“fill your canteens, boys!” ordered the curator, as they finished breakfast next morning, “and stow all this pig meat we can carry, for our aim will be to get through with this feast of the pygmies as soon as we can and then push on south. every man pack his kit for marching order.”
sadok had butchered the pig during his night watch, and he and baderoon each had a ham ready for slinging. the camp reveled in fresh pork chops, and then cut slices of the forequarters for carrying in their pemmican sacks.
then they set out for the pygmy village, weapons still ready in case of any treachery. all of the men of the tribe were gathered around a great fire, and a huge feast of roast brush turkey, sago-palm bread, and yams was set out, all ready to eat, but not a woman or a child was in sight.
[161]“that’s all right,” reassured the curator, as the others looked around questioningly. “the english offered the pygmies any amount of bribes for a single photograph of a woman, but they had all been moved up on the mountain and no amount of persuasion could get them to call one down. it means nothing hostile to us.”
they seated themselves in the circle. the pygmy men carried no arms, but they could see weapons stacked against the trees near by, among them the thin, flat blades of the sinister bamboo knives used in head hunting. the feast went on merrily, the curator working out a system of learning pygmy words by pointing at objects and making the question sign. speaking mixed papuan and pygmy, a considerable conversation was being carried on. he managed to convey the idea that birds and insects were exchangeable for more of the beads, and then, finally, after a good deal of groping—
“him want you-fellah stop prenty much time here,” explained baderoon out of the tangle of words and signs.
the curator shook his head and pointed southward, smiling. instantly an angry look shot across the faces of the older men. they[162] shook their heads vigorously, and some halting papuan dialect followed.
“him say taboo. prenty debbil-debbil mountain thataway,” translated baderoon. “no good. prenty hantus. must go back!” he pointed north.
the curator smiled. “yes, we will—not! we might go back and circle around them, fellows—but, no, they’ll have scouts spying on us until we get out of the country, and it’ll be a jungle fight all the way to try to get past them to the south. no; we’ll have it out with them now!”
“tell them,” he said, sternly, “that the yow-nata is not afraid of any devil-devil, nor taboo, nor hantus.”
an angry buzz greeted baderoon’s translation. the little black-bearded men shook their heads violently, and some of them began to look around for their weapons. there were at least forty in the party.
“looks like a close-up!” muttered the curator, fumbling for his explosive bomb. “we’ll retreat in good order to the south, boys, if it comes to a fight. perhaps if i show ’em this bomb it’ll take their minds off it for the present. good to have it handy, anyhow.”
[163]all eyes were fixed on the shining bauble as he drew it forth. the effect, however, was somewhat different than he had intended. a fierce cupidity shone in the eyes of the old fellow of the trail—here was a bead that transcended all other beads in glory!
“kema! kema!” (“give! give!”) he grunted, avidly, holding out his hand for it.
the curator shook his head. “yow-yowri!” (“bewitched!”) he said, pointing to the sun. it flashed like a little sun in his hand, but, far from being made afraid by its mysterious reflections, the desire for its possession gleamed fairly murderous out of the pygmies’ eyes. a dozen hands reached out for it. suddenly a black hand like a monkey’s paw shot under the curator’s arm and the bauble was snatched from his hand. the whites jumped to their feet, gathering in a close knot.
“this won’t do! back off, boys, and get a little distance from them!” barked the curator. they drew off, sadok’s shield and sumpitan spear covering their immediate retreat. but the pygmies were paying no attention to them. they fought like wild men for the bomb, snatching it from hand to hand, clawing and biting at one another with primal savagery. in the midst of the snatching[164] and grabbing a sharp hiss came to their ears. they had broken off its primer in the struggle!
