CHAPTER IX
THE VOICE OF THE MOUNTAIN
Frank's wound fortunately turned out to be nothing veryserious--though painful enough--and after it had been treated withantiseptics from the medicine chest he declared that, aside from thestiffness and soreness, he felt no ill effect.
"Those fellows certainly gave us a sample of what we may expect,"remarked Harry, examining the hole in his shirt where the arrow hadripped through.
"It was quite as narrow an escape as I care to experience," agreedFrank. "How about you, Ben?"
"Wall," said the old adventurer, "I don't know as how I think thatkind of excitement is as beneficial fer the health as the restcure."
Meanwhile the Golden Eagle, plowing through the clear African air atfifty miles an hour, rapidly drew nearer and nearer to themysterious Moon Mountains.
As they neared the range the extraordinary character of it wasrevealed more and more clearly. Seamed with deep gloomy abysses andalmost bare of vegetation, except a few scanty groves of palms andthe hardier tropical trees, they seemed indeed fitted to be thetheater of dark mysteries and the haunt of savage tribes.
"Well," exclaimed Harry, as he scrutinized the strange mountain massthrough the glasses, "I should say that if those Winged Men are tobe found anywhere, here is where they'd reside."
"I should think they'd use their wings to get out--a nastier lookinglot of mountains I never saw," was Ben's reply.
Frank made no comment, but the sinister character of the mountainsthey were so rapidly approaching impressed itself on his mindnevertheless. Eagerly he scanned the range for the first sign of"The Upturned Face." Harry and Ben, too, gave quite as eagerscrutiny toward the discovery of this striking mark of the ivory'shiding-place.
All at once it shot into view with a suddenness that made the boys'beads swim.
It was as clear as daylight. The line of the mountain for whichFrank had the Golden Eagle II now directly headed was unmistakablythe outline also of a hawk-nosed facet.
If the mountains themselves had an evil, menacing look, the stoneface possessed this same quality in an infinitely greater degree.
"Well, if we've got to go looking for ivory right under that facethe sooner we find it the better," exclaimed Ben. "I'd hate to beshipmates with the fellow who sat for that portrait."
"No human being ever sat for it, Ben," laughed Frank; "it's a merefreak of nature which has so disposed the mountain mass at thispoint as to give the semblance of what the map-maker terms TheUpturned Face."
"Well, if I had a mug like that I'd turn it down instead of upbefore some one did it for me," was Ben's comment.
The Golden Eagle landed on a plateau about halfway up the mountain,beneath the upturned face. It made an almost ideal camping-place,considering the rugged nature of their surroundings. In one part ofit a small grove of bananas and palms had taken root, and theirsmiling greenery offered a refreshing contrast to the darkoppressive gloom of the giant rock masses piled all about. From thecenter of this oasis in the rocky range bubbled a tiny spring ofwater as clear and cold as if it had been filtered and iced.Frank's first act was to send out a wireless to the River Camp,telling of their arrival.
"Well, thank goodness, we've got something green and pleasant tolook at," remarked Ben, as they set about transforming the chassisof the Golden Eagle into a comfortable tent by means of running upthe canvas curtains on the aluminum frames provided for thatpurpose. Thus equipped, the chassis served the uses of an improvedtent, as the floor was well above the ground and out of all dangerof the unwholesome, vapors rising from the ground and also thescorpions and other reptiles.
But if the oasis itself was a pretty spot, it was made doubly so bythe contrast it afforded to the scenery surrounding it. On allsides shot up frowning walls of rugged black rock which seemed tohave been torn and ripped in some remote period by a terrificconvulsion of nature. In places, too, the rock masses seemed tohave been seared by subterranean fires. Frank gazed upward at theterrific character of the scenery about them.
"We shall need the rope-ladder," he announced suddenly after a longsilence.
"The rope-ladder?" inquired Harry, "what for?"
Frank laughed.
"I mean the rope-ladder we use in the Golden Eagle. As you know,the only way to locate the cache is to strike a direct line downfrom the nose of the upturned face. That will bring us to the smallcairn or pile of rocks that marks the Arab's hiding-place."
"He could hardly have chosen a better," remarked Harry. "Who wouldever guess, unless they had the key to the mystery, that thesemountains held such a fortune in tusks."
The rest of that day was spent in overhauling the outfit which theywould need to use on their expedition of the morrow. Luckily theboots they wore had been fitted with "hob-nails" so that they wereideal for the tough climb that they had ahead of them. Each memberof the three was to carry a pick and of course they all were to bearmed, carrying several rounds of ammunition each in theircartridge-belts.
