at once. But we have nogasoline."
This was a stunning blow; in the excitement their of fuel had notoccurred even to the farseeing Frank. They had had, as our readersknow, to leave most of their gasoline at the Moon Mountains in orderto lighten the aeroplane. Without it they could not move an inch intheir air-craft. Harry tested the tank. Only a few paltry gallonsremained--not enough to drive the aeroplane ten miles.
As the boys stood, struck dumb by the realization of the disasterthat had overtaken them, Ben Stubbs, who had been down to the riverbank, reappeared.
"Look here!" he exclaimed, holding out at arms length a long whitecloak. One glance at the garment was enough--it was an Arab articleof dress. There was no further doubt about it, then. Muley-Hassanand his men had carried off Billy and Lathrop.
"But that's not the most extraordinary part of it," went on Ben;"while there are half a dozen of the Arabs' canoes down there, thereare a lot of others, that must have belonged to a bunch of nativesfrom their shiftless look--and I could see the bare imprint of thesavages' feet in the mud, coming after the Arabs had trod aroundthere."
This was a new mystery. Apparently, then, a tribe of cannibals hadbeen on the trail of the Arabs who had carried off their two youngcompanions. This could only mean one thing, that they meant topunish the Arab slave-dealers for some outrage and, while this wouldhave been quite satisfactory to the boys under other conditions, asthings were it meant that there would be a fight in which bothLathrop and Billy would probably be seriously wounded, if notkilled. How wrong this surmise was we know, and it serves to showhow very wide of the mark it is possible for the constructors of atheory to steer.
And here for a time we will leave our despairing friends while we goback to the Moon Mountains.
The outline of the Golden Eagle II, in her flight to the river camp,had not faded out on the twilight sky, before, through the jungle atthe foot of the Moon Mountains, a strange figure pushed its way. Itwas Sikaso, but a changed Sikaso from the agile muscular black whohad wielded his axe with such terrible effect at the fight of theevening before. His ebony body was cut and scarred with the signsof his battle with the thorns and saw-bladed grasses of the denseforest, across which he had cut in desperate haste, scorning allpaths in order to warn the Boy Aviators and their chum Ben of therapid approach of Muley-Hassan. With that strange instinct thatwhite men in Africa recognize in certain of the natives as a sixthsense, the giant black had read in a fire kindled after the battle,that the boys were at that moment in the Moon Mountains, and had atonce set out--exhausted as he was--at top speed on the long journey.Only a man of his adamantine strength could have endured thehardships and it had fatigued even his iron frame, as was evident byhis stumbling footsteps as he made his way up the side of themountain--pausing from time to time as if to listen to thewhisperings of his mysterious instinct.
Billy and Lathrop, half inclined to accuse the old black in theirminds of base desertion, did him a gross injustice. After he hadseen the two boys taken prisoners, the old warrior had realized thathe could be of far more use to them at liberty than he would be ifmade captive by Muley-Hassan. Indeed there was no doubt in his ownmind that the Arab would put him to death instantly if he ever gothis hands on him. He had therefore built a fetish fire and in ithad made out distinctly Frank and Harry and Ben in their air-ship,encamped on the mountain-side, and had set out without delay at thepeculiar jog-trot by which the native bush-runners can cover dailyas much ground, and more, than a horse.
But the huge Krooman was doomed to as bitter a disappointment as theyouths he was in search of had experienced at their return to theriver camp. He found the spot on which the Golden Eagle had resteddeserted, but still urged on by his strange sense of locality hefinally stumbled upon the ivory cache.
"Um, big fight here," he mused to himself as he gazed about him atthe mangled bodies of the gorillas which showed black as ink on therocks in the sharp, brilliant moonlight. The heap of uncollectedivory was the next thing to attract his eye and with a gutturalgrunt the negro helped himself to a drink of water from his skin-bagwhile he sat down to ponder. He did not waste much time inreflection. Springing to his feet he vanished down one of the darkrecesses of the mountain-side and was gone about an hour. When hereturned he picked up an armful of the ivory--a load that would havestaggered three ordinary men--and, hefting it easily in his arms,vanished with it into the dark shadows. For two hours he workedsteadily and at the close of that period there was not enough ivoryleft about the cache to make a watch-charm of. Old Sikaso had founda new hiding place for the stuff the boys were compelled to leave.