“run, fellows, run!” yelled the curator. they did not stop to look back. they heard the thing go off among the pygmies with a thunder that shook the ground under them, as up the hill they tore, past the tree houses and up the stony slopes of the mountain. below them they could see a great sandy crater in the center of the village, the huts all slanting askew, while warriors were running to the coconut trees, arming themselves hurriedly. a short distance up the hill the curator turned and fired the air pistol with a long-range shell. the deafening crash of its explosion rang through the jungle over the village, and they saw little black men thrown violently about, like black tumble-bugs, with its concussion. they waited no longer, but toiled up the hill as fast as they could climb. shouts below and calls in the jungle came to their ears. there was plenty of fight left in the little hill men, and they knew that the mountain was being surrounded and that a jungle fight of the most difficult character lay ahead of them.
for a time they climbed steadily. the[165] vegetation was thin and one could see for some distance, so that the native archers could not get up close as in the deep jungle. with sadok and baderoon as outliers, they headed for the top. the mountain was another extinct volcanic cone, and the same outcroppings of lava rock, the same belts of century plants and aloes, were met as on the mountain back of cassowary camp.
next came bare patches of huge volcanic rocks. they could look out, here, over the sea of jungle-covered mountains, and from the curve of the sides of their own they judged that it was a perfect cone, a volcano of somewhat recent activity. sadok came running in, and in his hand was a long cane arrow. the point was blood-red, and at first they thought he had been hit, but his actions did not indicate it.
“littly black man close!” he breathed, heavily. “shoot’m arrow.”
the curator took the missile and examined its head carefully. it was made of a blood-red, six-sided crystal, thinned to a point and lustrous and polished.
“cinnabar, boys!” he exclaimed. “this tribe know all about red mountain. that’s why they wouldn’t let us go south, and it’s[166] why the southern tribe at wamberibi would not let the english go north, too! i bet we see it when we reach this cone top!”
they pressed on swiftly, the vegetation now scattered and consisting only of the most arid and gnarly species, all plentifully provided with thorns.
“look, orang-kaya!” called baderoon, hastily, pointing back down the mountain.
five small hill men were climbing after them on the slopes.
“never mind them. put out for the top, boys,” shouted the curator, running after them. “we’ve got to get there and dig in before any flanking parties cut us off.”
they raced up over the lava-strewn slopes. the top of the mountain was a bare cone, with a deep, narrow crater, perhaps fifty feet in bore, extending down into it. a faint odor of sulphur came up from its dark depths. around the lip was fine lava dust and small rocks. for at least fifty yards down the slopes there was no cover of any sort.
“you and sadok stand off those beggars, dwight. dig in on the rim of the crater and pick ’em off. here’s where we make our stand for the present,” ordered the curator, as he and the rest of the party ran around[167] the crater to the south. they pawed shallow pits in the detritus and lay down, watching the slopes below. no pygmies had come in sight yet, but there was much that was interesting to study. out of the jungle clearing on the opposite mountain, beyond them to the south, rose the smoke of a huge signal fire, and their glasses could make out huts in the trees near it. to the east, the long wall of the great precipice stretched southward, halving one side of the mountain ranges, with the green of the lowland jungle swarming up to its base. near its brink was a small clearing and yet another pygmy village. it was their country, all right!
but to the southeast rose a sight that held them all breathless. the geological formation in the interior was dark and stratified, of basic instead of volcanic rock, and the ragged edges of thin coal seams could be picked out running through the jungle along bare escarpments. before them rose sheer a truncated cone of a mountain, separated from the interior formations by a deep gap. its whole upper half was bare of jungle, and across it, in a horizontal belt, ran a vein of deep pink, at least four hundred feet from top to bottom!
[168]“red mountain!” gasped the curator, as he and nicky stared speechless at the fabulous wealth spread out before their eyes. “pure cinnabar—and lord knows how many million tons of it! it makes that mexican deposit look like a thirty-cent mex. dollar when you want to buy a tin of white man’s tobacco with it! well, while we’ve got time, the most important thing in the world to do now is to locate that mountain on the map.”
the crack of dwight’s automatic came to their ears as the curator got out his notebook and the mess kit with his surveyor’s compass packed in one of its pans. dwight and sadok were already at work, they could hear, and as they opened out the map page a long cane arrow came singing over their shoulders and soared on down the slope.
