dawn was paling in the east as they crept slowly down the ledges of red mountain. the going down was far worse than the climb up, and the tent flies had to be called in play again to get over vertical drops of ten feet or more where one’s eyes could not see below how to climb down. even then the haunting fear that some old pygmy watcher from the village might have spied them on the mountain side lent haste to their descent. it was with relief that they all gathered in the depths of the jungle again.
“now, then, fellows, there’s only one way we can do this march to the coast. we three will have to keep together while sadok scouts on ahead. baderoon i’m going to turn loose, and let him run for it for cassowary camp and then down that trail to the outanata village, where he can get a war party started back to rescue us.
[199]“baderoon, you-fellah run catch’m outanata man?” he asked.
the negro grinned. he looked fresh and fit, and his long legs could take him like a moose through the jungle.
“orang-kaya give me-fellah sign take ’long black boy?” he suggested.
“sure! they might murder you for your mirror, in all your youth and innocence!” laughed the curator. “here, nicky, get out a couple of your empty alcohol tins. the chief’d love them, to put in his ears.”
baderoon eyed them longingly as nicky got out the cans from his rucksack. he’d have dearly loved to put them in his own ears, only the important detail of stretching the lobe enough for such ornaments had been neglected in his youth. such does contact with civilized whites debase the poor savage! he handled the cans reverently, and finally stowed them somehow in his loin cloth.
“tell’m the thunderer make war on litty black men—plenty heads!” grinned the curator. “run—plenty—too much!”
baderoon laughed merrily and set off into the jungle without a word. by some way known only to himself he would cover those thirty miles that day, threading alone through[200] the trackless jungle. by noon next day a war party of the outanatas would be halfway back to them, thirsting for a foray on their ancient enemies, the pygmies—with the powerful aid of the man who called down the lightnings—or the curator was no judge of human nature!
after baderoon had gone, they studied the mountains and valleys to the south for some time, planning a route.
“that big sugar loaf to the northeast looks familiar to me, nick,” said the curator. “don’t you remember it, from our banyan tree outlook?”
they got out the map, and presently located it from bearings taken on the map from their position on red mountain. once on that sugar loaf, it would be easy to locate the bald knob above cassowary camp.
he pointed out the shoulder to sadok. “we go there,” he explained. “you stop ’long front. you see black man, make’m call like red lory, two time, and come back.”
sadok comprehended quickly, and with a white flash of his teeth led on, his sumpitan balanced in his hands for instant use, and so they set out. in two hours they had reached the shoulder, some six miles through the[201] jungle, and were cautiously reconnoitering for a lookout. after some climbing, a ledge was found that rose over the summits of the trees below. they wormed up it and lay flat in the grass on its edge, spying out the country with their glasses. over to the east rose the cone of the old volcano, with the pygmy village on it, the girls’ tree huts visible like white specks in the sunlit clearing. beyond that was the mountain with the great banyan tree on its north shoulder, and beyond that again in the blue distance, about twelve miles off, the bald knob above cassowary camp.
but it was the green jungle below them that they searched most carefully. the view below was not reassuring. the haze of at least three fires rose above the trees at widely different points. allowing forty men to each war party, there would be over a hundred of the pygmy warriors outlying between them and their home base.
“we’ll stay right here, boys, until the rain—and then, by george! we’ll try to push through them during the storm!” declared the curator, with sudden resolution. “it’ll be pitch black for at least two hours after that. how’s the ammunition, fellows?”
[202]“i’ve only got twelve cartridges left, sir,” said nicky, lugubriously, “and dwight has two clips, and then he’s through.”
“well, i’ve only got four shells, myself,” said the curator, cheerfully. “two of them are thirty-yard close-ups. we’ll have to husband ammunition for a possible rush, and depend on sadok. you got’m plenty dart, sadok?” he asked.
the dyak shook his head and opened the cover of his bamboo quiver. “poison him all gone, too!” he announced.
“we’ve got our work cut out for us, then! we’ll camp and get something to eat, and then wait until the clouds come before setting out. meanwhile we’ll have to find a upas vine, or something like it. either of you boys know strychnine when you see it?”
they shook their heads. botany was out of their line.
“got to know ’most everything if you’re a scientist,” grinned the curator, deprecatingly. “well, the species we want is s. tieute, native of all this archipelago, the upas vine. it’s a climbing shrub, five-leaved, with little bunches of berries in a leathery rind like a small dried orange.”
[203]“i think i’ve noticed one or two like that, sir, myself, going through the jungle,” said dwight, reminiscently. “climbs all over larger trees, doesn’t it?” he sketched a leaf on a bit of rock as he spoke.
