CHAPTER VI
A SNAP-SHOT FIEND IN TROUBLE
The morning after the events recorded in the last chapter was one ofthese sparkling ones that are occasionally to be met with on theWest African coast and was the forerunner of a day of great bustleand activity for the boys. With the vitality of healthy youth Harryhad completely recovered and was indeed surprised to find himselffeeling so good after what he had been through. Privately heinspected his hair in the mirror to see if it had turned white andwas secretly much astonished to find it the same color as before.
"I wish mine would turn white or potato color or something," saidLathrop, to whom Harry confided his expectation, "this red thatch ofmine is a nuisance. At school I was always Brick-top or Red-Headand out here the natives all look at my carrot-colored top-knot asif they'd like to scalp me and keep it for a fetish."
Both boys laughed heartily over Lathrop's half-assumed vexation. Asa matter of fact he had been the butt of many jokes in school onaccount of his blazing red hair and in Africa the natives with theirlove for any gaudy color had already christened him Rwome Mogo orRed-Top. Of this, however, he was fortunately ignorant, as he mighthave been tempted to go out and dispatch half a dozen of them if heknew of their term for him.
Down at the river bank, cross the evil-smelling lagoon at the backof the town, Frank and Harry had their hands full directingshouting, laughing Kroomen how to load up the canoes. From thecanopied steam launch that lay alongside the rickety wharf the blackengineer--an American Negro--watched with great contempt theirlabors, which they enlivened with songs from time to time.
"Them's de mos' good fur nuffingest niggahs I ever did see,"remarked Mr. Rastus Johnson--that was his name--with undisguisedcontempt.
Nevertheless by noon the canoes had all been leaded and thefarewells to the kind M. Desplaines and his family said. After aswift final inspection Frank pronounced everything ship-shape andeven Doctor Wiseman who had been fussing about as Billy said "like ahen with one chicken--and that a lame duck," over his tin cases andpoisonous looking bottles, announced that he was ready to start.The twelve chattering Kroomen who were to go as far as the Bambaracountry with the expedition were seated two in each canoe. Theywere along simply as camp attendants and packers and would by nomeans go any further than the borders of the Bambara country whichthey said was the dwelling-place of "bery bad man sah."
Just as the little launch, flying the stars and stripes out ofcompliment to the boys, was drawing out into the stream with a longblast of her whistle, a tall, black form came racing along the bankand with one bound cleared the five feet or so between the launchand the shore. It was Sikaso.
"So you came after all," said Frank, turning to him, after a bend inthe river had hidden the waving Mr. Desplaines from sight and theywere settling down in the launch.
"Sikaso see in the smoke I come--I come. If I see in smoke I nocome--I no come," remarked the Krooman.
"He's traveling light anyhow," remarked Billy.
Indeed the giant negro's only bit of baggage was a huge axe, thehandle of which was dented and scarred as if by many combats. Billywas about to run his thumb along its edge when with a gesture themighty negro waved him aside. Instead he took Billy's handkerchieffrom the young reporter's pocket and drew it gently along the axeblade.
It fell in two pieces on each side of his blade, severed by itsrazor-like edge.
"Sikaso is a good fellow to be friends with when he can make littleones out of big ones like that," remarked Billy, picking up the twofragments of his handkerchief, "that's a fine way to cut up agentleman's wardrobe."
Bit by bit as the launch drove steadily up the muddy river--fromwhose jungle-grown banks arose a warm, moist vapor--Frank drew fromthe grim-faced old Krooman some of his history. He had been amighty warrior in the old days, he said, and the weapon he carriedwas his war axe with which he had killed uncounted enemies. A rivaltribe, however, had killed his father and mother and driven him tothe coast with the few survivors of his village. Here he hadshipped on an American trading brig for New York where he had pickedup the knowledge of English he possessed. He also worshiped Americaas "free man's country." But Africa had called to him and somethree years before he had returned on another ship and meant to diethere, he said.
"Why did you wish to go with us?" asked Frank as the nativeconcluded his story.
"It was written so in the smoke, white boss," replied the veteransimply. "The ju-ju in the smoke strong ju-ju. He knows manythings."
"Is that the only reason you have for coming?"
"No, boss, I tell you truth," replied the old warrior, "some day Ifind the chief who kill my father and my mother and kill myfriends." He glanced significantly at his axe.
"In the Moon Mountains maybe I find him--maybe not. But some day Ishall and then--"
He said no more, but as Frank remarked to Harry when the formerrecounted his conversation to his brother later:
"I shouldn't much like to be that man when Sikaso meets him."
The launch and the small flotilla she towed forged steadily up thestream all that day and at nightfall drew alongside the bank at aspot where a clearing planted with bananas clearly indicated thepresence thereabouts of a native village. As soon as the launch wasmoored to the bank the adventurers scrambled out--not sorry of achance to stretch their legs--and looked about them wonderingly.They were really in equatorial Africa at last, and even as theylooked there was a sound borne to their ears that brought home tothem strongly how very far away they were from old New York. It wasa pulsing, rhythmic beating something like a drum and yet unlike it.They looked questioningly at Sikaso.
"Tom-tom," said he briefly.
"Is it a friendly village, Sikaso?" inquired Doctor Wiseman.
"Friendly to some--not to all," replied the Krooman, who for someunaccountable reason had taken a strange dislike to the professor."Come," he said, intoning to Frank and Harry, "we go see getchicken, maybe pork."
"Say, can't we come along, Frank?" asked Billy and Lathrop theirfaces falling.
Frank consulted Sikaso who merely said:
"Little fat white boy, with round, glass four-eyes talk too much."
"Well," laughed Frank, "I think I can promise for him that he won'tdo any talking that will cause any harm this evening."
