YAMOUSA.
No sound had come from the woman since the two boys had reached the
scene. Groping their way to her, they found that she had become
unconscious and was drooping heavily in the cords that held her bound
to the stump.
"Of all the things that ever happened to us, mate," remarked Dick,
"this captures the prize. We get cast away on a little turtle back in
the Bahamas, and Lat Jurgens and this old hunks, Whistler, come to the
island in Nemo, Jr.'s submarine. We capture the pair and leave 'em
roped in our tent; then we capture the submarine. Later we send ashore
for Jurgens and Whistler and the landing party reports that they have
vanished. Now, dropping down here in answer to a cry of distress, we
find Whistler giving an old woman a taste of the cat. Whistler, of all
men! I'm fair dazed with it all."[A]
[A] For an account of the adventures of Motor Matt and his friends in
helping Archibald Townsend, otherwise Captain Nemo, Jr., recover his
stolen submarine from Jurgens and his rascally followers, see No. 12 of
the MOTOR STORIES, "Motor Matt's Peril; or, Cast Away in the Bahamas."
"So am I," said Matt, "but we'll not let that bother us now. This old
woman has been brutally treated, and has fainted away. We must get her
to the hut and see what we can do to revive her."
"Right-o," agreed Dick. "I've my sheath knife handy and I'll cut her
loose from that stump in a brace of shakes."
Matt held the limp form upright while Dick severed the cords; then,
picking the woman up, they carried her through the woods, back to the
clearing, and laid her on the ragged blankets in the hut.
"I think I saw a candle on the shelf over the fireplace, Dick," said
Matt. "Better light it."
Dick found the candle. It was a tallow dip stuck in an old tin
candlestick. With the light in his hand, he walked to the old woman's
side and bent downward.
The face of the woman was scarred and hideous. There were big gold
earrings pulling down the lobes of her ears, and another large ring
pierced her nose and fell down over her upper lip. Her cheeks were
hollow, and the yellow skin resembled parchment. Her clothing was a
motley garb of patched rags. Two claw-like hands, with finger nails an
inch long, lay on the blankets beside her.
Matt lifted his eyes to Dick's with a shudder.
"She's not what you'd call Cinderella, exactly," grinned Dick, "and I
don't think her beauty will ever prove fatal."
"Anyhow," said Matt, "she's a woman and needs help. That's enough for
us to know."
A tin water pail stood on a bench, and there was a gourd dipper hanging
over it. Matt filled the gourd and returned and dashed the water in the
old woman's face.
The effect was magical. With a screech that caused the boys to start
backward in consternation, the old woman sat up suddenly and glared
about her, with eyes like coals. Abruptly her attention fixed itself on
the boys and she began to croon in a harsh, mumbling voice:
"Si to te 'tit zozo
Et moi-meme mo te fusil
Mo sre tchoue toi--_Boum!_"
She exploded the last word like the crack of a revolver, lifting and
aiming her fingers as she might have done with a weapon.
"Avast, there, old lady!" cried Dick. "We're friends of yours. Can't
you understand that?"
"American?" shrilled the woman, rising slowly to her feet.
"Yes," said Matt.
"Where is ze man zat take me from my home and beat me wiz ze stick?"
she demanded, crouching like a cat, while her talon-like hands clawed
the air angrily.
"He ran away," answered Matt. "We cut you loose from the stump and
brought you here. Do you know that man?"
The old woman staggered to the fireplace and stirred up the coals
under the kettle; then she turned back, took the candle out of Dick's
hand and studied his face. From Dick she turned to Matt, giving him a
similar scrutiny.
Her eyes were bright and fiery--age had not seemed to dim them. As she
turned from Matt, the hag gave a croaking laugh.
"I guess we'd better send the 'blue peter' to the masthead, old
ship," said Dick, "trip anchor and slant away. This don't look like a
comfortable berth, to me."
"You not go 'way yet," cried the woman, whirling about. "You are ze
good boys, you help Yamousa, ze Obeah woman, and by gar, Yamousa help
you! Sit on ze bench."
She waved one hand toward the bench on which the water pail was
standing. Dick, heeding a significant look from Matt, followed to the
bench and sat down.
"Do you know that man who was beating you?" asked Matt, again,
determined if possible to get a little information about Whistler.
