The hot days and the cold nights dragged on. The food, poor and
distasteful as it was, the boys learned to eat; they could not
understand why it did not kill them, for they were sure that it
contained all the germs that had ever been discovered with several
millions that had not. The hideous nights, made unbearable by cold and
vermin, seemed eternities of suffering. Yet the boys lived on--lived
and learned. They learned the language of Ukundo; learned to speak in a
dialect that all could understand; learned to understand that of their
captors, the Bagalla.
Many other things they came to understand during the days of their
captivity, not the least of which was a new conception of the Negro.
To Doc, whose experience with colored people had been limited to a few
worthless specimens of the Northern States, it came as a revelation.
Even among the warriors of the cannibal Bagalla, he encountered
individuals who possessed great natural dignity, poise and evident
strength of character. Bulala, a typical West Coast black, densely
ignorant and superstitious, had, nevertheless, a heart of gold that
revealed itself in his loyalty and generosity; while little Ukundo,
the pygmy, perhaps among the lowest in the social scale of all African
peoples, proved a staunch friend and a good comrade. To his natural
shrewdness was added an almost uncanny knowledge of the jungle and
the jungle people, both beast and human; the tales he told the boys
shortened many a weary hour.
After the first week of their captivity, the boys had managed to get
a message to chief Galla Galla through Bulala and Zopinga, explaining
to him that being unaccustomed to breathing the close air of a hut and
living always without sunshine, they would surely die. They asked to
be given more freedom and exercise, pointing out that there was little
likelihood of their being able to escape, since they were unfamiliar
with the jungle and would not know in what direction to go should they
be able to leave the village. But upon one point they were very careful
not to commit themselves--they did not promise not to _try_ to escape.
And as a result of their plea, Galla Galla gave all the prisoners the
freedom of the village during the day-time, placing the guards at the
village gates instead of at the doorway of the hut in which they had
been confined. And at night there were no guards at all, since the
village gates were then closed and locked and the dangers of the jungle
were sufficient to keep any one from attempting to escape.
The boys had really had little hope that their request would be
granted, and there is little likelihood that it would have been, but
for the shrewdness of Ukundo, who had accurately gauged the impression
Doc's wizardry had made upon Galla Galla, measuring it, doubtless, by
the awe that it had created in his own superstitious mind. It was due
to Ukundo, therefore, that Bulala did not transmit the message in the
form of a request. Instead, Zopinga had carried a demand to his chief,
backed by a threat that the white boy witch-doctor would loose some
very much more terrible medicine upon him, if he refused to permit them
the freedom of the village; and Ukundo had been careful to insure that
the demand included both Bulala and himself.
Influenced by their fear of Doc's magic, the villagers treated the
boys with more respect than they would ordinarily have been accorded
and there was one youth in particular who gave them a very wide berth,
keeping as far from them as possible. This was Paabu, the youth within
whose thick skull it was popularly believed reposed the big medicine of
the white boy witch-doctor.
Since the moment that Doc had made the two knives disappear within
Paabu's left ear that unhappy individual had been the object of much
suspicious observation upon the part of all the villagers. At first
he had enjoyed this unusual celebrity and had strutted about with
great pompousness, but when it had been whispered that Galla Galla
was becoming consumed with curiosity to learn if the big medicine was
indeed inside Paabu's head, the youth had filled with a great terror
that kept him almost continuously in the seclusion and dirt of his
father's hut; for he knew of but one way in which Galla Galla could
definitely learn if the big medicine was actually within his skull,
and Paabu knew Galla Galla well enough to know that, whenever the
spirit chanced to move him, he would not hesitate to make a thorough
investigation, no matter how painful, or how fatal to Paabu.
One day, as the boys were lying in the shade beside their hut, Galla
Galla approached them. With him was an evil-faced individual whom the
boys recognized as Intamo, the witch-doctor of the Bagalla, a Mugalla
of great power whose influence over Galla Galla made him in many ways
virtually chief of the Bagalla. His wrinkled face was seamed and lined
by age and vicious thoughts, and clouded by a perpetual scowl--a fit
setting for his blood-shot eyes and his sharp, filed, cannibal teeth.
As the two approached the boys, Intamo excitedly urged something upon
the chief, but he ceased speaking as they came within earshot of Dick
and Doc, as though fearful that they might overhear and understand.
However, Galla Galla, stopping in front of his two young captives,
let the cat out of the bag. "Intamo say your medicine no good," he
announced.
"Let him make better medicine," retorted Doc in halting and faulty
Bagalla.
"Intamo say your medicine not in Paabu's head," continued Galla Galla.
"I say it is. Didn't you see me put it there?"
"We find out," announced the chief.
"How you find out?" demanded Dick, and then, as a sudden thought popped
into his mind: "Golly! You don't mean--"
"How you find out what's in a nut?" retorted Galla Galla. "You crack
it!"
"But you'd kill him," cried Doc, horror stricken.
"And if we do not find the big medicine there, we kill you," said
Intamo, who would have liked nothing better than to get rid of the
white boy whose big medicine had had a bad effect upon Intamo's
reputation as a witch-doctor, since he had been unable to duplicate
Doc's exhibition of wizardry.
