IN THE HANDS OF SLAVE-TRADERS
The ebon form of the Krooman giant seemed everywhere at once.
In the moonlight his terrible axe flashed incessantly and every time
it fell a shriek or a muffled groan showed that it had found its
fatal mark. The huge form of the warrior black seemed, however, to
bear a charmed life. Again and again one of the attacking force
would fire at him, but the bullets seemed to be warded off by some
supernatural force. He was immune alike to bullets and arrows--with
which latter the natives attached to Muley-Hassan's force battled.
Billy and Lathrop fought with unflinching courage, pouring out a
leaden hail into the onslaught that again and again seemed as if it
must drive the attacking force back. But fighting at such
desperately uneven odds could not in the nature of things last long.
There came a minute when Billy, turning to reload, found that before
he could snatch up a handful of cartridges a huge Arab was on top of
him.
Lathrop's clubbed rifle struck the fellow helpless the next minute
and sent his long, cruel knife with a ringing crash to the floor.
Before Billy's half breathed "Thanks, old man," had left his lips,
however, another of Muley-Hassan's followers had rushed in and the
moment would have been Lathrop's last but that Billy drove his fist
into the fellow's face with a crashing blow that knocked him on the
top of his fallen comrade. It was hand-to-hand fighting then with a
vengeance. Billy seized hold of the muzzle of an Arab's revolver as
it was thrust into his very face, and twisted it upward as it was
discharged. Seizing up a camp chair Lathrop swung it round his head
like a club and scattered the brains of a native follower of
Muley-Hassan.
But strategy was to put an abrupt end to the fight even if it could
have continued much longer.
Billy was bleeding from a cut over the forehead which blinded him,
and Lathrop had got two nasty knife thrusts, one in the arm and the
other in the fleshy part of the calf of his leg, when they were
suddenly attacked from the rear by half-a-dozen slavers. The next
minute, wounded and bound, they were as helpless as two captured
puppies.
The fight was over, but the Arabs had come out of it with a badly
crippled force.
Of the twenty-five men who had attacked the adventurers' camp ten
had been killed outright and half a dozen others so badly wounded
that they could not move. Hardly one of them had not received some
minor injury, and the very fact that they had made such a poor
showing against two American boys and a Krooman armed only with an
axe, filled Muley-Hassan with savage rage.
Furiously the slave-dealer ordered the two boys brought before him.
A huge fire had been lighted by his followers and in the glare cast
by this he received them. It was a wild scene and the two boys
hardly knew whether they were awake or dreaming, as they were
roughly hustled into the presence of their captor.
Diego de Barros, his cruel, thin lips curled in a sneer that showed
his yellow teeth, stood by the side of Muley-Hassan, the latter a
tall determined-looking man with a crisp, curly black beard and a
sinister cast of features. A long burnoose of white, worn after the
Arab style, hung from his head and framed his dark features, which
were just then overspread by a frown as black as thunder.
Outside the circle of firelight lay the bodies of the victims of the
Krooman's axe and the boys' bullets. All who could do so of
Muley-Hassan's followers were gathered about him, as the two young
Americans were brought face to face with the man they had such good
reason to fear.
"So these are the young Americans?" he asked as Billy and Lathrop
returned his hawk-like gaze unflinchingly.
"No, sir," spoke up Diego, "they are not. Wiseman has just told me
that the Chester boys have flown in their air-ship and these are the
cubs left behind to guard the camp."
At Wiseman's name mentioned in such a connection both the boys
started.
"What! they have gone?" thundered the Arab chief.
"Yes, sir," stammered Diego, his coward nature aroused at the sight
of his superior's fury.
"And by this time they are rifling the ivory cache. That fool
Wiseman shall pay dearly for this. Bring him to me," shouted the
Arab.
Desperate as was the boys' position they could not restrain a start
of amazement as Professor Wiseman, his face pale as ashes to his
very lips, came tremblingly forward.
"You were attached to this boys' camp to prevent by all means their
sailing till I attacked the camp and made them prisoners, were you
not?" demanded Muley-Hassan angrily.
Wiseman stammered something in reply.
"You are a coward as well as a fool," went on the slave-dealer, a
cruel sneer breaking over his face; "but you have blundered for the
last time. Take this fool away and kill him!" he ordered, turning
away as if there was an end of the business.
Pitiful cries broke from the lips of the unhappy professor as he
heard his death-warrant thus pronounced. He threw himself on his
knees and begged and pleaded in a loud screeching tone for a little
more time. But the chief was obdurate.
"Take him away," was all he said, and his men, not daring to disobey
his orders any longer, fairly dragged the unfortunate prisoner
toward the river bank. There was a short, sharp scream that chilled
every drop of blood in the boys' bodies and then a splash.
Professor Wiseman had paid the price of his treachery.
It was not till long after that the boys heard the full measure of
his villainy. How posing as a naturalist he had wandered up and
down the Ivory Coast for years acting as the secret agent of
Muley-Hassan and making arrangements for the smuggling of slaves and
illicitly procured ivory out of the country. He was too
accomplished a rascal to be suspected and his learned appearance
made it still more improbable that he should be engaged in any
illegal trafficking. It was small wonder, too, that he had started
when Frank mentioned the name of Luther Barr, for it was Luther Barr
whom he had betrayed to Muley-Hassan and advised him of the
whereabouts of the wily old New Yorker's ivory cache. As soon as he
heard Frank mention the name he had of course surmised that the
pretended hunting expedition was merely a blind to cover a bold dash
to recover the ivory, though how they were to discover its
whereabouts he could not imagine till, by prying and listening, he
learned that they had a map of the locality of the stolen stuff.
