THE AGE OF SIKASO
It was late afternoon of the day that Frank, Harry and Ben had left
the River Camp. Lathrop, Billy, Barnes and old Sikaso had wandered
into the jungle with their rifles, intent on bringing down some sort
of game to replenish the camp larder. For hours they tramped about
in the thick jungle and a fair measure of success had fallen to
their rifles. Shortly before sundown the trio met in a glade not
more than a mile from the camp and compared notes. To Billy's gun
had fallen a plump young deer and Lathrop had brought down, not
without a feeling of considerable pride, a species of wild hog which
Sikaso proclaimed with a grunt was "heap good."
Flushed with triumph and carrying their own bag, the young hunters
set out for the camp, arriving there at dusk. As has been told, it
was not long after that that Frank's wireless from the Moon
Mountains winged its way through the air and Lathrop was able to
flash back in response an "all-well" message. The boys turned in
early, Billy and Lathrop to their tent and old Sikaso to the rough
shelter he had contrived for himself and which he declared was far
more comfortable than any tent. Like a wild beast the savage old
warrior disliked to have anything approaching a roof over him. It
appeared to savor too much of a trap of some kind.
Billy might have been asleep five hours or so and it was approaching
midnight when he heard a noise outside the tent door and a second
later old Sikaso announced his presence by a whispered:
"Awake, Four-eyes, there is danger."
"What do you mean, Sikaso," demanded the half asleep reporter,
"danger to our friends?"
"No; to us, and here and soon," was the disquieting response,
"arouse your friend. We have no time to lose."
Billy was wide awake now and made a motion as if he would light the
lantern.
Sikaso stopped him with a quick gesture.
"Do not light the lamp, my white brother," he whispered in the same
tense tones, "to do so would be to reveal to those who are now
approaching that we are awake and expect them. Rather let us
pretend that we are unaware that they come and spring upon them like
the leopard when she is least expected."
"Yes, but--" exclaimed Billy in a bewildered tone, "what do you
mean, Sikaso, what enemies are coming? How do you know that they
are approaching?"
"I have seen it in the smoke," was the somber reply; "the smoke
never lies. After I lay down on my skins I could not sleep, I felt
there was danger approaching us. From where I knew not. So I made
the "fetish" fire. In it I saw a band of men coming toward us down
the river and at the head of them was a dark man--a man you know
well, my white brother with the four eyes."
"Diego!" exclaimed Billy divining the other's thought.
"Yes, Diego; cursed be the day that my war-axe did not cleave his
ugly skull; but beside Diego there is another. Hearken to the words
of Sikaso, the elephant in his rage is not more merciless, the
serpent not more cunning, the crocodile not more savage in onslaught
than this other. He is Muley-Hassan, the Arab, and the deeds he has
done, my brother, when recounted turn strong men's blood to water."
Small wonder that Billy, as he hastily roused Lathrop, felt a
shudder run through him. He had heard enough from Frank of the ways
of Muley-Hassan to know that they could not well fall into the hands
of a more pitiless foe and that now, with the Golden Eagle gone and
the Boy Aviators already at the ivory cache, it was probable that
the slave-dealer's rage would render him even more savage than was
his wont.
In a few rapidly whispered words Billy apprised Lathrop of the
situation. Like Billy, the other boy had no lack of pluck but his
heart sank, as had his companion's, as he sensed the full meaning of
Sikaso's warning.
"But perhaps the smoke was mistaken," he said eagerly, willing to
grasp even at that straw of hope; but the old warrior's answer
dashed his aspirations to the ground.
"The smoke is never mistaken," he said simply; but with such calm
conviction that the boys, despite themselves, realized that the old
Krooman had really the knowledge of grave peril approaching.
"Had we not better arm the other Kroomen?" asked Billy anxiously.
"It would be useless," was Sikaso's reply, "they are cowards. At
the first sight of blood they would run to the forest like the sons
of weaklings that they are."
"We must rouse Professor Wiseman at once," cried Billy.
"It is well," muttered Sikaso, "we shall need every man who can hold
a rifle to-night but the professor is old, my brothers, and his
heart is as a woman's."
"Well, he'll have to fight," said Billy with bloodthirsty determination.
"I for one am not going to stand calmly by and have my throat cut, or
worse still be taken prisoner by this old Muley-Hassan."
Old Sikaso glanced approvingly at him.
"Well spoken, Four-eyes," said he; "spoken like a son of a warrior."