"_Oui_, I know heem!" answered the woman, with a spitting snarl. "One
time he work on ze sugar plantation near ze bayou, and he come many
time to see Yamousa and have her tell him ze t'ings he do not know. He
come now from ze Bahamas and ask about ze iron chest, and where zis
Townsend take heem. But Yamousa, she no tell. For why Yamousa no tell,
eh? Well, she see zat Whistler haf ze bad heart. Whistler try to beat
her, _make_ her tell; zen ze American boys come and drive heem away.
How you get here, eh?"
"We came in an air ship," Matt answered.
"_Sacre tonnere!_ I know zat you come--I seen him in ze smoke."
Yamousa had said things which had aroused the intense curiosity of
the two boys. Whistler had tried to force her into telling him the
whereabouts of an "iron chest." That iron chest had been found in a
sea cavern of an uninhabited island among the Bahamas, had been taken
aboard Townsend's submarine, and had been in the submarine when Matt
and his chums turned the boat over to her owner on the Florida coast.
Townsend had taken the chest to New Orleans, and Jurgens and Whistler
were eager to recover it.
What the chest contained, no one knew. A man who called himself simply
the "Man from Cape Town" had given Townsend a chart and secured his
promise to find the chest, carry it to New Orleans, and open it in the
presence of a woman whom the Cape Town man claimed was his daughter.
These two were then to divide the contents between them.
The fact that Whistler, and presumably Jurgens, as well, still had
designs on the chest, was surprising information for Matt and Dick. The
three boys were proceeding to New Orleans in the _Hawk_, in response to
a request from Townsend; and it might easily chance that the business
which had led Townsend to call Motor Matt and his friends to New
Orleans was to cross the evil designs of Jurgens and Whistler.
"Do you know anything about that iron chest, Yamousa?" inquired Matt.
"Not now, but I find heem out," replied the old woman. "By gar, I find
out anyt'ing zat ees wanted to be known."
"You say you knew that we were coming?"
"_Oui._"
"I can't understand how you discovered that. We didn't know ourselves
we were coming until we got a telegram at Palm Beach, Florida,
yesterday."
"I tell by ze smoke," repeated the woman; "I read heem in ze smoke."
"What sort of a place is this, anyhow?" muttered Dick to Matt
uncomfortably. "Is the old lady a fortune teller? I never took much
stock in that sort of thing, you know."
"Yamousa ees ze Obeah woman," chirped the hag, her ears having
evidently been sharp enough to overhear what Dick had said: "I am ze
voodoo queen. I know t'ings ozzers don't know, an' ze people come from
ever'where to see Yamousa--from New Orleans, _oui_, and from Algiers,
Plaquemine, St. Bernard--all up and down ze river an' ze coast--zey all
come to haf Yamousa tell zem t'ings zat zey don't know. I tell you ze
same. You are my franes--_mes amis_--an', I do planty mooch for you.
Where is ze ozzer of you? In ze smoke I see t'ree, all in ze flying
boat zat come to Bayou Yamousa."
"She means Carl," muttered Dick, "and how the old Harry she knew
anything about him is a fair dazer."
"In ze smoke I see heem," replied the hag, again catching Dick's words.
"I think I'm beginning to see through this a little, Dick," said Matt.
"In some way, Jurgens and Whistler got off that island in the Bahamas
and----"
"Zey hide in a cave till you go 'way," broke in Yamousa, "an' zen zey
come out an' bymby ze boat come from ze Great Bahama an' pick zem off.
_Oui, hé_, zey ees bot' ver' bad an' haf ze bad heart."
"How did you find that out, Yamousa?" asked Matt.
"Not in ze smoke, not zat, _non_. Whistler tell me."
Yamousa's knowledge, which, for the most part, seemed to be derived
from unusual sources, filled Matt and Dick with growing bewilderment.
"Sink me," muttered Dick, "but my nerves are beginning to bother me. Go
on, though, matey. What about Whistler?"
"Why, he's still after the iron chest, he and Jurgens. They got away
from that turtle back in the Bahamas, landed in this vicinity, and
Whistler came here to get this voodoo priestess to tell him where he
could locate the chest."
"All my eye and Betty Martin, that! Just as though Yamousa could tell
him!"
"Anyhow, Whistler must have thought so or he wouldn't be here. We
saw and heard enough to convince us that what Yamousa said about his
designs was true. We got here in time to drive him off and----"
Just there occurred a startling interruption. A frantic yell came from
the clearing--a yell that was plainly given by Carl.
"More trouble!" boomed Dick, leaping from the bench, "and it's Carl
that's flying distress signals now."
Matt did not reply, but he led the way to the door and through it into
the dying glow of the fire on the bayou bank.