_ CHAPTER XXI. SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT
"Rod! Wake up!"
The tense whisper aroused McKay instantly. With one sweep of the arm his net was torn aside and he leaped out with pistol drawn.
"Right, Merry. What is it?"
"We've got him! Look!"
The electric ray again streaked the gloom. The astounded captain did not drop his gun, but he came near it. For a long minute he stood as in a trance. When he attempted to holster his weapon he fumbled three times for the sheath before he found it.
"Whew!" he breathed. "Have you killed him?"
"Nope--don't think so. Lord! I hope not! Now that I think of it, I did give him a mighty solid smash. Used the butt. He was crawling in here, and naturally I didn't stop to ask for his card. Feel his head."
McKay complied. His exploring fingers found only a huge bump under the thick hair.
"No, his skull's whole. Didn't even split the scalp. You crowned him hard, but unless he got concussion he's still useful. His nosebleed comes from hitting the ground, I think. Turn off the light. Are you still on guard?"
"Yes. The Brazilians are out."
"Take a turn and see that all's clear. Can't tell what might break any minute now. Leave your flash here."
Passing the flat, nickel light-box to the captain, Knowlton retrieved his gun from the ground and resumed his patrol. Slight as the disturbance had been, uneasiness was in the air. The savages on the far shore were up, peering at the
tambo and muttering to one another. Measuring the distance, the lieutenant saw that, though they had undoubtedly seen the flashlight switched on and off and made out the movements of men, they could not have discerned what lay on the ground beyond the hammocks. Nearer at hand, Tucu and a couple of the Mayorunas were awake and looking out. But the sight of the sentinel strolling up and down in apparent unconcern and the absence of light in the
tambo gradually quieted the suspicions on both sides of the water. Soon the Red Bones squatted again and the Mayorunas lay back with minds at ease.
Then a dim sheen of light showed for a time at the back of the white men's shelter, fading out after a few minutes into the usual gloom. McKay had pulled a blanket over himself and the unconscious man, masking his torch glare from any watching eye while he studied the face and form of the invader. After the faint radiance vanished certain sounds came to the sentry's ears. Then McKay's tall figure loomed in the vague moonshine. Knowlton stopped beside him.
"It's Rand," the captain vouchsafed in an undertone. "No question of it. Features identical, though face is drawn. White hair mark, broken nose, green eyes. I opened one eye. Got a bad foot, partly healed; looks as if he'd torn it on a stub. Poor devil seems nearly starved."
"So? Then that's why he sneaked in like that--wanted to steal some grub. Those mutts over yonder probably haven't fed him since he got hurt."
"That's it. He's had to do his own foraging, and his foot has given him mighty little chance. Damn those brutes!"
"Right! But now what? Look out that he doesn't sneak away again."
"He won't. I tied his feet. He's in Pedro's hammock, still dead to the world. If he wakes up and starts to yell I'll gag him. We've got to get away now as soon as we can."
"How?"
"Don't know. By water, perhaps. Wish those bushman were here. Haven't heard any noise over there, have you?"
"All quiet. They're safe--or dead."
"Hm! Confounded foolishness, anyway. But we've no means of getting out until they're back. Couldn't desert them, besides. What time is it?"
"Ten-thirty. You go on watch at midnight."
"I'm on watch now, inside. They may be back any time. If they don't show up in the next couple of hours I'll send Tucu to find out why. We'll have to get those canoes over here, too. Water leaves no trail."
He turned back into the hut, leaving Knowlton figuring chances. To obtain those canoes was a man-sized job. To put the Red Bone guards out of action without arousing the whole tribe was an even bigger job. But no boats could be brought over until the outpost was silenced, that was sure.
Another half-hour crept past. Still no noise from the town, no suspicious move on the other shore. Then from the
tambo itself came a low mumble of voices. Knowlton stepped swiftly into it. As noiselessly as they had gone the two bushmen had returned.
In his usual concise phrases McKay was informing them of the capture of the Raposa. With his back to the stream and the flashlight held close to his body, he played the light for an instant on the face of the still unconscious man. Then, once more in darkness, he asserted:
"Now that we have him, we must get out of here. Only chance to do that is to get the canoes. With them we can at least be away from this town by sunrise, and it will take the Red Bones just so much longer to find our trail where we take to the bush. We'll get a flying start that way. Anything else to suggest?"