Billy's ears tingled at the compliment, which was really in the old
African's opinion the highest that could be paid to a man or a boy,
and hurried off to wake "the bugologist" as be disrespectfully
termed the professor. To his surprise, for he more than half
expected an outbreak, Professor Wiseman did not appear particularly
concerned at the news that Diego, and Muley-Hassan were--as the boys
had every reason to believe--at that moment advancing on the camp.
"I will dress myself with all alacrity," he said, "and join you in
your tent, but I must say I don't believe in all this witchcraft."
"Will this Muley-Hassan be well armed?" asked Billy, in a voice
which was rather shaky, of their black friend.
"Plenty rifles," was Sikaso's brief reply.
"Don't you want a rifle or at least a heavy caliber shotgun?" asked
Billy.
The old warrior laughed and swung his mighty axe round his head till
the blade flashed like a continuous band of steel and the air
whistled at the cleavage of the sharp edge. Then he began to sing
softly a war-song which may be roughly rendered in English thus:
"At dawn I went out with my axe into the red fight;
Like the grass before the fire, like the clouds before the wind,
I drove them. I, Sikaso, I drove them.
There were rivers that day; but the rivers were red.
They were the rivers of the blood of my enemies;
With my war-axe I killed them.
This is the song of mighty Sikaso, and his terrible axe of death."
Although the boys of course did not understand the words, the fierce
voice in which the old warrior intoned the chant made them realize
what a terrible foe he was likely to prove in battle. But now as
Sikaso brought his song to a conclusion and rested his axe on the
ground, leaning on its hilt, he suddenly stiffened into an attitude
of close attention.
"Hark, my white brothers!" he cried, "the war-eagles are gathering
for the slaughter."
But the slight sound the keen ears of the savage had caught without
difficulty was longer in making itself manifest to the two white
boys. After a few minutes of listening, so intense as to be
painful, they likewise, however, distinctly heard the regular,
rhythmic dip of paddles coming down the river.
"There are six war canoes full of them," announced, Sikaso, with
almost a groan, after he had given close attention to the sounds.
"Alas, my white brothers, there is little use of our giving battle."
"Well, I for one am not going to give up without dropping a few of
the cowardly wretches," cried Billy.
"Nor I," echoed Lathrop, enthused by Billy's brave example.
The old warrior's eyes kindled as he gazed at the two brave young
Americans, each clutching his rifle and waiting for the moment to
arrive when they could use them.
"If we only had had time to throw up a stockade, my brothers, we
might have driven them off yet," he cried.
"Well, we'll give as good an account of ourselves as possible,"
declared Lathrop.
And now began what has been acknowledged to be the most trying part
of any engagement, from a duel to a battle--the waiting for
hostilities to begin. It seemed that an interminable time had
elapsed from the moment that they heard the first "dip-dip" of the
paddles to the sharp crack of a twig sounded in the jungle directly
ahead of them. The snapped branch told them that the enemy's
outposts were reconnoitering to see that the camp was actually, as
it seemed to be, wrapped in sleep.
Apparently the scout, whoever he was, was soon convinced of the fact
that the adventurers were slumbering, for he advanced boldly from
the dark sheltering shadows of the jungle and emerged into the
bright moonlight which flooded the clearing in which the camp stood.
Billy raised his rifle to his shoulder and the next minute would
have been the savage scout's last had not old Sikaso sternly seized
and lowered the weapon, saying in a tense whisper:
"The time is not yet ripe, my brother. To fire now would be
unnecessarily to give the alarm. Wait until they are massed thick
and then fire into the bodies of the Arab dogs."
The scout didn't waste much time in reconnoitering. After a short
time spent in peering about he dived once more into the forest and
Billy whispered to Lathrop:
"Now it's coming, old man."
And come it did.
Five minutes after the scout had dived back into the forest a dozen
dark forms crept from the bush and stealthily advanced toward the
tent.
The leader had reached the door and Billy was frantically imploring
old Sikaso to let him shoot when an appalling shriek rent the air.
The old Krooman's axe flashed once in the moonlight and the leader
of the attacking party lay dead at the tent door, severed almost to
the chest.
There was not a second's time, however, to take in what had
happened. In a flash the whole horde was upon them, and Billy and
Lathrop began firing desperately into the mass of foemen who
appeared to spring from every side of the clearing at once.
Even in this extremity a strange thought flashed across Billy's,
mind:
"Where was Professor Wiseman?"