suddenly sadok began to run. the boys attempted to restrain him, but the curator held them off.
“let him alone, boys. his mentality’s coming back—it’s a good sign. wait.”
they watched the dyak, who was now running in a crouching position, his long sumpitan trailing over the grass in his left hand. as he neared a clump of trees out in the swales he dropped from sight in the grass, his progress only marked by the waving of the blades. they searched the tree carefully, but only what appeared to be a large black mass, well hidden in the dense foliage, offered any possible mark.
then the sumpitan rose slowly out of the field, and presently a large black bird tumbled down through the trees. the dyak was on his feet in an instant, dashed through the thicket, and seized his trophy. then he came back, holding it up triumphantly.
[220]“me catch’m new spec’men, orang-kaya!” he announced, exuberantly. gone was the dull, expressionless look in his eyes, replaced now by the sparkling zest of the primitive hunter.
“boys, he’s got a long-tailed bird of paradise, by jove!” cried the curator, excitedly. “rarer than the superba! great work, sadok!”
they all ran to him and examined the prize. it was of glossy black, with bronze and purple glories of peacock-coal hues, making the feathers iridescent with changeable colors. a superb tail of feathers two feet long, and the side plumage brushed back, as it were, to form tufts of plumage along both sides of the back, completed the bird’s extraordinary ornaments.
“almost makes you forget the pygmies, eh, sadok?” grinned the curator, suggestively.
the dyak’s face looked blank. then his memory began slowly, painfully to work, and he put up his hand slowly and felt the bandage on his shoulder. gradually his expression changed to comprehension, anger, disgust.
“ugh!” he shuddered. “me kill’m two—t’ree! then me know nothing. me come hit—arrow?” he asked.
[221]“yep. we found you. carried you through the jungle for miles. me cure’m upas [poison]. all well now!”
a kind of wonder grew in the dyak’s eyes. it was the first time in his experience that any man had survived a poisoned arrow.
“orang-kaya! him know everyt’ing!” he cried. “him god—big-fellah!” he stooped down and embraced the curator’s knees adoringly.
“here! cut it!” said the curator, embarrassed, as he disengaged himself, and there were tears in his eyes. “god him great big-fellah, sadok! him live in sky. him hold the world in his hand, so, sadok,” holding out his cupped hand. “him make you-fellah save my life, plenty much; make me-fellah save your life! me tell you ’bout him, some day, sadok,” he said, affectionately, laying his hand on the dyak’s shoulder. “gad! and i don’t know any greater pleasure than that will be, either!” he exclaimed, under his breath. “a man’s god is what i will show him! come on, fellows!” he broke off, hastily. “we got to shove along; it would be death to be caught in these open swales.”
the party marched on down toward the old site of cassowary camp, and were soon[222] at the familiar grounds where so many adventures had befallen them and so many happy days spent in collecting. the mountain loomed up invitingly behind it, and the curator led the way up the slopes.
dwight felt himself stumbling unaccountably. his eyesight appeared to be wavering, and the bushes that he grasped at to aid in climbing seemed to elude his grasp.
“mr. baldwin, quick! i’m fainting!” he gasped, weakly, and he pitched forward on his face, his arms still reaching uphill.
they all stopped.
“the reaction has come,” said the curator. “he’ll be better soon. i think we can risk an hour’s stop and get some rest and something to eat.”
his eye roved the mountain side, and finally rested on a rocky ledge with bowlders and thickets of thorny bushes on its brink.
“carry him up there,” he ordered. “we’ll dig in there and lay low for a bit.”
they brought him up, and the curator applied restoratives, while nicky and sadok busied themselves in rolling bowlders and making the place as impregnable as possible. then nicky got out his alcohol kit, with a joke or two about its being the only camp[223] fire worth a whoop, and started cooking a soup for all, composed of dried pemmican and soup powder.
the site commanded the swales below for miles. to the left lay the pebbly bars of the creek, with the old trail of the outanatas entering the jungle like a green tunnel. with ammunition, they could hold this place for a long time, at least until flanking parties had ascended the mountain back of them, but their supply was now reduced to only a few cartridges.
the curator studied the situation over uneasily.
