THE BATTLE OF THE TRIBES
The next four days, though they were days of waiting, were busy enough
to satisfy the most impatient Mayoruna warrior.
Outposts were established on every route by which the attacking force
would be likely to approach the twin _malocas_, the watchmen being given
the strictest commands not to fight, nor even to allow themselves to be
seen, but to run at top speed with the warning.
Poison detachments went forth to collect the ingredients for making
deadly the water and the weapons. Those detailed to the work of
polluting the streams gathered quantities of blue-blossomed,
short-podded plants with yellow roots, the roots being pulped and thrown
into the slow currents, which straightway became fatal to man or beast
The wurali squad procured their favorite materials and, in a flimsy shed
well away from the houses, prepared a plentiful supply of the venomed
brew.
New traps were set at points where a man or two might be picked off,
though it was realized that these would have little effect on the final
result. And inside the big houses men especially skilled in the
manufacture of arrows and darts toiled swiftly and steadily from dawn
till far into the night.
These activities, however, were only the usual defensive preparations
made by the warriors whenever they knew a sizable body of foes was
somewhere in the vicinity. It remained for the brains of the white men
to devise additional features, simple enough in themselves, but
astounding to the savages, who were accustomed only to the primitive
battle tactics of their ancestors. For the first time in their lives the
cannibals found themselves digging in--and also digging out.
After a survey of the terrain and a catechism of Lourenço and Monitaya
as to the usual methods of attack and defense, the two officers broached
an idea born of the exigencies of the situation. As they expected, the
great chief was somewhat slow to approve it, for it involved a literal
undermining of the walls of his fortresses. But despite the natural
inflexibility of his mental processes he was an unusually intelligent
savage, and eventually the patient reiteration of the advantages of the
scheme won him first to assent and then almost to enthusiasm. Wherefore
the amazed tribesmen were set to work, armed with crude wooden shovels,
in digging holes under the logs which sheltered them from man, beast,
and jungle demon.
All along the walls, at intervals marked by McKay and Knowlton, the
tunnels were dug. At the same time another large gang excavated before
each of the _malocas_ a deep, curving trench, the two long pits being
separated by a ten-foot space of solid earth affording free passage from
the houses to the creek. Meanwhile the women and the older children were
weaving flimsy covers from withes and vines. As soon as a tunnel was
completed it was masked outside the walls by one of these covers, on
which a thin layer of earth and grass was laid. The two trenches were
likewise concealed, and the loose earth was carried inside the house and
packed solidly against the walls flanking the doors.
At sundown of the fourth day the work was ended. And so well was it done
that when the great chief, his subchiefs, and his foreign allies went on
a final tour of inspection they could find no sign that the houses were
honeycombed with exits or that the ground in front of the little
entrances was not solid at all points.
"Rod and I took the idea from those pit traps out on the trails,"
Knowlton explained for the dozenth time. "Holes are covered to look
exactly like the rest of the ground. Every man of us has to be inside
when the enemy arrives, but we have to get out quick when the right time
comes, so we go under the walls. And can't you see those brave women
stealers go kerplunk down into the trenches? Oh boy!"
Whereat Lourenço and José smiled as if enjoying a secret joke. They
were. For they knew something of which the Americans were not
aware--that Monitaya had improved on the trench-trap idea of the whites
by studding the bottom of those trenches with barbed araya bones smeared
with wurali.
"Yeah, and I figger them guys 'll git some jolt when these houses, which
'ain't got nobody in 'em but women and kids, begin to spit lead out o'
loopholes and spew screechin' cannibals up out o' the ground. Gosh! I
wouldn't miss seein' Sworn-off's face for a keg o' beer--and that's
sayin' somethin'."
Wherein Tim expressed the general sentiment.
So ended the fourth day. When the fifth broke no man showed himself
outside the walls. Except the few outposts, every male of the Monitaya
_malocas_ bided within, awaiting with growing tension the arrival of the
enemy. It was more than likely, McKay had pointed out, that the main
body of the barbarous force led by Schwandorf would be preceded by a
handful of scouts, and quite possible that one or more of these would
slip past the outguards and spy on the tribal houses. The sight of even
one warrior would instantly apprise any such spy that the others must be
near, and the word would go back at all speed to the Red Bones.
