AN ESCAPE--AND WHAT CAME OF IT
From the pace at which Muley-Hassan's band traversed the jungle
paths it was evident to the two young captives that there was
imperative need in Muley-Hassan's mind of arriving somewhere at a
set time. The usual noonday rest, which even the avaricious
slave-trader was in the habit of taking, was not observed and the
travelers pressed straight on. Lathrop and Billy were almost ready
to drop with fatigue when that evening, just at dusk, they arrived
at the bank of a muddy river which Muley-Hassan, impatient as he was
to proceed, decided it would be unwise to ford till daylight--when
they could look for a good crossing place. At the spot which they
had halted, the stream--swollen apparently by rains in the
mountains--roared between its banks, in a dark chocolate-colored
flood.
Muley-Hassan himself was the only one of his band provided with a
tent, or anything resembling one, and the boys shared the common bed
of the rest of the party--which was the ground. A more unwholesome
resting-place in Africa, particularly on the steamy, swampy banks of
a river, could hardly be imagined. So indeed Muley-Hassan seemed to
think, for after a short time, during which the boys vainly tried to
secure some sleep, he ordered Diego to provide them with blankets to
place between themselves and the bare earth.
"I expect to get a good price for them eventually," he said, "and I
don't want to lose them unless I have to."
As the boys' wrists and ankles were bound with tough grass while
there was no particular attempt made to watch them, and soon the
snores of the camp bespoke that it was at rest. Then it was that
Billy whispered to Lathrop.
"Now's our time to try for it!"
"Try for what?" whispered back Lathrop in an inert tone.
"To get away."
"What!"
"I mean it. I found a sharp stone imbedded in the ground near to me
and I have nearly sawed through my wrist-bands."
After a few seconds' more vigorous scraping against the stone, Billy
whispered:
"My hands are free. Wait till I wiggle my fingers and get up some
circulation and then we'll make our attempt--"
When he had once more got full control of his cramped fingers Billy
stooped cautiously over and loosened the thongs about his ankles.
So tightly had they been drawn, though, that it took some little
time to get the cramps out of them. At last, however, the boy
succeeded in restoring the circulation and then he was ready for the
most daring step of his attempt. Cautiously he fell on his hands
and knees and began to crawl toward the nearest of the sleeping
slave-traders.
"What are you going to do, Billy?" asked Lathrop, in an agony of
fear lest the man should awaken.
"Watch me," was the young reporter's reply, as on his stomach he
wiggled painfully across the few yards separating him from the
sleeping man. In reality it took only a few minutes, but to both
the boys the period of time occupied seemed interminable.
But it was no time to hurry things. One false step night cost them
their lives and Billy realized this.
With the slow deliberate movement of a snake he, reached out his
hand when he got near enough and took from the sleeping man's side
his long curved Arab scimitar. Then he glided back to Lathrop as
silently as he had left.
He had just reached his resting-place when there was a stir from the
further side of the camp. Like a rabbit ducking into its hole Billy
was under his blanket and apparently fast asleep in a second. But
his heart beat so loudly that it felt to him that anyone who was not
deaf could hear it a hundred yards away.
The man who had moved was Diego and the boys could hear his cat-like
footfalls as he neared their sleeping-places. Once he stumbled over
one of the sleeping men and the aroused one rose with a start and
called wildly:
"What is it?"
"Hush, Adab," cautioned Diego, "it is I--Diego. I'm going to give
an eye to those two American brats."
"They're tied up hard and fast enough," chuckled the other.
"If they were of any other nationality--yes;" was Diego's reply,
"but these Yankees are brave and clever enough to escape from almost
any trap."
"You bet we are," thought Billy to himself, giving a realistic
snore.
Although he did not dare to open his eyes, the young reporter could
feel Diego standing over them in the moonlight and gazing down at
them to ascertain if they were still "hard and fast," as the other
had expressed it.
For an instant a terrible thought flashed across Billy's brain.
"Suppose Diego should take an idea to examine their thongs?"
But the lieutenant of Muley-Hassan apparently was satisfied, for
after a few minutes' scrutiny he turned to go Billy could hear his
feet scrape as he swung around.
At almost the same instant the night was filled with savage cries
and the camp was thrown into confusion by an onrush of wild figures
before whose spears the half-awakened Arabs were slaughtered like
sheep.
Not realizing in the least what was happening, Billy yet conjectured
that the Arabs were just then too busy to pay any attention to
himself and Lathrop. With two slashes of the stolen scimitar he
severed Lathrop's bonds and dragging him to his feet dived into the
forest.
As they entered its recesses a fleeing Arab, still clutching his
rifle, dashed by them and an instant later fell dead. He had been
speared through the back.
Billy, with a quick inspiration, seized the dead man's long rifle
and his ammunition pouch and, followed by the bewildered Lathrop,
plowed desperately forward into the screen of the jungle.
Behind them they heard cries for mercy and fierce shouts from the
attacking savages. At first the cries and imprecations of the
slave-traders predominated and then, by the altered sounds that came
from the scene of the fighting and the crashing of the Arabs'
volleys, the boys realized that the tide of battle had changed and
that the Arabs were driving back the attacking force.
"What do you suppose happened, Billy?" asked Lathrop, only half
awake, as the boys, with the fleetness and endurance that desperate
need lends, plunged deeper and deeper into the forest.