Then he sat himself once more down on the rock, and leisurelysmashing to pieces with his inseparable axe, the wooden cover thathad been over the cache, he selected, with a good deal of care oneof the dead gorillas. Having found the one that seemed to suit him;he cut off from its flank a hunk of meat with his keen weapon andproducing a flint and steel soon had the meat toasting over a blaze.When it was done to his satisfaction he leisurely ate it and washedit down with a draught from his skin-bag. He then cooked severalmore pieces of gorilla meat which he tucked in his waist-band, andshouldering his axe and humming to himself his grim war-song, he setout at the same swinging dog-trot on his long trip to the riverbank. With the vitality common to such men, his brief rest andrefreshment had rendered his tired frame as vigorous as ever andthere was no trace of fatigue in the steady trot of the ebony figureas it plunged into the dark forest and vanished.
A second later, however, the figure reappeared as a noise of voiceswas heard drawing nearer down a forest trail. Throwing himself onhis face and lying as motionless as a fallen log, the Kroomanwatched as Muley-Hassan and his followers--almost worn out and sadlydiminished in numbers since their fight with the boys and with thecannibals--appeared. True, they had beaten the latter off, but atgreat loss to themselves, and the few men that now limped forward--urgedon only by the fierce voice of Diego and Muley-Hassan--appearedready to drop in their tracks from exhaustion.
"A hundred pounds of ivory to every man o
f you if we get therebefore they have cleaned the place out," the Arab was shouting byway of encouraging his men. Old Sikaso, with a grim chuckle,watched them make their way up the mountain-side and then laughedsoftly to himself as their imprecations of rage and fury broke outas they reached the cache--and found it empty!
Somewhat cheered by the vigorous Ben, who proposed to paddle downthe river to the nearest settlement himself the next day, if somenews were not heard of Billy and Lathrop, the boys were preparingfor bed that evening--the bed consisting of the floor of the GoldenEagle's stripped cabin--when they were startled by Ben holding up awarning finger.
"Hark!" he exclaimed eagerly.
The boys listened.
"There's somebody coming," were Ben's next words.
Sure enough drawing closer every minute they could hear a softpatter-patter coming down a jungle-trail and evidently, by thesound, heading for the camp.
"Who can it be?" exclaimed Frank in a low tone, not daring even tomention the wild hope that surged in his heart. For a minute hethought that it might be the missing chums, and that even Harry and,to a less degree, Ben, shared his thought he saw by their partedlips and tensely strained eyes.
In absolute silence they listened as the footfalls drew in towardthem, but not by even the wildest stretch of the imagination couldthey make out more than one man's footsteps.
Instinctively each member of the party raised his revolver as thebushes parted and from them tottered a man who was very evidently inthe last stages of exhaustion. The figure staggered forward to theaeroplane as the boys and Ben lowered their revolvers, seeing that,whoever the newcomer was there was no fear of violence from him. Itwas Ben who recognized him first:
"Sikaso!" he cried, as the figure crumpled up in a heap, completelyexhausted.
The boys rushed to the fallen man's side as they heard the name.They bathed the huge black's head with water and after a few minuteshe opened his eyes and recognized them with a faint smile. After hehad been given some nourishment he completely recovered from hisspell of weakness which he called:
"Big fool--all same woman," quite omitting to state that he hadtraveled almost eighty miles since the preceding midnight.
The boys sat late listening to what the black had to tell of theattack on the camp--of Professor Wiseman's treachery and death--andof the carrying off of the boys. Then Sikaso went on to gleefullyrelate, while they warmly clasped his mighty hands, how he hadhidden the rest of the ivory and how he had seen Muley-Hassan passon his way to the rifled hiding place.
"But Billy and Lathrop, Sikaso, tell us quick, were they withMuley-Hassan?"
The black shook his head slowly.
"No see Four-Eyes--no see Red Head," he said sorrowfully.
The last ray of hope concerning the fate of the two youngadventurers seemed to have been extinguished.