THE GERMAN
The door of the German's room opened. The German came out and marched to
the table. Two paces away he halted and faced the Americans, ready to
speak if spoken to, equally ready to sit and ignore them if not greeted.
McKay and Knowlton rose.
"Herr von Schwandorf?" inquired Knowlton.
"Schwandorf. Neither Herr nor von. Plain Schwandorf."
The reply came in excellent English, though with a slight throaty
accent.
"Knowlton is my name. Mr. McKay. The third member of our party, Mr.
Ryan, has just left."
Schwandorf bowed stiffly from the waist.
"It is a pleasure to meet you. White men are all too few here."
Seating himself at a place beyond that just vacated by Tim, he
continued, "You stay here for a time?"
"Not long." They reseated themselves. "We go up the river as soon as we
can arrange transportation."
The black brows lifted slightly.
"It is a dangerous river. You would do well to travel elsewhere unless
you have some pressing reason to explore this stream."
With an accustomed sweep of the hand he shooed the flies from the bean
dish and helped himself to a big portion. Over the legumes he poured
farinha in the Brazilian fashion.
"We have. We are seeking a tribe of people who paint their bones red."
Schwandorf's hand, conveying the first mouthful of beans upward, stopped
in air. His black eyes fixed the Americans with an astounded stare. He
lowered the beans, stabbed absently at a chunk of beef, sawed it apart,
popped a piece of it into his mouth, and sat for a time chewing. When
the meat was down he spoke bluntly:
"Are there not ways enough to kill yourselves at home instead of
traveling to this place to do it?"
McKay smiled. The directness of the man amused him.
"As bad as that?" asked Knowlton.
"As bad as that. Blow your head off if you like. Cut your throat. Take
poison. Jump into the river among the alligators. Step on a snake. But
keep away from the Red Bones."
"Why?" shot McKay.
"Cannibals--and worse."
"Worse?"
"Truly. Most of the Brazilian savages do not torture. The Red Bones do."
"Pleasant prospect."
"Very. Nothing to be gained among them, either. If you're hunting gold,
try the hills over west of the Huallaga. None here."
Knowlton filled and lit a pipe. McKay slowly drank the last of his
syrupy coffee and rolled a cigarette. Schwandorf continued shoveling
food into his capacious mouth.
"Know anything about the Raposa?" Knowlton asked.
The Teuton's eyelashes flickered. He ground another chunk of meat
between his jaws before answering.
"Of course," he said then. "Wild dog. Sharp snout, gray hair, bushy
tail. I've shot a couple of them."
"This one is a man. Green eyes, streak of white hair over the left ear.
Paints himself like the Red Bones, as you call them, but is a white
man."
"Oh! That one? Heard of him, yes. Wild man of the jungle. Want to catch
him and put him in a circus?"
"Maybe. We'd like to see him, anyhow. Heard about him awhile ago. Any
way to get him that you know of?"
"Might try a steel trap," the German suggested, callously. "But I don't
know where you'd set it. Best way to get a wild dog is to shoot him, and
he isn't much good dead. Or would this one be worth something--dead?" A
swift sidelong glance accompanied the question.
"Not a cent!" snapped McKay.
"And perhaps he'd be worth nothing alive," added Knowlton. "But we have
a healthy curiosity to look him over. Guess the Red Bone country would
be the likeliest place. How far is it from here?"
"Keep out of it," was the stubborn reply.
The Americans rose.
"We are not going to keep out of it," Knowlton declared, coldly. "We are
going straight into it. Thank you for your assistance."
"Not so fast," Schwandorf protested. "If you are determined to go I will
help you if I can. Shall we sit on the piazza with a small bottle to aid
digestion? So! Thomaz! Bring from my stock the kümmel. Or would you
prefer whisky, gentlemen?"
"Ginger-ale highballs are my favorite fruit," admitted Knowlton. "Can
ginger ale be bought here?"
"Indeed yes. At one milrei a bottle."
"Cheap enough. Thomaz, three bottles of ginger ale and one of North
American whisky--the best. Cigars also. Out on the piazza."
"Si, senhores."
Schwandorf got up.
"If you will pardon me, I will drink my kümmel. Frankly, I do not like
whisky."