"That is the best plan, Capitao," Lourenco agreed. For the first time since the Americans had known him his voice held a note of suppressed excitement. "It is the only plan worth while. And I do not think we shall have to take to our legs soon--if at all. I believe this creek connects with that which flows past the Monitaya
malocas. We have learned some things.
Por Deus! If only we had known the Raposa was here!"
"Why?"
"Because then we could have brought company with us. Senhores, guess what the barred house holds."
"Well?"
"Women of the Mayorunas! Girls stolen from Monitaya and other settlements!"
"Jumping Judas!" ejaculated Knowlton. "Are you sure?"
"Sure, comrades! These foul Red Bones are the men who have been lurking around the Mayoruna tribe houses and capturing girls who went into the bush. They have taken the prisoners to the water, where the trails always were lost and where they could find hiding places until night, then drive their canoes past the clearings and get out of that country. So there must be some water connection by which these men travel, and by which we too can travel. If we go downstream we are almost sure to find it by daylight."
"But why--what's the idea of their stealing the girls? For victims? If so, how are the girls still alive?"
"Do you not see, senhor?" Pedro broke in, impatiently. "Did not Umanuh ask if we would pay more than the other Blackbeard for the Raposa? What other Blackbeard?"
"Schwandorf!" the Americans blurted, simultaneously.
"Not so loud! Schwandorf, of course! Umanuh works with the German. He catches girls by stealth and sells them to the German to add to his slave gangs. While the Mayorunas all blame the Peruvians for the disappearances, Umanuh works unsuspected. He is holding these women until Schwandorf comes again--and it may be that Schwandorf is not far off at this moment. Now that we have come seeking the wild man, Umanuh at once thinks of selling him also; and he wonders whether we or Schwandorf will pay the more for him."
"By thunder! I believe you're right!" Knowlton coincided. "He's stalling for time, holding us here while Schwandorf comes up, I'll bet. No wonder he and his men are wary of the Mayorunas--they thought we'd come to snoop around and catch 'em with the goods. You fellows must have done a mighty slick job to find out this stuff without getting caught. Isn't the house guarded at night?"
"Indeed it is! Two clubmen are there now, and there is only the one door. Not even a window. But Lourenco worked a small hole between two logs at the back while I watched the clubmen, and through the hole he whispered with one of the women inside. If only we had known the wild man was here we could have jumped the guards and tried to bring back the women. But of course your business about the Raposa had to be thought of first, so all we could do was to tell them friends were here."
For a few seconds there was the silence of thought. Then Knowlton chuckled.
"I'll say we have our hands full this night. Now we not only have to get ourselves and Rand out of here, but also rescue the fair damsels from the clutches of the ogre. 'Twon't do to leave them here while we go back to Monitaya and get the rest of his army. By the time we could come back they'd be gone--one way or another. What's done has to be done now or never."
"Right!" McKay commended. "We'll have to save the women, of course. Question is--how?"
Lourenco answered at once.
"My idea, Capitao, is this: We two will return. With us we will take Tucu. The three of us can handle those guards quietly. We must have Tucu, because the women do not know us and might balk at the last moment. Women are queer creatures, and these might think themselves safer inside prison walls than following two strange men through the night; but Tucu can handle them. When once we are clear of the houses Tucu can lead the women to the bank above here, and we shall try for the canoes. Then it will be fast work to get away, but if we have good fortune it can be done."
"Confound it! You fellows are taking all the risks! Can't you take more men--"
"No. No man but Tucu. He has a cool head. These others, if they knew, would go blood-mad and attack the Red Bones to avenge their lost women, and so would get us all killed. Now I will talk with Tucu."
He slipped into the Mayoruna shelter and returned with the cannibal leader, whom he led to the far side of the
tambo before speaking. Then, in whispers which the other tribesmen could not overhear, he explained the situation. Knowlton took another turn or two along his post, finding that the Red Bones across the water were stirring about and evidently aware that something was going on; but they made no move either to get into a canoe or to send a man to the houses beyond. As he stopped again at the corner near the whispering pair he heard Tucu grinding his teeth, and as the savage turned his face toward the Red Bone outpost it was a mask of murder. But he spoke no word as he slipped back to his own men.