“yep. that’s him. you and sadok scout around for one while nick and i get ready some eats,” said the curator. “you may also find the upas tree, which is of the bread-fruit family, but i doubt it. never heard of it south of java. look for a tall tree a hundred feet high, with lanceolate leaves and berries in a drooping cluster. both are used for poisoning arrows and darts, from the philippines south.”
dwight arranged a lory call for sadok, in case either of them should need the other, and they separated, each vanishing into the lower jungle.
dwight walked along, searching the jungle growth with keen eyes. gradually his course led him around the flank to the south and into a deep ravine, with great trees dropping down the slopes below him into the depths. it was impossible to see far, in here, so he climbed up a small tree and looked out. the ravine led up the mountain side, with all the jungle spread out like a map on its[204] flanks. searching carefully each giant trunk, he at length spied one overgrown with a profusion of some vine that looked promising, and, marking it, he set out. in ten minutes he was close enough to the vine to examine it more carefully. the reddish bark, the five-fingered leaf, looked as if it might be one of that famous family of strychnine trees that extends all around the tropics, from india through the archipelago, to south america and across africa. dwight thrilled with a primal, almost superstitious fear as he looked at this sinister representative of its race. it was more deadly than a cobra, if it could bite you! all the stories he had ever heard of the poisonous air that surrounds the strychnine trees came to him; and that fabled valley of death in java, grown thick with upas trees in which nothing can live, came to mind. he kept his distance from the dreaded vine, respectfully, and was about to try to reach sadok with a call, when voices coming through the jungle arrested him. he sank into the undergrowth and watched through its green depths.
the voices came nearer, guttural tones that set him shivering with excitement. they were coming down the ravine on his side and[205] would pass quite near him, he judged. he drew his automatic and waited.
then three diminutive black-bearded warriors came into view, passing down what must have been a trail through the jungle, although he had not noticed any in crossing. they passed silently through the green glade, and then two more came into view. before them they drove a prisoner, a tall papuan.
dwight gasped as he looked to make sure—it was baderoon—captured by the pygmies!
all the generous instincts of youth rose up in him at the sight, and without thinking further he raised his pistol and fired at the nearest pygmy. with grunts of surprise they all bolted into the forest, while baderoon leaped into the jungle and came running toward him, his arms bound behind his back. dwight raised his helmet out of the underbrush an instant so baderoon could find him, and then sank out of sight. an arrow came singing and tanging through the twigs, and then baderoon stumbled into his lair and fell at his feet.
“orang-kichil! cut!” he gasped, turning over on his face. dwight drew his hunting knife and severed the fibers that bound him. baderoon wriggled over, his face alight with[206] its happy, care-free papuan smile. then came the grim lines of pain as he bore stoically the throes of returning circulation in his arms. dwight kept up a cautious vigil, expecting momentarily an arrow from some unseen source in the jungle. and the presence of the deadly upas vine behind him did not leave any illusions as to how that arrow would be armed!
still the stealthy silence! it was his first taste of real jungle fighting, and the boy would gladly have exchanged it for any amount of odds in the open, where one could see and think. not a bush moved, not a stick cracked; the pygmies might have utterly vanished from the earth, for any sign that the jungle gave to the contrary.
then came the call of the papuan lory, twice repeated. it was not far off, and it roused dwight to a frenzy of hard thinking. the curator and nicky, with perhaps sadok, also, were coming, having heard his pistol shot. they must be warned at any hazards. to move from his place of concealment was death. he cudgeled his brains for an answer, turning over one plan after another rapidly and rejecting them all.
three of anything means “danger!” in the[207] wilderness, all over the world; such a signal they would at once comprehend, and act accordingly. three pistol shots would give his location away by their smoke. dwight raised his voice and gave the lory call three times in answer.
bows instantly twanged in the jungle, and two arrows swished through the thickets around his position. dwight took off his helmet and peered furtively through every vista, searching every tree trunk, but not a sign could he discover whence they came.
then came the cough of sadok’s sumpitan from somewhere, and a small black-bearded hill man rose suddenly out of the bushes, not thirty feet away, and fell over backward, silently.
“me go! me-fellah catch’m bow’n arrow!” whispered baderoon, from the ground, wringing his wrists vigorously and eying dwight’s hunting knife longingly.
dwight nodded approval. two could play at this bushwhacking game! and none better than their own native bushman. he handed baderoon the knife and the papuan melted off into the undergrowth toward the body of the dead pygmy.
a long, sinister silence set in. dwight[208] watched in every direction, scanning the forest intensely through his leafy screen, but nothing that he could fire at appeared. then a sudden shock of fright went through him. surely that bush over there was much nearer now than when he had looked at it last! surely it was not natural, growing so close to the roots of that giant euphorbia that towered up near it! nature did not grow bushes in such dense shade! he was about to fire into it, when a long black arm struck out from behind the tree trunk and there was a flash of bright steel, while the bush writhed in convulsions and then lay still.
baderoon! in spite of his religious taboo against steel, he had broken it for them. dwight could appreciate that, and he began to have immense confidence in their two wild allies. in the jungle, where he and the curator and nicky were helpless, these two were masters. they could beat the pygmies at their own game.
