CAPTAIN CARTER’S SCHEME
Slowly, Mr. Monahan and the Scouts obeyed the captain’s terse command to
raise their hands. He lined them up against the rock, but, observing Mr.
Livingston’s weakened condition, did not force him to arise.
“I should do you all in now and put an end to this cat-mouse game,” he
said in a bored tone. “It would be so easy.”
“I rather doubt that, captain,” Mr. Monahan answered, matching his cool,
detached manner. “True, you might shoot and toss us to the fish, but in
doing so, you certainly would bring the wrath of the natives down upon
your head. Don’t forget that as Ino, the Medicine Man, I still swing a
little weight. Do away with me, and you’ll bring the pack down on your
back!”
“You over-estimate your quack medical powers, Monahan,” Captain Carter
sneered. “But that’s beside the point. Why work against each other when
we can make a deal?”
“A deal?”
“This lake holds enough treasure for both of us, with a few trinkets
left over for the Scouts to take home to their mamas. Why not team
together to get it out?”
“Team with you!” Mr. Monahan exclaimed. “You’ve already betrayed and
cheated me! Instead of revealing to my brother that I was safe, you gave
him quite the opposite impression. You defrauded him.”
“He’ll get his cash back,” the captain retorted. “I was stony broke when
we parted company, and didn’t have enough money to pay off my crew. I
had to raise cash fast to get back here with the equipment we needed to
pull off the job.”
“Apparently, it never occurred to you to tell my brother the truth. Or
to go to government authorities. That was because you expected to do me
in and grab everything for yourself!”
“Oh, I considered it,” Captain Carter admitted with a shrug, “but the
scheme offers risks. First, the Scouts loused up my deal by bringing the
authorities down on my head. As a result, I got here with a minimum of
the explosives I’ll need.”
“You intend to dynamite the lake?”
“That might be the general idea. Know of a better way to get rid of
those man chewin’ fish?”
“It might work,” Mr. Monahan conceded grudgingly. “But the point is,
what will the natives do when you set off an explosion?”
“I always was one to go for the big chance—take all, lose all, that’s
me. First, I aim to set myself up as the big Chief, deposing old
mud-in-the-mouth Panomuna. Once that’s done, I’ll say hocus-pocus and
toss some grenades into this lake. That should do the trick.”
“You make it sound very easy,” Mr. Monahan replied. “Just how do you
propose to depose Panomuna?”
“It’s simple,” Captain Carter boasted. He flashed a cigarette lighter.
“I’ll do a snappy job of starting a fire with this little gadget.”
“You think of everything, captain!” Mr. Monahan remarked sarcastically.
“That’s me. Well, what do you say? Are you playing along?”
“Just what is your proposition?”
“We’ll split the treasure two ways—half yours, half mine. You let me get
out of the country before you tip government officials. That’s all I
ask.”
“No! All of the treasure must be turned over to the proper authorities.”
“You’re a stubborn fool!” Captain Carter asserted angrily. “Okay, if you
don’t want to play along, I’ll take all the treasure and you can’t stop
me. You and your boys can take your chances on getting out of here
alive. Your decision is final?”
“It is.”
“Okay then,” Carter said, lowering his automatic. “If we can’t be
friends, then it’s each man for himself, and the Devil catch the
hindmost. I’m warning you though—don’t try any tricks either tonight or
tomorrow. I’m setting myself up as a ruler, and if you try to interfere,
I’ll turn the natives loose on you.”
The captain started to leave. In passing Mr. Livingston, he scrutinized
him briefly.
“Fever, eh?” he remarked. “You’ll all be down with it before long.”
“Could you spare me a cigarette?” the Scout leader asked.
“Sure, anything for a pal,” the captain replied sarcastically.
Mr. Livingston fumbled with the cigarette which the seaman gave him, and
then asked for a match. Captain Carter offered him the cigarette
lighter. As he lit the fag, Jack suddenly moved forward as if to attack
the captain.
“Oh, no you don’t!” the officer snarled, whipping out his automatic
again. “No tricks, I warned you!”
“Jumpy, aren’t you?” Jack taunted. “I wasn’t even starting your way.”
“No? Well, remember what I told you, or it will be the worse for you
all.” His gaze upon the grinning Scout, Captain Carter reached out to
snatch the cigarette lighter from Mr. Livingston’s fingers.