"And frankly, we do not like kümmel. All a matter of taste."
"Truly. So let each of us drink his own preference. I will join you in a
moment."
The Americans sauntered to the door, while the German strode into his
room.
"Blunt sort of cuss," Knowlton commented.
"Ay, blunt. But not candid. Knows more than he's telling."
Disposing themselves comfortably, they sat watching the lights of the
town and the jungle--the first pouring from windows and open doors, the
latter streaking across the darkness where the big fire beetles of the
tropics winged their way. As Knowlton had predicted, the night noise of
forest and stream had diminished; but now from the village itself rose a
new discord--a babel of vocal and instrumental efforts at music
emanating from the badly worn records of dozens of cheap phonographs
grinding away in the stilt-poled huts.
"Good Lord!" groaned McKay. "Even here at the end of the world one can't
get away from those beastly instruments."
A throaty chuckle from the doorway followed the words. Schwandorf
emerged, carrying a big bottle.
"Yet there is one thing to be thankful for, gentlemen," he said. "In all
this town there is not one man who attempts to play a trombone."
The others laughed. Thomaz appeared with bottles and thick cups. Corks
were drawn, liquids gurgled, matches flared, cigars glowed. Without
warning Schwandorf shot a question through the gloom:
"Have you seen Cabral--the superintendent?"
"Yes."
"Ask him about the wild man?"
"Yes."
"Get any information?"
"Nothing definite. He suggested that we see you."
"So."
A pause, while Schwandorf's cigar end glowed like a flaming eye.
"The Red Bones live well up the river," he began, abruptly. "Twenty-four
days by canoe, five days through the bush on the east shore. That would
bring you to their main settlement--if you were not wiped out before
then. They're a big tribe, as tribes go. Ever been here before?"
"No. Not here," Knowlton told him. "I've been in Rio, and McKay here has
knocked around in--"
A stealthy kick from McKay halted him an instant. Then, deftly shifting
the sentence, he concluded, "--in a number of places."
"So." Another pause. "Then I should explain about tribes. Tribes here
generally consist of from fifty to five hundred or more persons living
in big houses called '_malocas_.' Unless the tribe is very big, one
house holds them all. There may be any number of _malocas_, the
inhabitants of which are all of the same racial stock; yet each _maloca_
is, as far as government is concerned, a tribe to itself, controlled by
a chief. No _maloca_ owes any duty to any other _maloca_. There is no
supreme ruler over all, nor even a federation among them. They live
merely as neighbors--distant neighbors. At times they fight like
neighbors. You understand."
"'When Greek meets Greek--'" quoted McKay.
"Just so. When I say, then, that the Red Bones are a big tribe, I mean
that there are about five hundred--maybe more--individuals in their main
settlement. They live in huts, not in one big tribe-house like the
Mayorunas. They are not Mayorunas, in fact; they paint differently, are
darker of skin, and more cruel.
"The Mayorunas, by the way, are not so debased as you might think.
Though cannibals, they do not kill for the sake of eating 'long pig,'
like the cannibals of the South Seas. Neither do they eat the whole
body. Only the hands and feet of their dead enemies are devoured. These
are carefully cooked and eaten as delicacies along with monkey meat,
birds, fish, and other things prepared for a feast in honor of a
victory. The eating of human flesh seems to be symbolism rather than
savagery. Furthermore, they do not range the jungle hunting for victims.
They eat only those who come against them as enemies.
"So it is quite possible, you see, that strangers might go among them
and escape death. It would depend largely on the ability of the
strangers to convince the savages that they were friends. The difficulty
is that the savages consider all strangers to be enemies until
friendship is proved."
"A sizable difficulty," McKay remarked.
"Almost insurmountable. Yet it might be done. Mind, I speak now of the
Mayorunas, not of the Red Bones. I tell you again that the Red Bone
country is closed."
"And where is the Mayoruna region?"
"In the same general section. The Mayorunas are much more widely
distributed. They are on both banks of the Javary and extend as far west
as the Ucayali.
"Now if I sought to enter the Red Bone region--and again I say I would
not--this would be my way of going at it. I would go first among the
Mayorunas near the Red Bones and seek to convince them that I was their
friend. I would make the Mayoruna chief as friendly to me as possible. I
might even take a Mayoruna woman for a time--some of them are handsome,
and such a step would make me almost a Mayoruna myself in their eyes.