That night after a supper of fried ham, canned corn and pancakes--allcooked by the skilful Ben over a fire of wood collected from thelittle grove--Frank sent out a wireless to the members of the campon the river bank and felt much reassured when Lathrop's "Allwell--good luck," came back through the air. It was delightfullycool on the mountain-side after the oppressive fetid air of theriver and its neighborhood, and as Ben had remarked before theyturned in:
"Fine weather for sleeping."
But sleep would not come to Frank. He tossed and turned on histransom bed and several times gazed out into the night through thecanvas curtains. An unaccountable feeling of unrest possessed him.Could they get the ivory out of the cache before Muley-Hassan andhis band arrived by land?
Fast as they had traveled through the air Frank realized that theArab, who doubtless by this time had been informed by thetreacherous Diego of the boys' bold dash, would push on at furiousspeed in order to head them off. That he would come accompanied bya well-armed band Frank could not doubt. He and Harry and Ben couldonly put up a feeble resistance against such an attack. There wasonly one chance to secure the ivory and that was to get at it beforethe Arab arrived. It all depended then on how quickly they couldfind the cache. Frank lit the lantern and shielding it so that itwould not strike in the eyes of his sleeping brother, drew out themap and scanned it attentively.
Yes, here were the directions written in the queer hand ofMuley-Hassan's follower.
"A line from the nose straight down to the cairn of stones."
It seemed simple enough and certainly the nose of the Upturned Facewas as clearly to be made out as a ship at sea. But Frank had beentoo long trained in the hard school of adventure to underestimatethe difficulties of any piece of work. They faced a hard job andnone realized the fact better than the young leader.
At last he blew the lantern out and once more composed himself tosleep. He was just dozing off when a sufficiently startlinginterruption occurred. One which drove all further thoughts of restfrom his head.
It was an extraordinary sound that brought the boy out of his bedwith a bound and caused him to clutch his revolver with a heart thatbeat loud and thick in spite of himself.
Clutching his weapon the boy rushed to the door of the chassis tentand gazed out.
There was a bright moon which threw into inky blackness thedepressions of the rugged mountains and threw up their projectionsinto a blue glare. It was almost as light as day under thatwonderful African moon. Had there been any one near the boy musthave been able to see them.
But look as he would there was not a soul in sight. All about himstretched the barren frowning mountains sleeping under the moon.
But the sound that he had heard?
There was no mistaking it. It had been too like the low humming ofa human voice for him to have been misled. Perhaps he had beendreaming?
But as if to give the lie to any such supposition the strange soundthat had so alarmed him at that moment made itself manifes
t oncemore:
"A-hooo-A-AH-HOOO-00-a-ho-ho-ho-o-!"
It started softly and gradually ran up the scale till it reached acrescendo shout and then died out in a soft sound like a woman'swail. Heard anywhere the sound would have been alarming enough, butcoming as it did in the midst of these unknown, mysterious Mountainsof the Moon it struck a chill to the boy's heart and caused hisscalp to tighten in a manner that even the bravest man or boy in theworld would have had no reason to feel shame over.
A human enemy, a foe he could see, Frank would have faced with ironnerve; but this strange wailing noise coming from what quarter ofthe compass he could not judge--was so uncanny that he was reallydisturbed. He bounded into the chassis and roused Ben and Harry.He had hardly whispered to them the extraordinary intelligence whenagain the voice arose.
"A-ho-ho-h-o-o-o-A-h-hoo-ho-AH-HO-HO-O-O-O-AH-ho-h-o-o-o-o-o-o!"
"Well, who?" roared Ben angrily, "come out and show yourself, youhuman hyena, and I'll put so much lead in your system you'll beworth a nickel a pound. Come, you old Ah-Hoo, and I'll show you whoI am quick enough--shiver my topsails!"
But the only reply to Ben's tirade was the dismal echo of his voiceamong the rocky chasms.
"Shiver my topsails!" roared the echo and then the hills bandied thecry about from ridge to ridge till it died out in a whisper:
"My topsails!"
"Hum," remarked Ben, "I don't think I'll talk so loud around here.There seem to be a lot of folks listening. Such a dreary hole asthis I never--"
"Never," sighed the echoes, "--never."
"Here, I can't stand this," cried Harry. "I'm going to send abullet up there the next time that fellow starts 'Ah-hooing."'
But as the strange mournful cry rang out once more the boys pausedin bewilderment.
There was no locating the sound.
It seemed to fill the air. To come from every quarter of thecompass at once.