“i do wish dwight could move!” he said to nicky at his right. “we might try carrying him, but it seems suicidal to me. the pygmies are coming, sure as death, and they’ll move much faster than we could go with a burden. we’d be overtaken before we got halfway back to the canoe. we’ll have to stay here and fight. after the ammunition is all gone, every man make for that canoe at top speed. the first one there will get sail on her and wait until forced to draw out to the lagoon. that is about all i can plan ahead at the present. too bad we lost baderoon,” he sighed.[224] “that was the finest black boy i ever knew! no one who ever knew that happy, rollicking native could help loving him—and i rather depended on him getting through and bringing up the outanatas.”
he went over to where dwight lay in the shade of a bush.
“how’s it coming, old man?”
“i’m weak as a cat,” said dwight, lifelessly. “i can’t even move that arm. pull it in out of the sun and lay it across my chest, won’t you?” he begged, querulously.
the curator shook his head. it would be at least another hour before dwight could even move his own legs. the curator fidgeted with impatience as he cursed the upas vine and all its relatives. hours were precious as dear life, now. he had about decided on a scheme for pushing along and carrying dwight in relays, when a low whistle from nicky brought him to his feet.
“here they come, sir!” announced the boy, tensely.
he peered out of their lair. a long line of the little black men swept across the upper swales, arrows on bows, walking about fifteen feet apart, searching warily every foot of the grass. more burst out of the jungle[225] along the creek every few moments, and far to the right, other parties could be seen beating across the jungle toward the banyan-tree mountain. nothing could escape such a dragnet!
they watched them impotently, as the warriors slowly worked down the swales toward their position. there were at least fifty of them in the line that finally reached the site of cassowary camp. then they began to slowly filter up the mountain side.
“now’s our only chance!” said the curator in a low voice. “sadok, you pick off any that come near this position, or any that seem likely to discover us, and we’ll hope that the rest may go by without finding us.”
“how about their finding the canoe before we do?” suggested nicky, eagerly.
“i’ve thought of that. we’ve got to move as soon as they pass us, and get dwight along somehow. sadok and i will carry him. we’ll have to beat ’em to it.”
a pygmy came out of the bushes directly below him, and his little black eyes popped with sudden discovery. before he could utter a yell a dart from sadok’s sumpitan ended him. then another appeared, working uphill to their right, and he, too, was tumbled[226] over in a silent heap. the curator felt a touch on his arm. he turned his head, to see dwight, who had crawled over on hands and knees, and he was pointing up to their left with a look of horror in his eyes. there stood a pygmy in plain sight in the act of raising the warwhoop!
the pistols barked in unison with the high-pitched yell that the man let out. there were swift rustlings all over the mountain side, and a knot of warriors below charged up the hill, shouting their battle cries. the curator dropped a shell on them. a great brown geyser of earth and stones obliterated the group, simultaneous with its thundering report, and the jungle below burst into flames with the intense heat of the explosion. in another instant there was not a pygmy in sight anywhere on the whole landscape.
“now, then, cut and run for it!” hissed the curator. “make for the canoe, nick, and get sail on her. we’ll come along with dwight, somehow!”
nicky darted off into the jungle to their left, while sadok and the curator hoisted dwight to his feet and started off along the rocky side of the mountain. they saw a party of the pygmies scuttling along in the[227] valley below to get ahead of them. stopping an instant to aim, the curator drove another shell down on them. its detonation was followed by a sudden silence, and then out of the green depths of the jungle across the creek burst a full, deep-throated war chant.
“ko! ko! ko!
hy-yah! hy-yah! hy-yah!
to-yah-hyah! to-yah-hyah!
ko! ko! ko!”
the curator stopped, exulting. these were men!—not the little, dwarfed aborigines of the hills, but big, tall, deep-chested men—the outanatas!
he scarce dared to hope. an arrow whispered through the jungle over his shoulder, but he heeded it not, his eyes fixed on that open green tunnel that opened out on the creek bank. the marching song continued, and he got glimpses of spears and white-scrolled shields moving along through the greens of the forest below. then a tall chief stood in the mouth of the tunnel, his face hideously streaked with white marks, and, hanging like an apron from his girdle, was the curator’s flaming red bandanna. it was the war chief of the outanatas—and behind[228] him came baderoon, pointing and urging them on vigorously!
the curator cupped his hands.