"He will wake another man and tell him what to do," Lourenco explained. "But only we four shall know of the women until they are freed. Will one of you lend Tucu a machete? He may need a weapon, and he cannot carry his big bow on this trip."
A few minutes later the three crept out behind the
tambo, Tucu gripping McKay's machete. As a final word Lourenco said: "Our men here may move about a little after a time, but do not try to keep them quiet. It is a part of the plan."
With that he was gone. Listen as they might, the Americans could hear no sound to indicate that three men now were traversing the black tangle beyond.
McKay took up his rifle and assumed the sentry work. Knowlton sat in his hammock, grateful for the chance to rest his weary legs. From the hammock where the Raposa lay no sound came. With a worried frown the lieutenant leaned over him and laid hand on his heart. After a while he sat up again in relief.
"Lord! I sure knocked him cold!" was his thought. "But he's still with us, and there's no use in reviving him now; the less noise over here the better. Hope I didn't jar his brains loose altogether; he might wake up a murderous maniac. Poor devil! A millionaire, yet half starved and more than half nutty."
He glanced at the dim scene before the hut. The moon now had journeyed so far westward that the creeping shadows of the tall trees had moved out almost to the creek, and the two crude shelters and the sentinel were surrounded by dense gloom. The Red Bone men opposite must rely on their ears alone hereafter, for they could not see through this darkness. McKay was visible enough to his own party, but not to the enemy. The blond man in the hammock watched the somber figure of his comrade, followed the flight of a big firefly whose light floated near, thought of the two bushmen out in the dark, and looked again at the still form of Rand.
"Drifters all," he soliloquized. "The fireflies and Rod and Tim and I and those Brazilian dare-devils--all floating around because we can't keep still, and never getting anywhere. And you, you silly-ass Rand, have a mint waiting for you up home, and we have to come find you and lead you up there and shove your nose into it. And if you get your brains back you'll be a nine days' wonder and a hero of the jungle and all that, and the girls will all tumble over you--because you've got a couple of millions in your sock. And we fellows who yanked you out of hell by the left hind leg can pocket our pay and go jump off the dock, for all anybody cares. Ho-hum! All the same, I'd rather be me than you, old thing. Free to drift and able to handle myself. You can have the money and the moths that hang around it."
With which he yawned, squinted again at the sinister figure squatting out yonder in the moonshine, arose, and made himself useful. Working very quietly, he took down three of the hammocks, rolled them up, laid them at the corner nearest the creek; made up the packs by sense of touch and placed them and the rifles of the absent pair in the same place. Then he lifted the Raposa from the one remaining hammock, laid him on the packs, rolled up the hammock itself, and put it under the unconscious man's head. If given time when the crisis came, he meant to save all equipment. If not, Rand lay where he could be grabbed without delay.
Before he completed the work he became aware that the Mayorunas all were awake. Not only awake, but moving stealthily about, as Lourenco had predicted. McKay also knew it and stepped back into the hut, where Knowlton told him what he had done. But so softly did the men of Monitaya move that the Red Bone watchers showed no sign of alarm. Both the Americans observed, however, that the cannibals across the stream had their heads together and that occasionally one looked up at the little moon.
"Get that, Rod? They're waiting for the shadows to crawl over there and cover them and the water. They know that then we can't see what they're up to. I'm betting they intend to pull some dirty work after that."
"Yep. But intention and accomplishment are two different birds. Wonder what these Mayorunas are fixing to do. Wish I could talk their language."
"Tucu evidently left orders for them to get up at a certain time, but why I don't know. We'd better let them alone."
The shadow line passed out upon the water, slipping by infinitesimal gradations across its mirror surface. The Mayorunas had become quiet. The whites waited in silent suspense for they knew not what. Far out in the forest a jaguar gave his coughing roar at intervals. Little by little the Red Bone men arose from their squat until they stood erect. A tense stillness held both forces. And the shadows crawled on--on--and reached the farther bank.
Then a Red Bone man shoved his head forward, squinting upstream as if he had heard something move in the rank grass. He began to sneak softly in that direction. At that moment, from the water's edge a little above the camp, sounded a loud hiss.