“that’s three,” muttered the boy to himself. then the essential need to prevent the other two getting away to the main war parties of the pygmies and telling them of their presence presented itself. it seemed vital, to the boy’s imagination, and he even[209] thought of sacrificing himself by exposing his position to draw their fire, so that they could be shot by the others and their plans for running the gantlet during the storm could go through.
he was maturing the idea, when a faint rustle in the jungle back of him turned him around, with the hair rising under his helmet with alarm and his pistol ready for instant fire. he saw sadok’s sumpitan rise up cautiously out of the green and lowered again, and the boy breathed relievedly. presently he caught a glimpse of the dyak’s brown body moving serpentlike toward the upas vine. out of the depths between it and the trunk of the larger tree overhead the leaves moved. then came a quick, silent jab of sadok’s kriss into the blood-red bark of the vine. it flashed down again, and dwight could see the thick, white juice oozing from the wound in the bark. two brown hands rose out of the foliage and tied on the tiny bamboo poison cup with gingerly care, and then all signs of movement in that direction ceased.
after a long wait, two low calls of the lory came out of the jungle near by. dwight answered them.
“come on out, dwight,” came the curator’s[210] voice. “they’re gone. we’re over this way.”
dwight rose hesitatingly, inch by inch, half expecting every moment to be pierced by a deadly arrow. then came the exhilaration of freedom. he felt wonderfully alive, eager and able to perform prodigies. he sought out the party, stepping as if on air, his eyes sparkling with an unearthly brilliance. the curator regarded him curiously as he came up.
“hel-lo! what’s struck you, old top?” he exclaimed, vivaciously. “you look as if you’d seen an angel! mostly devils around here. baderoon tells me there were only five of them. they ambushed him and trussed him up before he could make a kick or a jump. we got two, and two more got away. the third is outlying somewhere, with sadok and baderoon looking for him.”
“i got that one, myself,” said dwight. “that was the pistol shot you heard. he was walking just in front of baderoon. and i found your upas vine, too!” he cried, excitedly.
“ah, that accounts for it,” mused the curator. “been lying near it a long while?”
“accounts for what? yes, i was right near it, ever since i fired that shot.”
[211]“accounts for your looking like a man who has eaten loco weed, son. you’ll be lit up for a while yet; and you need to, for we’ve got to make a dash, now that those two got away. there’s a faint essence of strychnia in the air around the upas vine which acts like medicine on a human being through the pores, dwight,” he explained. “you’ll think you can move mountains and perform prodigies of valor, for a time. then will come the reaction, like a man drunk with too much coffee. well, boys—let’s go.”
he raised the lory call to bring in sadok and baderoon. they rejoined the party soon, and dwight noted that the former had the small tube of fresh poison at his belt.
the party pushed on vigorously. as they swept into the valley where the pygmies were camped, thunderclouds gathered overhead and drops of rain began to fall. it grew dark and compass ranges had to be corrected again. then came the tropical thunder and lightning with the blinding downpour of rain, so that the three white men were glad to shroud themselves in their tent flies. it was a weird march, through the tossing forest, with rain swirling through the trunks in white sheets, and flying dead branches crashing down through the[212] grinding limbs. sadok and baderoon flanked the party on ahead; so long as neither of them came in, it was understood to be safe to push on at full speed. their course aimed to pass midway between two of the fires noted from the mountain above, and then turn and strike direct for cassowary camp. baderoon was now well armed, with a bow and shield and plentiful arrows taken from the slain pygmies, and sadok’s quiver was full of fresh darts, so that a feeling of elation filled them as they swept on. the forest was noisy and windriven with the storm; the snap of broken twigs and the rending of vines and creepers in their path did not have to be guarded against now. their only danger was in being seen by some outlying scout, for whose abolishment they trusted their native allies.
at length the curator pulled out his watch.
