The Boy and His Pa Start for the Coast in an Airship—Pa Saluted
the Crowd as We Passed Over Them—The Airship Lands Amid a Savage
Tribe—The King of the Tribe Escorts Pa and the Boy to the
Palace.
The animal capturing season is pretty near over, and we have had a
meeting of all the white men connected with the expedition and decided
to break up the camp and take our animals to the coast and sail back to
Europe and to the States.
It was decided that Pa and I and the cowboy and a negro dwarf belonging
to a tribe we have been trying to locate should start for the coast in
the airship, and the rest of the crowd should go with the cages, and all
round up at a place on the coast in three weeks, when we could catch a
boat for Hamburg, Germany. So we got the airship ready and made gas
enough to last us a week and filled the tank that furnishes the power
for the screw wheel with gasoline, and in a couple of days we were ready
to let her go Gallagher.
It was a sad parting for Pa, ’cause all the captured animals wanted to
shake hands with him, and some of them acted more human than some of the
white men, and when the cages were all hitched up and ready to move and
the negroes had been paid off and given a drink of rum and a zebra
sandwich, Mr. Hagenbach embraced Pa, and Pa got up on the framework of
the ship and took hold of the gear, and we got on and Pa told them to
cut her loose, and a little after daylight we sailed away towards the
coast and left the bunch we had been with so long with moistened eyes.
Pa saluted the crowd and throwed a kiss to the big ourang outang which
had become almost like a brother to Pa, the drivers whipped up the
horses and oxen hitched to the cages, and as the procession rattled
along to the main road going south Pa said, “Good-bye, till we meet
again,” and just then the wind changed, and in spite of all Pa could do
the airship turned towards the north and ran like a scared wolf the
wrong way.
The procession had got out of sight, or Pa would have pulled the string
that lets the gas escape, and come down to the ground; but he realized
that if we landed alone we would starve to death and be eaten by wild
animals, so he let her sail right away from where we wanted to go, and
we all said our prayers and prayed for the wind to change again.
Gee, but we sailed over a beautiful country for an hour or two, hills
and valleys and all kinds of animals in sight all the time, but now we
didn’t want any more animals, ’cause we had no place to keep them. But
the animals all seemed to want us. The lions we passed over would roar
at us, the tigers would snarl, the hyenas would laugh at Pa, the zebras
on the plains we passed over would race along with us and kick up their
heels like colts in a pasture, and the cowboy stood straddle of the
bamboo frame and just itched to throw his lasso over a fine zebra, but
Pa told him to let ’em alone, ’cause we didn’t want to be detained.
We passed over rivers where hippopotamusses were as thick as suckers in
a spring freshet, and they lookd at us as though they wouldn’t do a
thing to the airship if we landed in their midst.
We passed over rhinoceroses with horns bigger than any we had ever seen,
and we passed over a herd of more than a hundred elephants, and they all
gave us the laugh.
We passed over gnus and springboks and deer of all kinds, and when they
heard the propellor of the airship rattle, they would look up and snort
and run away in all directions. Some giraffes were feeding in the tree
tops at one grove, and Pa let the ship down a little so we could count
the spots on them, and I had a syphon of seltzer water, and I squirted
it in the face of a big giraffe, and he sneezed like a cat that has got
a dose of smelling salts, and then the whole herd stampeded in a sort of
hipty-hop, and we laughed at their awkwardness.
We sailed along over more animals than we ever thought there were in the
world, and over thatched houses in villages, where the negroes would
come out and take a look at us and then fall on their knees and we could
see their mouths work as though they were saying things.
Along towards noon Pa yelled to the cowboy that we would have to land
pretty soon, and to get the drag rope ready, ’cause we were going the
wrong way to hit the coast, and the first big village we came in sight
of he was going to land and take our chances.
Pretty soon a big village loomed up ahead on a high plane near a river,
with more than a hundred houses and fields of corn and potatoes and
grain all around it, and one big house like about forty hay stacks all
in one, and Pa gave the word to stand by, and when we got near the
village the whole population came out beating tom-toms and waving their
shirts, and Pa pulled the string, some of the gas escaped, and we came
down in a sort of plaza right in the center of the village, and tied the
drag rope to a tree and anchored the gas bag at both ends.
The crowd of negroes stood back in amazement and waited for the king of
the tribe to come out of the big shack, and while he was getting ready
to show up we looked around at the preparations for a feast which we had
noticed.
