as burt obeyed it seemed to him that the scotchman was taking the situation very coolly. the little thin man sat silently with his eyes on those of mr. wallace and only his quivering nostrils denoted the emotion that must have consumed him.
"now, captain montenay," resumed mr. wallace when burt was again seated, "let's have a little explanation." burt saw that his uncle's face looked as he had seen it on the night when his compass disappeared. "in the first place you stole our compasses."
"i did not!" captain mac gave a harsh little laugh. "ye have yer own, or what's left of it. i've got the other two in my pocket. i removed 'em temporarily so to speak. be more choice in yer use o' words, man."
"secondly, you've been leading us astray."
"aye," retorted captain mac, "but i didn't give ye the credit for findin' it out so quick."[pg 111]
"now you propose to leave us here, on the edge of the jungle country," continued mr. wallace. "there are three things that are open to explanation, captain montenay. i am sorry to use this method of persuasion but it seems to be necessary." the little man's face lost its look of half-malicious mockery and for a moment he did not answer but stared over the head of mr. wallace at the afternoon sun.
"if i'm not wantin' to tell, man, i'm thinkin' ye'd have a hard job to make me," was his answer at last.
"if you won't tell," snapped out mr. wallace, "i'll tie you up here and now and carry you back to boma. you know what you'd get there."
"aye. is that yer final deceesion?"
"it is. explain or go to boma."
"vera good. gi' me the gun, lad." to burt's vast surprise his uncle nodded and replaced his weapon. as captain mac quietly buckled the restored revolver about his waist his face broke into a wrinkled smile.
"it'll be a longish yarn, wallace." there was no trace of animosity in his tone. "let's finish eatin' an' when i get the old pipe between my[pg 112] teeth i'll feel like talkin'."
their meal was finished in silence. before captain mac gave his explanation, however, a startling event happened. it seemed that a dozen men of the village had remained with the bodies of the elephants to remove more of the meat. just as captain mac was filling his ancient and evil-smelling pipe a native rushed into camp shouting something that sent the pipe to the ground and the captain to his feet.
the native came up and fell on his face. after a hasty exchange of question and answer captain mac turned to the others and burt saw that a strange light stood in his dark and rather sad eyes.
"get out the medicines, wallace. we've got seven dying men on our hands. we may save one or two with serum and morphia."
"why, what do you mean?" cried mr. wallace, giving a shout for john. when the trusty cook had been dispatched for the medicine chop-box captain mac explained further.
"those chaps we left wi' the beasts yonder drove off some wambuti pigmies, bein' utter fools and prob'ly ignorant o' what the dwarfs were.[pg 113] they got a shower o' poisoned arrows in return. a bunch from the village just found 'em an' are bringin' 'em in here."
john arrived with the medicine case and mr. wallace got out his serums and syringes while the boys stared at each other in amazement.
"that's what them dirty little black arrow-points do," said critch in a low tone. just then a band of men came running into the camp. on their shoulders they bore rude litters which they set down before mr. wallace with gestures of despair.
on the litters lay seven men. all were gray with pain and sweating profusely. as they lay there burt could see their naked breasts rise and fall with the increased palpitation caused by the poison. the matter of captain mac was forgotten on the instant, as all four went to work in a desperate effort to save the wounded men. the captain hastily loaded the hypodermic syringes and handed them to the other three, who injected the contents into the arms of the wounded as rapidly as possible. while this was going on the camp was surrounded by the villagers, and only the leveled guns of john and the other men held them outside.[pg 114]
one of the men died just as mr. wallace was treating him, although neither of the boys noticed it until they had finished. then the wounds were cauterized, a task which was not relished by the boys. in fact, the smell of burning flesh was nearly too much for burt, who retired temporarily.
"there," and captain mac straightened up with a sigh of relief, "i guess that's all we can do, wallace."
"will they recover?" asked the american quietly, washing the syringe. the other shrugged his shoulders.
"mayhap. don't let the village people have 'em, john. the witch doctor'd kill 'em sure. they'll sleep till morning. if they wake they can be thankin' us for it."
critch said nothing. he was pale and his knees felt shaky, for their task had been no pleasant one, and he fervently trusted that they would have no more poisoned arrows in future. a few moments later all were once more gathered about the table in the dining-tent, where burt rejoined them. montenay calmly refilled his pipe and began.[pg 115]
"as i was sayin', wallace, the yarn is a long one. i'm thinkin' it'll nobore ye to listen, though," and the scotchman chuckled.