Before the sound died a sudden thrum of bow cords filled the air. A whisper of five-foot shafts speeding over the water--a rapid-fire series of tiny impacts--a couple of short groans--the thumps of falling bodies--and the Red Bone outpost was no more. Shot through and through by the deadly war arrows of the Mayorunas, they were dead before they struck the ground. And from the men of Monitaya sounded one short, subdued "Hah!" of savage satisfaction.
Up from the ground where that hiss had sounded rose a tall figure which waved its arms and danced about in impromptu signals. Then it ran for the canoes. Out from the gloom upstream other figures took shape, running fast for the same point. With one simultaneous movement Knowlton and McKay seized the Raposa and rushed with him to the stream.
"Senhores!" sounded Pedro's voice, low but tense, across the water. "Be ready!"
"Ready and waiting!" snapped McKay. "Who are those people. Your women?"
"
Si. We are not discovered--"
Across his words smote a long shrill yell from the town.
"
Por Deus. We
are discovered! Get our rifles, for the love of
Deus Padre."
He leaped into a canoe, drove it headlong across, and dived for the
tambo. Behind him the other figures dashed panting up to the landing. Tucu's voice rasped in swift commands. The fugitives swarmed into other dugouts. The Mayoruna men, still ignorant of the identity of these people, but assured by Tucu's voice and manner that they were not enemies, lowered their weapons and rushed for the water. Up in the town the yelling swiftly grew into a roar, and running figures came pelting toward the creek.
The canoes struck the bank. Some were partly filled, some empty and in tow. Into Pedro's canoe the whites bundled the Raposa, while the Mayorunas got into anything within reach. Lourenco appeared from nowhere and urged the Americans to open fire. As he spoke, arrows thudded into the ground and the water.
"Take this man and go!" rasped McKay. "We're losing our equipment, but--"
His rifle leaped to his shoulder. Flame spat from it. From the van of the charging Red Bones shrilled a death scream.
Again and again the captain's gun cracked. Knowlton's joined in. Before their rifles grew silent the blunt roar of Pedro's repeater broke out. And with the emptying of their long guns the Americans drew their short ones, and in a concerted ripping crash the forty-fives volleyed death and dismay into the oncoming cannibals.
The rush was checked. For a few seconds the Red Bones wavered and milled about. Into their mass poured a cloud of arrows and blowgun darts from the silent but no less deadly weapons of the Mayorunas. As the whites paused to reload, Pedro opened a new blast from Lourenco's rifle, which his comrade had passed to him on the run. Lourenco was not shooting, but working madly and alone to save the equipment. And, thanks to the renewed deadly fire of the guns, he saved it.
Before the wicked belch of the three rifles and the two automatics the Red Bones gave back more and more. Their arrows plunged all around the fighting men, but they fell at random, for the gunmen and the canoes were virtually invisible in the deep shadows. Downstream, Tucu's harsh voice jarred in commands as he straightened out the line of boats.
At the next lull in the firing Lourenco panted: "In, comrades! We are loaded. In!"
"Great guns! Are you still here?" snapped McKay. "I told you--"
"In! Talk later. Come!"
The three gun fighters swiftly obeyed. With a powerful heave Lourenco sent the canoe after the others. Americans, Brazilians, and the Raposa hunched up among the packs, all went sliding down a jungle Styx.
A moment later the Red Bone warriors, taking heart from the cessation of firing, poured an avalanche of arrows into the spot where they had been. And as the canoe, last in the escaping line, was swallowed up in the impenetrable blackness of the forest a hair-raising screech of diabolical fury blended with a swift succession of splashes back where the cannibals were plunging headlong into the stream to reach the dead or wounded men whom they vainly hoped to find on the farther shore.
"I told you to take this man and go!" McKay fumed. "By disobeying orders you risked losing him."
"Oh, pipe down, Rod!" remonstrated Knowlton. "If they had, where'd we be now? This was the last canoe."
"
Si. It is so," added Lourenco, his voice hard edged. "As it is, the man and the equipment and you also are here. And let me tell you this, Capitao Makkay, whether you like it or not: Pedro and I would see this wild man and a million others like him in a hotter place than this before we would abandon fighting comrades."
To which McKay, finding no adequate answer, made none whatever. _