“baderoon! baderoon! here we are!” he yelled. then he and sadok laid dwight down under a rock ledge and sought ambushes. yells and war cries sounded from the mountain side all about them as the long line of outanata warriors splashed across the creek, brandishing their weapons. parties of pygmies formed for the assault in the swales. the occasional cough of sadok’s sumpitan at different places on the mountain showed that he was outlying and picking off men here and there.
then a knot of the pygmies gathered below the curator, evidently bent on taking the outanatas in the rear. he aimed carefully into the midst of them and fired his third shell. its stunning report was the signal for a general attack, for the outanatas dashed out into the grass country, a cloud of arrows preceding them, while javelins soared and poised in the air, to sink out of sight in the long grass.
baderoon came running up the hill through the jungle.
“me get’m! me fetch’m, orang-kaya![229] come! no good for white man be here.” he was fully armed, and exuberant with delight and high spirits. the curator called in sadok, and they raised dwight to his feet and set off at full speed, with the dyak covering their retreat. the boy was fast getting his strength back now, and they went along rapidly. as they left the plateau the curator looked back. the whole country behind him was full of tall and short black men, fighting like demons, catching arrows on ready shields, jabbing at each other with long spears, and occasionally the white flash of a bamboo knife would tell where one of a pair had come off victorious.
that was his last glimpse of papuan and pygmy, for the way led down abruptly into their valley, and soon they were crossing the strip of deep jungle and had arrived on the coral bank. a shout for nicky, answered by a low whistle, brought them to the stream bank, where the old white sail of the small proa showed up through the thickets. nicky had already gotten the crate aboard and was all ready to shove off. they tumbled in, and baderoon took the helm, while sadok drew in the sheet rope. the creek banks slid swiftly by, and presently they were out[230] in the lagoon and headed down it toward the capes of the open sea.
“good-by, new guinea!” shouted the curator, waving his hand at the column of smoke that rose far back in the hills. “some day the white race will need you—but it’s a long, long way off yet, boys!” he laughed, dropping his voice. “and now let’s have those cinnabar specimens,” he added, as the proa swept along like a swallow under the fresh breeze. “mum’s the word about them, everybody,” he warned. “it’s the one big secret of the expedition.”
“i suppose we’ll see you next as president of the new guinea mining company, limited, mr. baldwin?” laughed nicky, who was busily whittling at a short bamboo stick he had brought aboard.
“that opens up a big subject, boys,” answered the curator, seriously. “if either of you want a big position in such a company, just say the word and it’s yours. you’ll be rich and prosperous beyond your dreams.”
“and you, mr. baldwin?” inquired dwight, curiously.
“such temptations are not for me,” replied the curator. “when i’ve reported this thing to certain financiers, i’m through. my whole[231] life has been that of a scientist, a seeker after knowledge. when i have found a new thing my interest in it ceases. as a wanderer and an explorer i am happy; as a wealthy mine owner i’d be miserable. all my education has been in the service of science; it’s the only life for me.”
“me, too!” grunted nicky, splitting his bamboo wand and sticking a small sliver in it to hold it open. “and, there’s one specimen from new guinea that i didn’t get, and that’s a sea snake. you can have your mine for all of me!”
“by george! that’s the way i feel, too!” exclaimed dwight. “the engineers and the moneyed men can have red mountain, for all i care. i’d far rather collect a new butterfly in some out-of-the-way hole than own a million dollars. all i want is to be with you on your next expedition, mr. baldwin.”
the curator looked into their eyes understandingly.
“it’s the way we naturalists all feel,” he said, appreciatively. “enough to live on and the chance to do something for science is happiness to us. sadok and i are going into the interior of borneo next, and i’d be[232] delighted to have you with me. your characters are pretty well formed now; all this that we’ve gone through has simply hardened them, so i know i can depend on you—and that’s the most precious knowledge any man can have—”
“there’s one! port your helm, baderoon!” came from nicky. they looked around, to see a sea snake swimming carelessly along, his head a foot out of the water. he was afraid of nothing and stuck out his tongue warningly as the proa sheered toward him. then his oarlike tail flashed into swift motion and he shot along by their gunwale, but nicky was too quick for him, and with a swift jab of his wand brought him aboard, squirming and striking furiously from the cleft in which he was caught.