"fire away," smiled wallace grimly. "we have time to burn." for a moment the other puffed away in silence, his eyes fixed on the tent-wall behind burt. then he began his story, the strangest story which the two american boys had ever listened to.
"two years ago, it was. i started out o' nairobi wi' the most elegant bunch o' fightin' men ye could find. took me nigh a month to select 'em. i laid it out as a scientific trip, to the british authorities, but the men knew better. i bought 'em all trade-guns wi' lots of ammunition, for i was after two things.
"trip before that, i had met up with an arab dealer called yusuf ben salir, what misused me like a nigger. he was a slave-merchant on the quiet, an' would ha' sold me upcountry if i hadn't got away. i was after him first, and ivory next. we headed off for the congo line, baggin' a little ivory as we went.
"one day we learned from the natives that yusuf was twenty mile ahead of us wi' plenty o'[pg 116]
tusks and a big trade-caravan. two days later we caught up, formin' a zareba near his. he had twice as many men, but mine were picked, ye remember.
"well, the details o' what happened don't matter. we were busy for three days, and i will admit that yusuf had his merits as a fighter. but at the last his nerve failed him, and when we rushed his zareba, he and his men made their getaway—leaving everything behind. while i was lookin' over his stuff i found two things wrapped up in oilskin.
"one was a queer shaped bit o' wood which i flung away, like a fool. the other was a bit o' cloth with arabic written on it. i can read the lingo, and i made out that yusuf had been down near the pigmy country an' had run across some yarn about white pigmies."
"white pigmies!" ejaculated mr. wallace in astonishment, while a look of keen interest swept across his face. "then the story was so!"
"what story?" asked montenay sharply.
"why, a tradition i heard up in the sahara, that there was a white race of small people somewhere down this way. the arab who told me was mighty[pg 117] reticent about it, and i gathered that there was some queer religious feature to the tradition, if it was one."
"it was not," asserted montenay, betraying signs of excitement for the first time, and leaning forward. "wallace, it was fact! i found the white pigmies!"
"what!" a simultaneous cry went up from his three listeners and mr. wallace's eagle-face was bent sternly upon the narrator.
"careful, montenay!" he said with repressed eagerness. "remember you are not talking to green hands!"
"man, it's the truth!" there could be no doubt of captain mac's sincerity as he leaned forward and met the american's gaze. there was more than sincerity in his eyes. there was an appeal for belief, a conviction, that won over the others instantly. "the truth! but that's only the least of it."
"and your proofs?" inquired mr. wallace crisply.
"proofs enough," rejoined the other, more calmly, "in their time. i didn't take much stock in the arabic stuff, but i thought i'd take a shot at it. i sent half o' the boys back wi' the ivory and a plausible[pg 118] story o' how we came to get so much. then i asked the rest if they'd go with me.
"after the way we'd wiped up yusuf, they were ready for anythin'. after all was fixed up we started, fifty boys an' me. we worked down slowly from the high country, takin' it easy an' gatherin' in spoils as we went. finally we got down to the jungle an' touched the edge o' the pigmy country. then it began.
"we had no trouble till we started inquirin' through some o' the pigmies that come in to trade. as soon as we asked about their white relations the camp emptied like a flash. the last little deevil out turned an' put an arrow through one o' my boys.
"it was just a massacre, man. the boys were fair ragin' at the way they were shot down, and i pushed 'em ahead fast. we went through that jungle like a whirlwind. finally there were only seven boys left, an' they refused to go any farther. didn't do 'em any good, for the next day the pigmies rushed us. i was pretty well played out by that time, as ye can judge. when the smoke blew away five o' my boys were laid out, and i was tied up with the other two. if i hadn't been so obstinate about[pg 119] pushin' on we might ha' pulled out.
"however, we put a good face on it. they treated us fine, but kept us on the jump for a week, movin' from place to place through the jungle. for another week we were stuck in one o' them pigmy villages. queerly enough, they hadn't touched a thing belongin' to us except the guns an' chop-boxes an' general camp stuff.
"'bout the end o' the second week they routed us out early one mornin', highly excited. when we got outside we found the whole village squattin' around ten new chaps, who were armed wi' trade-guns and seemed to boss things pretty general. but what struck me was that while they were of the same size as the rest, they were white."
"white!" exclaimed mr. wallace again. his thin cheeks were dashed with color, and his brilliant eyes showed that he no longer doubted the truth of montenay's story. the latter nodded quietly.