It was a regular barbecue, and the little dwarf we had brought along
began to sniff at the stuff that was being roasted over the fire, and Pa
looked at him and asked him what the layout was all about, and the
dwarf, who had learned to speak a little English, got on his knees and
told Pa the sky ship had landed in the midst of his own tribe, where he
had been stolen from a year ago by another tribe, and that the feast was
a canibal feast, got up in honor of the tribal Thanksgiving, and that
the bodies roasting were members of another tribe that had been captured
in a battle, and the dwarf got up and began to talk to his old friends
and neighbors, and he evidently told them we were great people, having
rescued him from the tribe that stole him, and had brought him back home
in the sky ship, safe and sound.
The people began to kneel down to Pa and worship him, but Pa said it
made him sick to smell that stuff cooking, and he told us that he felt
our end had come, ’cause we had landed in a cannibal country, and they
would cook us and eat us as sure as cooking.
Pa said if they roasted him and tried to eat him they would find they
had a pretty tough proposition, but he thought the cowboy and I would
make pretty good eating.
We got our Winchesters and revolvers off the airship and got ready to
fight if necessary, when suddenly all of the negroes, dwarfs and
full-grown negroes, got down on the ground and kissed the earth, all in
two lines, and up to the far end of the line, near the king’s house, out
came the king of the tribe, dressed like a vaudeville performer, and he
marched down between the lines with stately tread towards Pa and the
cowboy and your little Hennery.
He had on an old plug hat, fifty years old at least, evidently only worn
on occasions of ceremony, and the rest of him was naked, except a shirt
made of grass, which was buckled around his waist, and he carried an
empty tomatoe can in one hand and a big oil can, such as kerosene is
shipped in, in the other, and around his neck was a lot of empty pint
beer bottles strung on a piece of copper wire, and he had his nose and
ears pierced, and in the holes he wore tin tags that came off of plugs
of tobacco.
He was a sight sure enough, but he was as dignified as a southern negro
driving a hack. Pa kept his nerve with him, rolled a cigarette,
scratched a match on the seat of his pants and lighted it, and blew
smoke through his nostrils and looked mad as he laid his Winchester
across his left arm. The cowboy was trembling, but he had his gun ready,
and I was monkeying with an automatic revolver, and the King came right
up to Pa and looked Pa over, and walked around him, making signs. Then
he looked at the airship and gas bag and sniffed at the feast cooking,
and finally his eye fell on the dwarf, who had been mourned as dead, and
he called the dwarf one side to talk to him, and Pa said to the dwarf,
“Tell him we have just dropped down from Heaven to inspect the tribe and
take an account of stock.” The king and the dwarf talked awhile, and
then the king came up to Pa and got down on his knees and in pigeon
English, broken by sobs, he informed Pa that he recognized that Pa had
been sent from Heaven to take the position of king of the tribe, and he
announced to the tribe that gathered around him that he abdicated in
Pa’s favor, and turned his tribe, lands, stock and mines over to the
Heaven-sent white man, and for them to look upon Pa as king and escort
him to the palace and turn over to him all his property, wives, ivory,
copper and gold, and he would go jump in the lake, and in token of
abdication he turned over to Pa the plug hat, and was taking off the
beer bottles from around his neck when Pa stopped the deal and said he
would take charge of the property and the palace, but he would not have
the wives or the hat, and he would try to govern the tribe so it would
soon take its place besides the kingdoms of Europe, but the old king
must sit on his right hand as adviser and friend and run the family.
The king agreed, and the tribe escorted Pa and the cowboy and me to the
palace and placed Pa on the throne, the cowboy on the left, the old king
on the right and me at Pa’s feet, and then about one hundred of the
king’s wives came in with cow tails tied around their waists and danced
before Pa, and Pa covered his eyes and said to the cowboy, “Take this
thing easy and don’t get rattled and we will get out of it some way, but
I’ll be cussed if I eat any of that roasted nigger.”
After they danced awhile a tom-tom sounded afar off and the crowd
started for the feast, and some niggers brought in a tray of meat for
us, but Pa said we were vegetarians and the great Spirit would be
offended if we ate meat, and Pa made a sign of distress, and they took
away the boiled ham of a colored person and brought us some green corn
and sweet potatoes, and then they all drank something out of gourds, and
all got drunk except the old king and Pa and the cowboy.
When everybody was good and drunk Pa called us all into executive
session and took charge of the affairs of the tribe, and we were
assigned to a room, as it was night, and when we got in and shut the
door Pa says to the cowboy, “How does this compare with life with the
Digger Indians?” and the cowboy said, “This takes the cake,” and Pa
examined the old king’s valuables and found gold enough to pay the
national debt, and diamonds by the quart, as big as walnuts, and Pa
said, “This sure looks good to me, and we will tarry a while. You plug
up that gas bag so no guilty gas can escape, and some day we will load
up with diamonds and things and make a quick get away.”
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