“look out! he’s highly venomous!” warned nicky, coming aft. “watch out—he’s getting away!”
the snake dropped to the bottom of the canoe and darted up its side. with a swift clip of the rod nicky broke his neck, and the “specimen” lay squirming aimlessly in the bottom of the boat as they all watched it narrowly.
“he’ll be ready for skinning out presently,”[233] chirped nicky, cheerily. “as a snakist i’ve got you fellows backed into the cellar!”
the proa had now run down opposite the capes, and the swell of the open sea slid her about like an airplane. that mountainous coast is always windy and stormy, and it was making the usual squally weather now. the proa bucked and plunged like a racehorse, her lee outrigger buried in foam, the weather one clipping the tops of combers, while the three whites sat out on the bamboo wings that hung out from each side on the outrigger braces like a basket. it was a wild and exceedingly wet ride, the proa careening down the wave slopes like a hawk and soaring almost bodily out of water when lifted up on the white-capped combers.
the land dropped swiftly astern; towering up into heavy banks of clouds rose the dark ranges of the charles louis mountains, with the woolly pyramids of the afternoon thunderheads gathering in the sky back over the interior. it was their last look at dutch new guinea, for soon the cloud banks lowered and ugly squall clouds, like long dark cigars, swept across the horizon, shutting them in in the gray circle of the sea. a chip thrown over the side and timed by the curator’s watch[234] showed a speed of nearly ten knots. at that rate they would reach aru at night—a landfall that would be dangerous in the extreme until the stars came out and the sea went down.
accordingly, the curator shortened sail, reefing the lateen down to half its original bulk. the proa now labored and wallowed, keeping at least one of them bailing vigorously. she was an able boat in the eyes of her original owners, no doubt; but then water, more or less, was nothing in their naked philosophy!
then came the rain, beating the sea flat and drenching them to the skin. through the smother of it the proa drove on steadily, laying her course for aru as close as possible on the starboard tack. later fell a flat calm and the stars came out. she rolled incredibly in the smooth, welling billows, but gradually these went down, until by midnight all was quiet and they lay drifting idly on the black bosom of the banda sea. now and then the phosphorescent wake of a large shark would pass them, but finally this interest, too, waned, and everyone fell asleep except the curator, who had volunteered to take the watch.
[235]he sat dreaming under the stars, the sail hanging out idly and scarcely straightening the sheet. a gentle gurgle of phosphorescent fire eddied from the captured papuan paddle that they had used for a rudder. the dim forms of his companions lay huddled in the dark, lying on the bamboo framework over the outrigger poles.
the curator regarded them with feelings of quiet satisfaction. their dash into dutch new guinea had been a success. they had brought back an immensely valuable natural-history collection, and mineral information to the world that would soon add a vigorous trade settlement to those two forlorn dutch military posts, six hundred miles apart, on a wild and savage coast. but above all he rejoiced in the spiritual results of the expedition with deepest pride. those two boys had shown courage and resourcefulness far beyond their years; they had faced privation, danger, and battle with a grit and determination, a cheerfulness and lack of grouch, that had proved them men after his own heart. and to serve the cause of science they had refused the opportunity for fabulous wealth and all the ease and comfort that money can give. with them and his two devoted natives[236] the curator felt that he had a scientific organization that would do. yes, it would do mighty well!
he smoked on, thinking silently as the hours slipped by. finally a light breeze, the precursor of dawn, sprang up, and the proa slipped quietly along, little rills of water trickling against her planks. it grew light in the east, and after a time out of the mists in the west developed the solid cloud banks, pierced with pale outlines of islets, hill, and jungle, of the shore line of aru.
“land ho!” yelled the curator, waking them all up. “here’s aru, boys, dead ahead, and we’ve beaten our proa that was to have come for us by two days!”