Wherefore the only Monitayans to pass through the tiny doorways that
morning were a few young women sent out as bait. These, naturally, took
good care to stay near the entrances.
Within, the men waited at their appointed places. Each tunnel had its
quota of warriors, the number being divided evenly to assure a speedy
and simultaneous exit. The Americans had elected to fight from the
_maloca_ of the great chief, while the Brazilians and José were to
garrison the doorway of the other house as soon as the warning came.
Rand, wordless and imperturbable as ever, now was armed with a strong
bow and plenty of new arrows with unpoisoned heads; and he, of course,
would remain with his own countrymen. Thus, preparations completed, all
settled themselves to the interminable hours of waiting.
Up on the heaped earth near the doorway, which made the walls
practically bullet-proof to a height of six feet and thus would protect
the women and children, one or more of the Americans was constantly on
the lookout through some inconspicuous loophole. Hour after hour dragged
past, and no unusual movement or sound came to reward their vigilance.
Under the glare of the sun the roof and walls grew hot; under the silent
strain of endless anticipation the impatience of the fighting men became
a ferment. At length Pedro, unable to keep still, mounted to a peephole
near Knowlton. Scarcely had he put his eye to the opening when both men
sucked in their breath.
At the edge of the bush a man's head peered from behind a tree. And at
the same moment a single canoe came creeping out of the bush and up to
the landing place. The head behind the tree was that of a Red Bone spy.
The two in the small canoe were Yuara and a companion from the Suba
tribe.
"Lourenço!" hoarsely whispered Pedro. "Yuara comes. Tell girls to run to
welcome him and guide him between the pits. A spy is watching. If Yuara
walks on the pits he dies and our trap is revealed. _Por amor de Deus_,
send girls quickly!"
Lourenço acted instantly. Seizing two young women, he propelled them
doorward, talking swiftly the while. Yuara and his mate were already
advancing innocently toward the few girls outside, none of whom had wit
enough to warn him. But the two whom the Brazilian had grasped happened
to be of quick intelligence, and now they darted out. Before the
visiting pair could reach the death trap the girls were upon them,
laughing as if delighted to see a man once more, and deftly turning them
aside to the point where two unobtrusive stubs marked the bridge of
safety.
Vastly astonished by such effusive welcome from two girls whom they did
not know, but by no means displeased thereby, the young warriors of the
Suba clan were piloted to the door and inside. As they disappeared, the
head of the spy also vanished.
"Woof!" muttered Knowlton, wiping sweat from his brow. "That was close!
Here's hoping we have no more visitors."
Yuara and his companion meanwhile were being interrogated by both
Lourenço and Monitaya, who in turn enlightened them as to the present
state of affairs. At the promise of war the faces of the Suba men lit
up.
"Yuara comes only on a visit to learn news," Lourenço told the rest.
"You remember that the day after our return a canoe was sent downstream
to a point where the wooden bars could be beaten and heard by Suba's
men, and that a warning against the Red Bones and Schwandorf was given
in that way. Yuara has become anxious to know more, so he is here."
"If he sticks around he'll learn a lot," predicted Tim.
With no waste of words or motion Yuara coolly attached himself and his
fellow-tribesman to McKay. Monitaya and his subchiefs were informed of
the arrival and departure of the enemy scout. The word passed among the
warriors, who, despite their innate equanimity, began to grit their
pointed teeth and quiver like dogs held in leash. But another hour
passed, and yet another; and still no word from the outposts arrived.
Suddenly a chorus of screams shrilled from the women outside. In a
frenzy of fear they plunged through the doorways. Blending with their
outcries, a hoarse yell of ferocity rose raucously from the direction of
the creek. At once a louder ululation burst forth at the rear and sides
of the clearing. Monitaya's outguards had failed and the _malocas_ were
surrounded.
Loping from the bush fringing the stream came a score of yellow-faced,
shirtless, barefooted brutes crisscrossed with cartridge belts and
gripping rifles. At their head loomed a burly black-whiskered creature
with a revolver in each hand--the malignant Schwandorf himself.
Grinning like a pack of yellow-fanged wolves, they doubled toward the
low entrances, their guns spouting wantonly at the upper walls--a ragged
volley meant to terrorize the defenseless women within, none of whom
were to be killed until the handsomest had been cut out and set aside
for slavery. Some of the heavy bullets bored through between logs and
thudded wickedly into rafters and roof poles within. But from the
loopholes where the defending rifles lurked no shot cracked in reply.