"not white like us," he continued, "but as white as an arab or thereabouts. their faces showed more intelligence than those o' the[pg 120] blacks, an' they seemed to be overlords o' the—"
"hold on!" mr. wallace broke in with a puzzled frown. "surely you don't mean that, mac! there could be no feudal system of that sort here in the very heart of africa! the blacks haven't the brains—"
"aye, but the whites have!" cried montenay triumphantly. "these white pigmies ain't fools by any means, as ye'll see later. now will ye quit interruptin' me?"
"go ahead," laughed mr. wallace, and the boys saw that captain mac was really so interested in his own story that he was anxious to lay it before them without more delay.
"i meant to tell ye this yarn," he went on, "a bit later on, as ye'll see also. the party o' whites were in command of a young chap named mbopo, an' we took to each other first crack. well, they carried us off through the jungle for a week's trip. we must ha' been on the edge o' the pigmy country, for we traveled hard. at every pigmy village mbopo seemed to get reports or somethin' o' the kind, an' also tribute in the way o' slaves. by the end o' the week there were six others besides[pg 121] oursel's.
"then we spent a day at the village o' the white pigmies. man alive, ye should ha' seen 'em! they seemed to live on the blacks, just like the blacks live on the big tribes around, an' they lived well. palm huts, o' course, but there seemed to be a system o' government that beat ever'thing i ever saw outside the zulus.
"we passed through two more o' the white villages, then struck a big stream an' followed that for a day or two. finally we got into a bit o' higher ground an' struck the biggest surprise of all. just before sunset we came out o' the forest into a stretch o' yam patches along the river. beyond these an' right ahead of us was the biggest village we had seen yet—three to four hundred huts, i'd say. outside was the whole tribe waitin' for us. off to one side, near the forest, was a good sized palm hut, and around it was a zareba."
"what's queer about that?" asked mr. wallace, as the narrator paused for a moment. the boys saw a smile flicker across montenay's face.
"the zareba was made out o' ivory," was his quiet reply. burt at once[pg 122] broke into a laugh, thinking that captain mac was joking.
"pretty good," he chuckled. "what'd they do—cut up the tusks into square blocks to make a six-foot wall?" but his mirth died away suddenly as his uncle made a silencing gesture.
"an ivory zareba," went on montenay. "made o' tusks, clear around the hut. they were set with points up, curvin' out. but i didn't get much chance to see it then. we were taken into the village and i was given a hut to myself. the young chap, mbopo, reported to an old, wizened witch-doctor who was the boss. i judged he was speakin' in my favor, but the old fellow shook his head an' waved a hand at the separate hut. the whole crowd set up a yell o' 'pongo!' then they threw me into the hut.
"i stayed there for eight days, too. ye'll mind that there were just eight slaves an' mysel' in the party. they treated me well, fed me fine, but every night i heard a big jamboree goin' on. on the ninth evenin' they brought me out. the village was surrounded by the usual thorn zareba, an' the whole tribe was gathered just inside the gates, feastin'. mbopo an' three others tied me up an' carried me out halfway[pg 123] to the separate hut. here they laid me on the ground beside a small fire.
"the old wizened chap came out after us with a long iron which he stuck in the fire. then he pulled off my shirt an' did—this." captain mac slipped down his shirt collar and exposed the scarred shoulder that critch had seen on the boat. as the others gathered around with exclamations of astonishment, burt could see that the scar was in the form of a cross, except that a long loop took the place of the head-piece. besides this, the whole shoulder seemed a mass of cicatrices.
"yon's the shape o' the bit o' wood i found in yusuf's packet," went on montenay, when mr. wallace interrupted him in wonder.
"mac! do you know what that symbol is?"
"it's the sign o' pongo," returned the other. "from what i saw later it had to do wi' ancient egypt—"
"i should say it had!" ejaculated mr. wallace, sinking back into his chair and staring at montenay, who slipped his shirt back into position. "why, that sign is the egyptian cross, or ankh—the symbol of life, and the peculiar insignia of maat, the ancient goddess of truth!"[pg 124]
"so i found out, if ye'd given me time to finish," replied montenay drily. "mbopo an' the rest staked me out there an' left me. what wi' the burn an' the insects that settled down, i was pretty nigh gone inside an hour. the fire was out, an' just after moonrise i heard a 'pad-pad' o' steps near by. then a minute later i caught one glimpse of a monstrous lion, just as he sprang an' grabbed me by the wounded shoulder. that finished me for sure, and i fainted."