"Talk too much, indeed," grumbled Billy highly offended, "why athome my folks were thinking of having a doctor treat me forbashfulness I'm so retiring in my disposition."
As soon as the laugh that this remark of the disgruntled reporterhad caused had subsided--even old Sikaso giving a grim smile as hetook in the purport of it--the little party set out down a nativetrail toward the village.
As the tom-tom beating increased in loudness as the village drewnear, the boys' hearts began to beat a little faster. At last theywere about to see a real African village--such as they had readabout in Stanley's and Livingstone's books--and other less authenticvolumes. They almost stumbled on the place as they suddenly emergedinto a clearing. It was a strange sight that met their eyes.
Arranged in a circle were fifty huts that resembled nothing so muchas a collection of old-fashioned straw covered beehives, enlarged toshelter human bees. All about them women and children werebustling; setting about getting the evening meal. Before one hutsat a woman, pounding something in a stone pestle--"like thedrugstore men use at home,"--whispered Lathrop to Billy.
The arrival of the little band created a stir. The hideous old man,with a sort of straw-bonnet, who had been beating on the antelopeskin drum called by Sikaso a "tom-tom" saw them and instantly pickedup his instrument and waddled off with as much dignity as his ageand a much distended stomach would allow him. The younger men,however, advanced boldly toward the party. Some of them carried,spears, others held Birmingham matchlocks of the kind the Britishand French Governments have in vain tried to keep out of the handsof the West African natives. These guns are smuggled in byhundreds, by Arab traders who exchange the "gas-pipe" weapons worthp
erhaps two dollars a-piece for priceless ivory, and even humanflesh for the slave dhows.
"Seesanah (peace)," said Sikaso gravely, advancing in his turn.
"Seesanah," echoed the tribesmen, who evidently recognized Sikasofrom their greetings. The boys stood grouped in the background--BillyBarnes and Lathrop even viewing with some alarm the advance ofthe savage-looking natives.
"Well, he seems to have fallen in with several members of his club,"remarked the irrepressible Billy as old Sikaso and the nativestalked away at a great rate.
"I'm going to get a picture of some of these niggers when they getthrough," he continued aside to Lathrop.
"What; you brought a camera?" asked the other boy.
"Sure thing," replied Billy, "and if their ugly mugs don't break thelens, I mean to get some good snaps."
He drew a small flat folding camera from his pocket as he spoke andgot it ready for action.
"Do you think Frank would stand for it? It might make trouble youknow," said Lathrop.
"Pshaw," retorted the cocksure Billy, "what trouble can it make? Iwish I knew bow to say 'Look pleasant, please,' in Hottentot, orwhatever language these fellows talk."
By this time old Sikaso's 'pow-wow' was over and he motioned Frankand Harry forward. After they had been introduced to the chiefs andheadmen of the village, the "big chief," a villainous-looking oldparty with only one eye and his legs thrust into a red shirt--intothe armholes that is, with the rest of the garment rolled round hiswaist--announced he was ready to give fresh provisions for calico,red and blue, and several sections of the brass rod that passes forcurrency on the West Coast. While Frank, Harry and Sikaso werebargaining behind a hut, over the price to be charged for arazor-backed porker of suspicious appearance the village suddenlybecame filled with an uproar of angry shouts and tumult.
"What can be the matter?" exclaimed Frank, as the boys, followed bythe old chief and Sikaso, rushed from behind the hut to ascertainthe cause of the disturbance.
Standing in the center of a crowd of excited villagers was BillyBarnes, his helmet knocked off and an arrow sticking through it. Helooked scared to death as well he might, for by his side was astalwart young African, brandishing a heavy-bladed spear above hishead. At the young reporter's feet lay the ill-fated camera thathad caused all the trouble.
What had happened was this. As soon as Frank and Harry and theircompanions had left him and Lathrop alone, Billy had started tocarry out his determination to take some pictures. The firstsubject he selected was a serious-faced little baby, innocent of anyclothing, that sat playing with a ragged dog at, the entrance of oneof the beehive huts. He had just clicked the button and exclaimed:
"This will be a jim-dandy," when he felt something whistle throughthe air and the next minute his hat lay at his feet with an arrow init. In an instant the child's father--convinced that Billy wasputting Ju-ju medicine on the child--was upon him, armed with hisbig hunting spear and followed by half the village. EvenBilly--scared as he was--did not realize how very near to death heactually came to being. Sikaso's shouted words in a native dialectcaused the tribesmen to fall back but they still muttered angrily.
Stepping swiftly up to the camera Sikaso with a single blow of hisaxe smashed it to pieces.
"Here, that's no way to treat my camera!" Billy was indignantlybeginning, when Frank gripped his shoulder in an iron-clutch andwhispered:
"Shut up; if you don't want to make more trouble."
Billy was starting on an angry remonstrance when he caught Frank'seye. The young leader was really angry and Billy prudentlyrefrained from saying any more.
As for Sikaso--after demolishing Billy's machine, he turned to thetribesmen and addressing them in stately tones said--as he afterwardtranslated it to Frank:
"Village fools. You see there is no magic in the little black box.It is nothing but a child's plaything for the fat, spectacledidiot." (This part of the oration Frank did not communicate toBilly.) "You see I have smashed it. Do I fear? Do I look now likea man in terror of the white man's medicine. It is nothing. It isbroken and gone like the cloud before the wind, like the shadow onthe mountain side."
The effect of all this was soothing and the boys left the camp, toorder some of their packmen to bring home the provisions, with lighthearts. As for Billy his ears burned by the time Frank got throughreading him a lecture.
"I'm sorry," he said bravely, "and I won't do it again. Gee! talkabout 'press the button and we'll do the rest.'"
"They nearly did it--didn't they," laughed Frank, his good humorquite restored.