“gee! they must be getting close up on that side! make it snappy, sir!” said nicky, drawing his revolver and laying it on a rock beside him.
“we’ll add about three miles to the base line, from the banyan tree to this cone,” said the curator, imperturbably, drawing it in with his pencil. then he sighted red mountain most carefully through the compass bars.[169] “distance, about seven miles in an air line, i should judge. what do you think, nick?”
baderoon, to their right, gave a grunt and shot his stout bow. the arrow soared down the slope and into a thick aloe clump on the edge of the jungle. a little black man rose out of it and fell over backward.
“good shot, baderoon!” commented nicky, admiringly. there was no better archer, or fighter, either, than their papuan “black boy!” nicky squinted across at red mountain, shimmering in the distance.
“seven, or nearly eight miles, i should say,” he pronounced, judgmatically.
an arrow sprung from a rock about seventy yards down the slope as he spoke. it came nosing up to them and fell just in front.
nicky sighted the spot with his officer’s model. “here’s where i scintillate!” he laughed. “this old six-gun’s at her best at long range. save your shells, mr. baldwin. i’ll get that bird!”
another arrow soared overhead, coming from the west. then the curator gave a low exclamation.
“look, nick! there goes another signal fire, far to the south. we’ll have all pygmy land around us in another day!”
[170]the revolver barked at that instant, and a puff of dust flew out from the side of the rock behind which a hill man lay concealed.
“scared him to death, anyhow!” joked nicky, turning to look at the new fire.
“we’re surrounded, all right, except on the east, and we can’t hold off a whole army of them,” said the curator. “we’ve got two impossible things to do, as i see it—get in to red mountain and bring off some specimens and then make our escape from the country.”
“fat chance!” grunted nicky, cheerfully, firing his revolver again.
the curator studied the prospect to the east, for there lay their only hope of escape. the terrific geological fault that had made the great precipice was nearly buried on that side by the outpourings from their volcano when it had been active, but the lava swept down to the precipice edge in a frightful slope, where it ended abruptly. blue distance beyond it told of a considerable drop; how much could not be conjectured.
the arrows were coming more thickly, now. it seemed that at least twenty of the little hill men lay concealed in among the bowlders below them, and the occasional pop of dwight’s automatic told that more[171] of them had come up on his side also. only to the east was there a free passage, but no man could live on that slope. nicky and baderoon were both busy, and once in a while they would get one of the pygmies, exposing himself recklessly in some crawl to a nearer point of vantage. the curator borrowed nicky’s alcohol cook kit and went down below the rim of the crater to a little rocky ledge inside on the brink of its deep bore. here he set about making a mulligan for the party, for it was now long past high noon. he shook his half-empty canteen after filling the soup tin.
“water running low!” he muttered, uneasily. “we’ve got to get out of this to-night! it’s up to me to do a scout down to the precipice brink this afternoon, sometime.”
a perfect fusillade of shots, and a yell for help from dwight’s side, caused him to jump to his feet hastily and rush for that side of the crater. putting his head cautiously over the brink, he instantly whipped out his air gun, for a long black line of pygmies was charging up the slope, each man behind his shield, the yellow blades of their bamboo knives sticking up over their shoulders.[172] sadok’s sumpitan was powerless against them, and dwight was frantically shoving a fresh clip into the butt of his automatic. then a shell from the air gun whistled on its way, and its explosion burst in a riving crash over the center of the black line. dwight opened fire and those on the right flank began to fall back, while sadok, no longer able to contain himself, dashed down the slope at the survivors of the left flank. he flung himself at them with whirling parang as bamboo knives flashed out, and in another instant he was in the center of a whirlwind of flashing knives. the parang-ihlang sheared through their shields like paper, for sadok was a star swordsman. five to one, he was getting the best of them, when the white flash of a keen bamboo knife cut him across the shoulder and he fell, guarding himself with the parang in his left hand.