Then I would persuade the chief to send messengers to the Red Bones with
word of me and a request that I be allowed to visit their settlement.
The request, coming from the Mayoruna chief, probably would be granted.
I would then go in with a bodyguard of Mayorunas, do my business, and
come out via the Mayoruna route."
A thoughtful silence ensued. Bottle necks clinked against the cups.
"Something in that idea," conceded Knowlton. "A good deal in it. Barring
the woman part, of course."
"Ay," spoke McKay, his tone casual as ever. "When you came out what
would you do with your woman, _mein Herr_?"
Schwandorf, tongue loosened a bit by his kümmel, chuckled.
"Ho-ho! The woman? Leave her, of course, when she had served my purpose.
Why bother about a woman here and there?"
"I see." McKay's face, indistinct in the gloom, was unreadable, but his
tone had a caustic edge.
Schwandorf laughed again. "You are fresh from the woman-worshiping
United States and you disapprove. But this is the jungle, and all is
different. '_Cada terra com seu uso_,' as these Brazilians say--each
land with its own ways. Perhaps when you have met the Mayoruna women,
looked on their handsome faces and shapely forms--they wear no clothing,
by the way--you will change your ideas. More than one man along this
border has risked his life to win one of those women. But that rests
with you. And now if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I have an engagement
with a man at the other end of town."
"Certainly. We are indebted to you for your interest."
"It is nothing. Remember that I strongly advise you not to go. But if
you will go, I shall gladly do whatever lies in my power to aid you in
preparing for the trip. Do not hesitate to call on me."
He passed into the house, returning almost at once.
"By the way," he added, "one of you has the room next mine?"
"I have it," said Knowlton.
"Yes. Are you a good sleeper? I sometimes snore most atrociously, I am
told. So perhaps--"
"Don't worry. I can sleep in the middle of a bombardment."
"You are fortunate. Good evening, gentlemen."
When he was gone they sat for a time smoking, sipping now and then at
their highballs. At length McKay said, "Humph!"
"Amen. Pretty square sort of chap, though, don't you think?"
"I'm not saying," was the Scot's cautious answer. "Seems to be trying to
discourage us and egg us on at the same time. Something up his sleeve,
perhaps."
"Can't tell. But his line of talk rings true so far. Checks up all right
with what we've heard about the Mayorunas and so on. And that scheme of
working in through the Mayoruna country sounds about as sensible as
anything. Desperate chance and all that, but it might work. Say, why did
you kick me when I was going to tell him you'd been in British Guiana?"
"Don't know exactly. Had a hunch. Seems to me I've seen that fellow
before somewhere, but I can't place him. None of his business where I've
been, anyhow. We're boobs from the States hunting for a wild man. That's
all he needs to know."
But it was not enough for Schwandorf to know. At that very moment he was
on his way to the home of Superintendent Cabral, with whom he had no
engagement whatever, to learn all he could concerning the business of
these military-appearing strangers; also to impress on that official the
fact that he had sought to dissuade them from starting on their mad
quest.
And much later that night, when Knowlton was making good his boast that
he was a sound sleeper, a black-bearded face rose silently above the
iron partition between his room and that of the German. A hand gripping
a small electric flashlight followed. A white ray searched the room,
halting on the khaki shirt lying over a box. A tough withe with a barb
at one end came over like a slender tentacle, hooked the shirt neatly,
drew it stealthily up to the top. Shirt, stick, lamp, hand, face all
dissolved into darkness.
After a time they reappeared. The shirt came down, swung slowly back and
forth, was dropped deftly where it had previously lain. The breast
pocket holding the grain-leather notebook and the photograph of David
Dawson Rand was buttoned as it had been, and the notebook bulged the
cloth slightly as before. But the contents of that book and the pictured
face of Rand now were stamped on the brain of Schwandorf. A sneering,
snarling smile curled the heavy mouth of Schwandorf. And softly, so
softly that none could hear it but himself, sounded the ironical
benediction of Schwandorf:
"Sleep well, _offizier americanisch_! Dream on, poor fool! In time you
will wake up. _Ja_, you will wake up!"