"Why, that some cannibal tribe that Muley-Hassan pillaged for slaves
at some time has trailed him and attacked him," hazarded the
reporter.
How near he came to the truth our readers know. The band that had
made the midnight attack was the same that had painstakingly trailed
Muley-Hassan since he destroyed the boys' camp on the river bank.
"But the Arabs have beaten them off?" queried Lathrop.
"Evidently," replied Billy, as the volleys died out and victorious
Arab shouts were beard. "Hark at that! It's really too bad. I'd
like to have seen old Muley and his precious band driven into the
river. But if they have driven off the savages they'll be thinking
about chasing us."
As he spoke there came a low, growling sound that seemed to proceed
from some distance, but nevertheless filled the air. It rumbled and
rolled above them like--
"Thunder!" exclaimed both boys in the same breath.
"We've got to find shelter of some kind, quick," exclaimed Billy;
"these tropical storms are unlike our little disturbances, and if we
get caught among these trees in one, of them we stand a good chance
of being killed. It looks like we've jumped out of the frying-pan
into the fire."
Without the least idea in which direction they were proceeding, the
two chums struggled bravely on, Billy encouraging the flagging
Lathrop from time to time with a joke, though these latter were, as
Billy admitted to himself:
"Pretty dismal!"
At length, just as dawn was beginning to break, they found
themselves facing a steepish cliff of rough rocks.
"Well, here's where we turn back," remarked Billy, bitterly
discouraged nevertheless.
If they were lost in this equatorial forest, what chance did they
stand of ever seeing their home and friends again?
As for Lathrop he sat down on a rock overgrown with a kind of
monstrous lichen and gave way to tears. But not for long. Lathrop
was a plucky enough lad, and as Billy truthfully remarked:
"We are going to have enough water before long without our turning
on the weeps."
So Lathrop braced up and the boys looked about them. To their
intense joy they soon spied in the rocks, a short distance from
where they then were, a dark hole partly overgrown by creepers,
which was evidently the entrance to a cavern. At the same instant
there began a mighty pattering on the leaves of the dense tropic
growth all about them, and a louder growl of thunder announced that
the storm that had been heralded a few hours before was about to
break.
"Well, me for that African Waldorf-Astoria," cried Billy, grasping
his rifle and making a dive for the hole. Lathrop followed him and
as soon as they were inside the cave he lit a match from his
waterproof box.
"Looks to me like there might be snakes in here," he whispered, awed
by the darkness and silence of the place.
"Rats," laughed Billy, although he himself felt by no means sure
that at any moment some scaly monster might not descend from the
roof; "but I'll tell you what we'll do. Light a fire."
"How are we to get wood?" asked the practical Lathrop.
"There's plenty of it right at the mouth of the cave. I'll get a
few armfuls and in a minute we'll have things snug."
The young reporter hastened to the cave mouth and in a few trips had
gathered up several huge armfuls of wood-drift of all kinds from
under the great trees all about. He was just re-entering the cave
when there came a flash of blinding light so brilliant that it
seemed as if the sky itself had split wide open. A bluish glare
enveloped the forest and the lightning flash was instantly followed
by a crash of thunder that shook the ground under the boys' feet.
"Well, they don't do things by halves in this country," remarked
Billy as he re-entered the cave after a second of being temporarily
stunned by the terrific flash.
It didn't take the boys long to have their wood in a blaze and as
the smoke did not, as they had feared, fill the cavern, they assumed
that there must be some opening above through which it escaped.
This fact they verified shortly when, after the storm had been
waxing in fury for half-an-hour, a perfect torrent of water came
tumbling in from the rear of the rocky cavern.
"Hark!" exclaimed Billy as the boys busied themselves trying to
scrape out a water-course that would divert the flood from their
fire. From far in the rear of the cave came a plaintive sound of
"Mi-ou, Mi-ou."
"Cats!" cried Lathrop.
"Cats nothing," was Billy's scornful reply; "here, let's have a
look."
He seized a blazing brand out of the fire and hastened to the place
from which the sounds emanated.
"Come here, quick, Lathrop," he cried. The younger lad scurried
back and found Billy bending over a roughly constructed nest or bed.
On it lay four tiny, fuzzy yellow things. They were "meowing" at
the tops of their voices as the torrent of water that had annoyed
the boys dripped into their snug nesting-place. At the same instant
the boys became aware of a sickening odor of decaying flesh.
"Come on! we've got to get out of here quick as quick as we can,"
exclaimed Billy as they hastened towards the fresh air.
"Why, what is it, Billy?" asked Lathrop.
"I don't know; but I think that those are lion cubs--they look like
the ones I've seen in the Bronx Zoo," was the young reporter's
reply, "and if they are, this is no place for us. Come on--the
storm is letting up. Let's get out quick before the old ones get
back."
The storm, with the suddenness with which these furious tropical
disturbances arise and vanish, had indeed gone and the sun was
shining down once more on the drenched jungle, which glittered with
diamond like spangles as the rays struck the dripping fronds and
branches. But the boys had no eyes for the scene about them,
beautiful as it was, for as they emerged from the cave a low growl
greeted them.
Crouched on the ground--her tail lashing the earth like a cat's when
it is about to spring--was a huge tawny lioness--her cruel green
eyes fixed full upon them.