“i think we’ve made it, boys!” he exulted. “at the rate we have been going we must be well past those camps. we’ll bear over to the left now, and pick up sadok. shove along, boys, faster!—so we can catch up to him!”
they ran through the jungle, bursting and tearing their way through the undergrowth,[213] twisting around trunks and dodging under creepers. still no sadok. the curator called at intervals, and they pushed on, but no reply came. then he stopped and raised the lory screech at the top of his lungs.
it was answered by a faint, single call, a short distance ahead. with a quick sense of foreboding they moved forward warily. then their eyes lit on a brown, muscular figure lying by a tree trunk in the dim light of the roaring jungle—sadok!
they flung themselves on the ground with one common impulse, and crept rapidly forward. sadok was still alive when they reached him. his eyes looked over at the curator sleepily.
then he pointed with three of his outstretched fingers, indicating the directions with a significant brush of his left forefinger swept out over the others. he fell over on his side with the effort and closed his eyes. a long arrow stuck out from the tree over his head and its carmine tip was covered with a whitish glaze that made one shiver to look at it. blood flowed from a slight scratch on sadok’s shoulder, where the arrow had merely scraped it. the curator leaped at the wound, sucking fiercely at it. he[214] shook sadok roughly, and, reaching for the medicine box in his hip pocket, poured a pellet into his hand and forced it between the dyak’s teeth. then he rubbed a pinch of purple powder into the cut and called on the boys to help. together they rolled him back and forth vigorously. while they were at it, another arrow whizzed like a hornet between their heads. they dragged sadok behind the tree, while nicky stood guard with his long-barreled .38. he could see nothing in the direction the arrow had come from, but the little hill men were somewhere around them now, that was certain.
between them, dwight and the curator had got the dyak moving feebly again, and, dragging and pulling him roughly, they all managed to crawl on through the jungle. once lost in the underbrush, safety was assured by vigilance, for their adversaries dared not show themselves, either. it grew steadily darker, and the crash and boom of thunder kept up unceasingly. now and then the vivid flashes would light up the dark glades and a black form would be seen through the trees, when the insignificant pop! of the pistols would ring out.
“now, boys, it’s dark enough to make[215] time!” said the curator, halting the party. “here are two poles that i picked up while crawling along. make a stretcher of them, and you two carry sadok, while i cover your retreat.”
they rolled a tent fly around the two poles and laid sadok on the narrow strip of canvas left in between them, while the curator crept off into the jungle to reconnoiter. the crash of nicky’s revolver in his hands came to them once, and after a time he returned and they rose to push on. the dyak was heavy, and the two boys staggered along, forcing their way through maddening vines and thorn ropes that tore at them in the dark. behind them, somewhere, was the curator, covering the slow retreat, circling through the forest, occasionally visible when a lightning flash lit up the jungle with its vivid glare.
once or twice the red flash of his pistol spat out in the dark, and once the sharp blow of an arrow on his back caused dwight to drop his burden hastily, while nicky tore it out of his clothing anxiously and made sure that it had not penetrated to the skin.
an hour passed, and then, utterly weary, the boys fell in a heap, pulled down by the wrench of some particularly obstinate vine[216] in their path. they waited for the curator despondently. they could do no more. suddenly sadok sat up, as if in a trance. he did not speak, but the boys, delighted with this evidence of returning power, pounced on him and pumped his arms and legs with all their strength. they were still at it when the curator returned.
“glory, mr. baldwin—he’s coming round!” yelped nicky, looking up from his work. “he’s going to get over it!”
“looks promising!” smiled the curator, getting out another pellet to give sadok. “we can thank the rain for that! no arrow can stay virulent long in this weather! raise him to his feet and we’ll try to make him walk.”
they propped sadok up and, half carrying him, half leading him, they set out again. he staggered along as if walking in his sleep, leaning heavily against first one and then the other of the boys. gradually the rain abated and the lightning flashes grew less frequent, so that it was necessary for the curator to stop and crouch in the jungle to light up the compass with his flasher concealed under the tent robe. then came pitch blackness, and the dripping silent jungle hid them like a shroud.
[217]“i’m afraid we’ve lost baderoon, boys,” whispered the curator during a stop to take a bearing. “he had plenty of chance to locate us, back there in the storm, we did so much firing. i’ve had to reload entirely, once. you can’t have more than six shots left, nick.”
“i’ve got a clip and a half, sir,” interrupted dwight, cheerily, “and what is more, sadok will be in shape again soon. i’ve noticed his muscles flexing occasionally, of their own steam, while helping him walk. let’s go. we’ve got two good hours of this yet!”
his artificial buoyancy and untiring energy were a great asset to the tired party now, and they pushed on faster, with sadok walking almost normally. mile after mile was passed, and then a glimpse of the stars showed occasionally through the tree tops. they were tired to the limit, but dwight, under his strange stimulant, pushed on as fresh as if just out of his sleeping bag. dawn came at length, to sift its dim light through the jungle. it found them still on the march, with sadok walking unaided, occasionally muttering an incoherent word of malay.
then came the murmur of a brook and they[218] burst out of the jungle, to splash across it into the open glades, with the mountains towering all around them, their tops hidden by the rising mists of early daylight. the party heaved a huge sigh of relief as they stepped out into the deep wet saw grass. they were about a mile above cassowary camp, and it was their own stream that they had crossed. the country looked like home, indeed, to them, for half a day’s march farther lay their base camp, the canoe, and freedom.