"You come now," he continued. "We find out!"
And accompanied by Galla Galla and the boys, Intamo led the way toward
the center of the village where, in an open space before the chief's
hut, all the ceremonies of the tribe were conducted.
While Paabu was being searched out and dragged, resisting and
screaming, to be sacrificed upon the altar of ignorance and
superstition, word ran rapidly through the village that a bit of
delicious entertainment was about to be staged, and there resulted a
rush for grand stand seats.
A ring of Savage warriors kept a circular place cleared; in the center
of this clearing stood Galla Galla and Intamo. To them Paabu was
dragged. Dick and Doc stood shoulder to shoulder in the front rank of
spectators, their tanned faces blanched with horror. Two warriors held
the half fainting Paabu while Intamo, armed with a knobkerrie, made
mystical passes in the air and mumbled a weird incantation that was
supposed to weaken the strength of the white boy's big medicine, in the
event that it should actually be found within the unfortunate Paabu's
head.
"Golly!" whispered Dick, "can't we do something to stop them before
Intamo breaks that boy's head open with his club?"
"Makes me feel like a murderer," groaned Doc.
"You will be a murderer--almost--if they go through with this thing,"
said Dick. "But if you tell 'em the truth, they'll kill us."
"When they don't find the knives inside his coco, they'll kill us
anyway," replied Doc.
"Then you better tell 'em," advised Dick. "There's no use lettin' 'em
kill that poor kid."
"I've got it!" cried Doc. "For the love of Mike! Quick! Slip me your
knife! Don't let anyone see it. Here! That's it! Now watch my smoke!"
Slipping Dick's knife inside his loin cloth beside his own, Doc stepped
forward into the circle. "Wait!" he commanded, advancing toward Intamo,
but addressing Galla Galla. "You need not kill Paabu. I can prove that
the big medicine that belongs to my friend and the big medicine that
belongs to me are both inside Paabu's head. I am a great witch-doctor
and do not have to crack Paabu's skull open to get the medicine out,
the way Intamo does. See!"
And before Intamo could prevent, Doc stepped close to the unfortunate
victim of Intamo's jealousy and Galla Galla's curiosity, and with two
swift movements of his right hand appeared to withdraw the knives from
Paabu's ear. Turning, he exhibited them upon the palm of his open hand
to Galla Galla and the assembled Bagalla.
Perhaps Doc's Bagalla had been lame and halting, but there was no one
there who did not perfectly understand the wondrous powers of his great
magic, nor fail to see that his medicine was much stronger than that of
Intamo, for it is very true that we are all convinced by what we think
we see, quite as surely as by what we actually do see.
Galla Galla was nonplussed. Intamo was furious. Being an unscrupulous
old fakir, himself, he was convinced that Doc had done no more than
play a clever trick upon them all--a trick by which he, for one, did
not intend to be fooled. But now he knew that Doc had beaten him at his
own game and perhaps in the bottom of his ignorant, savage brain there
was enough natural superstition to half convince him that perhaps,
after all, here was a real, genuine witch-doctor who commanded demons
and controlled their supernatural powers. His fear and hatred of Doc
were increased a hundred fold by the happenings of the past few minutes
and within his evil heart there crystalized the determination to rid
himself as quickly as possible of this dangerous competitor.
Had he known what was coming, he would have used his knobkerrie to that
end upon the instant, for Doc had been smitten by another of those
brilliant ideas that had made him famous and feared at school as a
practical joker--though it is only fair to record that his jokes had
always been harmless and good-natured ones until he had met Intamo. He
wheeled suddenly toward that portion of the ring where the greatest
throng was gathered, and held the two knives out upon his open palm.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" he cried. "We have here two ordinary pocket
knives." The fact that he spoke English and that none of his auditors
understood him, but added to the impressiveness of his words, since all
the tribe was quite convinced that he was about to make big medicine.
"Step right up and examine them! Feel of them! Bite them!"
Some of his hearers began to show evidences of growing nervousness.
"You see that they are gen-u-ine. You will note that I have no
accomplices. Now, ladies and gentlemen, watch me closely!"
As upon the other occasions, he placed his left palm over the knives,
clasped his hands, blew upon them, raised them above his head.
"Abacadabra!" he screamed with such sudden shrillness that his audience
fell back in terror.
"Allo, presto, change cars and be gone!"
He turned slowly about until he had located the exact position of
Intamo and then before the unsuspecting witch-doctor could guess his
purpose Doc sprang quickly to his side and placed both palms over the
old villain's ear.
"Now you see 'em! Now you don't!" he concluded, and turned with
outspread, empty palms toward Galla Galla.
He stood thus in impressive silence for several seconds, while the true
meaning of what he had done sank into the muddy brains of his audience.
Then he addressed Galla Galla.
"You saw me take the big medicine from the head of Paabu and place it
in the head of Intamo," he said in the language of the chief. "If you
want to make sure that it is in Intamo's head, it may be that he will
loan you his war club."