Then, his automatic still trained upon the group, he backed slowly
toward the tunnel.
“You’re all invited to the ceremony at dawn,” he called in parting. “I
advise you though, to watch from a distance. If I catch a glimpse of
you, I’ll sick my natives onto you. Furthermore, once I’ve finished off
old Mud-in-the-Mouth, I may find it expedient to purge the Forbidden
City of strangers.”
After the captain had gone, the Scouts, Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monahan,
put in uncomfortable hours by the lake. Though they discussed any number
of plans, none of them seemed feasible.
Captain Carter, they knew, was quite capable of carrying out his threat.
Aware of their hostility, he would be more than ever on the alert.
“If we show ourselves in the city, he’ll finish us off,” Mr. Monahan
asserted. “My advice is to wait here until dawn. Even then, I don’t know
what we can do. If we try to overpower Carter, the natives will turn on
us.”
“Don’t give up hope,” Mr. Livingston encouraged the little band. “The
captain may outsmart himself. I thought of a scheme, but we can’t know
until tomorrow whether or not it will work.”
Near exhaustion, the Scout leader closed his eyes and slept. Toward
morning he was aroused by his companions, who whispered that the hour of
dawn was upon the mountain.
“Willie will stay here with you,” Jack told him. “The rest of us are
going to sneak down to the plaza to see what happens.”
Mr. Livingston aroused himself. “I’m stronger,” he insisted, stretching
his cramped legs. “My fever is down again. We’ll all go together.”
The others could not dissuade him. Aided by Jack and Ken, the Scout
leader made it through the tunnel. Still shielded by semi-darkness, the
group found a hiding place not far from the scene of activity.
“This is going to be like watching a spectacle movie!” War remarked,
thrilled by the sight.
In the plaza, hundreds of chanting natives knelt before the temple,
their heads bowed. As a prelude to the ceremonial test between Captain
Carter and the Inca ruler, replicas of the Sun and Moon were paraded on
the temple steps. An impressive silence fell upon the throng.
“This is it,” Jack whispered to his crouching companions. “Here comes
Panomuna!”
A procession of priests wound its way to the broken stone steps. Moving
with great dignity, the Inca ruler took his place in front of the great
crowd. He wore a flame colored robe and held aloft a magnificent golden
bowl.
As the first rays of the sun came over the mountain peak. Panomuna
turned to face the horizon. Raising his hand, he chanted:
“Capak inti-illariymin.”
The Indians bowed before him, replying in chorus to the chant.
“Now, Panomuna will kindle the sacred fire on the altar,” Mr. Monahan
informed the group. “He will concentrate the rays of the sun upon tinder
in the golden bowl. Then Captain Carter will do the trick faster.”
The native ruler held his great bowl aloft, catching the rays of the sun
as he pronounced his weird chant.
Soon he had created his fire, which he deposited with ceremony on the
altar. The multitude cheered.
Gradually, the cries subsided and deep silence came upon the throng.
Every eye fastened upon Captain Carter. Confident and sure of himself,
he strode down the temple steps.
“I hope he uses that cigarette lighter!” Mr. Livingston murmured. “It
would be just our luck for him to use a match.”
“The natives already are familiar with matches,” Mr. Monahan commented.
“That wouldn’t impress them and Carter knows it.”
By this time Jack had caught the gleam of bright metal in the captain’s
hand.
“He’s using the cigarette lighter!” he exclaimed jubilantly.
Carter raised his hands and in an imitation of Panomuna, entoned a
meaningless chant to the Sun God.
“Now, I produce fire!” he shouted.
But the flames were not forthcoming.
Three times the captain tried with the cigarette lighter and failed
completely to produce a spark. The natives, at first attentive, began to
rumble with displeasure.
“His silly old lighter won’t work!” War chortled, scarcely able to
control his laughter. “Serves him right for trying to set himself up as
king. Say—” Warwick’s gaze sought first Mr. Livingston and then Jack.
Both were grinning from ear to ear. “I get it!” he cried. “Mr.
Livingston, you emptied the fluid out of that lighter, didn’t you?”
“While Jack created a diversion,” the Scout leader confessed. “Captain
Carter doesn’t have a very good memory, or he would have recalled that I
never smoke cigarettes. He was easy to fool. I was afraid though, that
he’d check the lighter before the ceremony.”