He had then dispatched native canoe-men to Muley-Hassan and apprised
him of the coming of the boys, and Diego had been at once sent out
by the Arab to secure possession of the map if possible and, failing
that, to destroy the boys' canoes. That the aeroplane would also
have been put out of commission there is little doubt, if Diego or
Wiseman could have found an opportunity. The brutal Arab could then
have disposed of the expedition at his leisure. But the Golden
Eagle II was too closely guarded for the two spies to be able to
harm it.
The Kroomen porters attached to the camp had, as old Sikaso had
forecast, fled into the jungle at the first attack of the Arab's
followers and they did not put in an appearance till long after the
marauders had left the camp.
But what puzzled the boys, as they stood facing the Arab with
Professor Wiseman's scream still ringing in their ears, was "What
had become of the old warrior."
He could not have turned traitor. His valiant behavior in the
skirmish made that impossible to consider a minute. But it was
equally certain that he was nowhere to be seen. What could have
become of him? A dread that he was dead oppressed both boys as they
stood there waiting for the Arab to speak.
Muley-Hassan seemed to be considering.
He twisted the ends of his jet-black mustaches like a man lost in
thought, and the firelight playing on his bold reckless features
showed there an expression of deep perplexity. But it was no
question of mercy that was agitating his mind.
It was whether he would kill the boys right there or sell them into
slavery.
To his money-making mind the latter idea commended itself. Two
strong youths such as they were would fetch a good price anywhere,
and so it came about that Billy and Lathrop--who had fully expected
to share the Professor's fate--were flung by no gentle hands into
their bullet-riddled tent and left to pass the night as best they
could. Two men were posted to watch them and a rough cuff on the
head rewarded Billy's single attempt to speak to Lathrop.
The next day at dawn the camp was the scene of great activity. The
dead were carried into the forest a short distance and buried, while
the wounded were attended to with such rough surgery as Muley-Hassan
knew. In this work Diego, his lieutenant, who seemed to be a sort
of Jack-of-all-trades--outside of his regular occupation of
scoundrel--aided him; bandaging the cuts and extracting the bullets
of his companions with some skill.
The boys were then given to eat some sort of stew in a big wooden
basin and being just healthy American boys and not heroes of romance
they ate heartily of the compound and felt better. Muley-Hassan
himself examined the cut on Billy's forehead and Lathrop's two
wounds and pronounced them mere scratches.
Just as it appeared that a start was about to be made the signal
bell of the wireless rang. As our readers know it was Frank
signaling from the Moon Mountains.
A sudden idea seemed to strike Diego at this. He called
Muley-Hassan aside and talked earnestly with him for a few seconds,
then he came up to the boy and demanded fiercely which one of them
it was that understood wireless.
Lathrop replied that he did, and the next minute wished that he had
bitten out his tongue before he had admitted it; for Diego, in a
rough tone, ordered him to sit down at the instrument and reply that
all was well at the River Camp.
"And, mind you, youngster--no tricks," he said savagely, "or I'll
kill you as dead as mutton. I understand the Morse code myself and
can tell what you are sending; and send slow so that I can get every
letter."
Lathrop was in a quandary. To refuse to sit down at the instrument
meant instant death.
He could tell that by the look in Diego's eyes and from what he had
seen of him he knew he would not stop at a little thing like a
murder to drive home a point.
The question was, did the man really understand telegraphy? If he
didn't and was only, bluffing Lathrop determined to inform Frank of
the true state of affairs. Otherwise it would do neither himself
nor the others any good to try to trick Diego.
With a prayer on his lips that the Portuguese might not have been
stating the truth about his knowledge of wireless the boy started to
send. He had in his mind the message he would try to get through:
"We have been attacked. Get help and follow us."
But he had hardly tapped out with a hesitating finger the first word
of his message when he felt a bullet whiz by his ear and the report
flashed so close to him that it deafened him and scorched his skin.
"Thought I was bluffing did you, eh?" sneered the Portuguese, "come
now, no tricks; send out what I tell you or the next bullet will
come closer."
And so it came about that the queer hesitating message that Frank
received at Moon Mountains was sent out.
Immediately it was dispatched Muley-Hassan gave the order to advance
and his ragged followers, carrying the worst wounded in improvised
litters, set out toward the northwest.
"We are going to the Moon Mountains," whispered Billy to Lathrop,
"at least it looks that way. I overheard Muley-Hassan say to Diego
that we'd have to hurry to get the ivory--"
Lathrop's reply was cut short by a scene that sent the angry blood
to both boys' faces.
Before the camp was abandoned for good and the plunge into the
forest began, Muley-Hassan gave a sharp order and directed several
of his men set about demolishing the camp. Diego himself smashed
the field wireless of which Frank and Harry had been so proud. He
hacked it to atoms with one of the heavy axes. The tents and
provision boxes were next piled in a heap and set in a blaze.
As the column of dark smoke rose from the ruins of the once happy
camp into the clear sky the order to advance was given and the train
once more moved forward.
They had hardly deserted the clearing before, from the river bank,
half a hundred wild figures appeared.
They were similar in appearance--only even more wild-looking than
the savages fought off by Frank, Harry and Ben the previous day.
Like the others their slashed and scarred faces and clay-daubed lips
showed them to belong to one of the fierce cannibal tribes of the
Bambara region.
Their leader, a tall, thin savage of exceptionally repulsive
appearance, motioned with his fingers to his thick lips for absolute
silence among his followers.
Clutching their great broad-headed war-spears the next moment the
savages slipped into the forest in the direction the Arab and his
band had gone. Steadily they advanced with the quiet stealthy tread
of panthers on the track of their prey.