dwight’s bullets flew like hail, while the curator dashed down the slope, armed only with sadok’s abandoned sumpitan spear. in a second he found himself facing the shields of the two pygmy survivors, who circled him with ready knives. they were as light as feathers, but so keen that a single cut would sever off a head, the curator knew; also that[173] he was a mere dub with that spear! standing over sadok, he stood them off with the spear point, while the little black men danced and feinted around him, watching their chance. he had counted on dwight following him, but a quick patter of shots from the crater came to his ears, telling that they were busy at something urgent up there, too. then sadok staggered to his feet.
“shoot, orang!” he gasped, hoarsely. in a flash the curator divined his meaning. the sumpitan held a dart! he raised it suddenly to his lips and blew the missile full into the face of the pygmy opposite him. the other dashed in, to be met by the flash of sadok’s parang, which sheared the bamboo knife aimed at the curator like a straw. defenseless, he turned and ran for the jungle, while the other pygmy fell in a limp heap before him.
with sadok leaning heavily on him, weak from loss of blood, the curator crawled slowly up the slope. another arrow came singing out of the jungle and sailed close over their heads. with a curse of rage, he turned and shelled the spot with his air gun. a crackle of fire followed the detonation. the dry thicket seemed to leap into red flame, set[174] afire by the shell, and clouds of white smoke swept up the slope after them. meanwhile a heavy sputtering of pistol shots came from over the crater brim. acting on a sudden impulse, the curator bore off to the east and dropped sadok behind some bowlders near the rim of the precipice. then he crawled down carefully from rock to rock, looking up anxiously over his shoulder at the summit, for they were evidently hard pressed up there. the yawning abyss fell away below him as he came to the edge and looked over. below was the green jungle of no-man’s land, the vegetation creeping up the lava talus part way, where it was finally stopped by lack of moisture and soil. from the brink to the nearest point below was at least a hundred feet of sheer fall, and from there on down the slope was the limit angle of repose. without a long rope there was no escape that way.
“well,” said the curator to himself, after an examination, “of the two impossibilities, we’ll have to give up red mountain and try this! eight miles through pygmy land, with them buzzing like hornets about us—good lord!” he groaned. “our report will have to go as it stands.”
[175]a yell came from dwight, up in the crater.
“where are you, mr. baldwin?” it called. “we stood ’em off! close call! hurry up! they’re getting ready for another rush.”
“bring everything and come on down here!” he yelled back. “now’s your chance.”
presently dwight, nicky, and baderoon came creeping over the brink on the north side. they slid down the slope on their backs and flung themselves among the first large bowlders. the jungle to the north was now a crackling mass of fire, driven on by the west monsoon, while a fog of smoke covered that side. behind it lay the pygmies, unable to pass, and they were safe for the present from that quarter. but how soon a rush would be made from the west and south they could not tell. the curator crept back and brought sadok from where he lay hidden in the bowlders. bandaging the gash on his right shoulder as swiftly as he could, he got their party together on the precipice brink and each man contributed whatever he had that would go toward making a rope. the boys’ two tent ropes, the curator’s hammock rope, and sadok’s turban cloth were knotted together hastily. then came the curator’s hammock and the two tent[176] flies. tying the upper end to a gnarly ironwood bush that grew near the brink, they let it all down over the cliff, where the lower end dangled far below, still some twenty feet above the slope.
“won’t do!” said the curator, grimly, hauling it up again. “a man’s got to land there on his feet or he’ll never escape pitching on down that steep slope. quick, now, all your belts, boys!” they were added on and the rope lowered again. shouts and yells came from the summit. at least forty of the little men were up there, singing and dancing with victory around the crater.
“well, i’m off!” said nicky, who was the most fearless climber of them all. he shook hands abruptly and swung over the brink.