“Hey, watch!” Willie interrupted the conversation. “There’s going to be
fireworks now! Not created by his royal highness, Captain Carter,
either!”
The captain appeared stunned by his failure to produce fire, and then
dismayed. Well he might be fearful. Triumphant that his rival had
failed, Panomuna now danced down the temple steps, inciting the natives
to take their revenge upon the intruder.
“Keep back, you!” the captain snarled. “Keep back I say!”
He drew his automatic and as a native came up the temple steps to seize
him, deliberately fired. The man fell, moaning.
Captain Carter fired twice into the crowd. Then, leaping down from the
temple steps, he fled up the trail toward the entrance to the treasure
lake.
“The man is mad!” Mr. Monahan exclaimed. “Now that he has discredited
himself, he should try to escape before the natives turn upon him
completely.”
“He’s heading straight for the treasure lake!” Jack cried in alarm.
“I’ll bet he has explosives hidden up there somewhere!”
Minutes passed. From their hiding place, the Scouts watched the angry
natives pursue the fleeing seaman. Their own position, they realized,
was highly precarious. But escape, even through the lower passageway,
was cut off. They could only wait and hope that if the situation became
critical, Ino might influence the natives in their favor.
Suddenly the Scouts heard a series of muffled explosions which shook the
earth.
“What was that?” Ken demanded, startled. “Sounded like dynamite all
right!”
“Hand grenades being exploded under water,” Mr. Monahan informed the
group. “Carter brought in a supply of them. He’s determined to get the
gold, even if it costs him his life. And I think it will. Nothing can
save him now.”
In the plaza, a native was pounding an alarm on the temple gong. Bong!
Bong! Bong! Weirdly the sound echoed through the streets of the village.
“Even if Captain Carter succeeds in killing the cannibal fish, how can
he hope to hold the natives at bay while he brings up the treasure?”
Jack speculated.
“It’s madness!” Mr. Monahan asserted.
“Maybe he thinks we’ll help him,” Willie began. “Maybe—”
His speculation ceased at that point, for the ground beneath his feet
began to shake and tremble.
For an instant the Scouts thought that Captain Carter had touched off
another mighty explosion, more powerful than anything that had preceded
it.
But their reasoning told them better. No man-made dynamite could cause
an entire area to be so convulsed.
Walls of stone houses lining the streets were weaving and crackling. A
massive pillar came tumbling down.
Great chasms had developed in the earth, so deep that they seemed
without bottom. Monoliths of immense size were hurled down.
“An earthquake!” cried Willie, seizing a rock for support.
“One of the worst this area has had since I’ve been here!” gasped Mr.
Monahan.
A great dust rose from the ruined city. Everywhere there was screaming,
shouting and terror as natives sought refuge.
“The wrath of the Gods is being visited upon the city,” murmured Mr.
Monahan.
“Surely, you don’t really believe that,” returned Mr. Livingston.
“Of course not,” the other admitted. “But that is what the natives will
think, if any survive this awful upheaval.”
Another hard tremor shook the area, leveling the statue in the plaza.
Crouching together for protection against the falling stone, the Scouts
tensely waited.
No further upheavals followed. After awhile, Mr. Monahan decided to
creep from the shelter to see what could be done to help the injured.
“Stay here until I test the temper of the natives,” he warned the
others. “In their present mood, there’s no telling what they may do.
Those explosions and the quake have thrown them into a panic.”
Cautiously, Mr. Monahan moved out into the devastated street. But before
he could start toward the shattered temple, he was brought up short by
the wild cries of a mob which approached the plaza from the inner lake
trail.
Into view came the Indian warriors, their dust-streaked faces contorted
with both fear and fierce triumph. On their shoulders they bore the
lifeless, battered body of Captain Carter.
“They’ve done for him!” exclaimed the Scout leader.
“They have,” grimly agreed Mr. Monahan. “He brought it on himself by
setting off those explosions!”
“Now what?” Jack asked, watching as the strange procession proceeded to
the temple steps. “Are they offering prayers to the Gods?”
Mr. Monahan nodded. “And may they be appeased!” he murmured. “If they
show displeasure by further earth tremors, all our lives may be
forfeit!”