The fiendish howling of the Red Bones, sweeping in from all sides to the
butchery, swelled into a feline screech that almost drowned the roar of
the rifles. Into the view of the watchers at the loopholes streamed
hideous faces and naked brown bodies swerving inward from left and right
to follow at the heels of the Blackbeard and his gunmen. In a few
seconds more the trotting line of Peruvians was backed and flanked by a
horde of demons hungering for the taste of women and babes. On they
came--
With the suddenness of a cataclysm the ground opened. Riflemen vanished
in midstride. Savages screaming triumphant hate were gone in the flick
of an eye. Others, instinctively digging their heels into the ground the
instant those ahead of them disappeared, were hurled forward and down by
the momentum of the following mass. Before the rush could be checked the
trenches were packed with men struggling in frenzy to get out, wounding
themselves and one another with the deadly points of their poisoned
weapons.
Of the twenty gunmen only four remained. They were the four immediately
behind Schwandorf. By blind chance the German had set foot on the narrow
isthmus separating the twin trenches, saving himself and the henchmen at
his heels from being engulfed. Now, as the Red Bones fought back from
the trap yawning before them, he and the surviving Peruvians stood
staring in momentary stupefaction at the welter of death on their
flanks. The malevolent yells of the savages had been cut short by the
catastrophe, and for the moment no sound was heard but the grunts and
snarls of struggling men.
Then into the semisilence burst a mighty voice--the battlefield voice of
McKay.
"Now! Fire at will!"
The walls spat flame and lead. A scythe of death swept above the ground
where stood Schwandorf and his riflemen. The Peruvian half-breeds
collapsed and lay still. But Schwandorf, shocked into activity by the
impact of that first word, dodged death by an infinitesimal fraction of
a second. Hurling himself backward, he struck the earth just as the
bullets sped through the air over him. With a lightning rebound he was
up while fresh cartridges were jumping into the rifle barrels menacing
him. Headlong he dived into the mass of Red Bones just behind. And the
next bullets darting after him killed the savages, leaving him unharmed.
The command of McKay and the crack of the rifles sent the quivering
Mayorunas into the fight. In a flash every masking tunnel cover was
thrown bodily into the air. Before the thunderstruck Red Bones had
recovered from the shock of finding their gun-armed leaders annihilated
and their mass being swept by swift-shooting rifles hidden in the walls,
they beheld a horde of vindictive foes erupting from under those walls
like warrior ants rushing from subterranean galleries. A blood-chilling
yell of concentrated fury smote their ears; a hastily loosed storm of
war arrows and short throwing-spears ripped into their flesh; a
swift-running arc of light-skinned men swerved around them, shooting and
stabbing as they went. They, who had so exultantly surrounded the homes
of women and children, now were surrounded in turn.
From the doorway of Monitaya's _maloca_ the two Brazilians and José now
leaped forth and, firing as they ran, dashed to hold the entrance of the
other big house. A few arrows whirred around them during their transit,
but the shafts were shot hurriedly and missed. Meanwhile the three
bushmen were striking down enemies at every flash of their guns, firing
with the swift surety of veterans of many a running fight. They reached
their objective unwounded; and when they reached it a fringe of dead
foes marked their passage along the face of the hostile array. Once
within the door, they rapidly reloaded and sprayed lead along the
trenches, which, though now nearly full, had become a dead-line past
which no Red Bone sought to go.
Up on the earth embankments within the chief's house the four Americans
fought steadily on; the soldiers shooting as coolly as if engaged merely
in rapid-fire target practice, the silent Rand methodically driving
arrows in swift succession from his wall-slit. Arrows thudded thickly
into the logs masking them. Bullets, too, slammed into their
rampart--bullets from the heavy revolvers of Schwandorf, who, ever
keeping himself protected by the bodies of his cannibal allies, shot
with both hands as the chance came. And the German could shoot. With
only the small gun muzzles as targets, he planted bullets so close as to
knock dirt more than once into the eyes of the riflemen and render them
momentarily useless. After a time he got a bullet fair into a loophole.
Knowlton grunted suddenly, swayed back, toppled, fell down the parapet.
For a few seconds he lay still.
"Looey!" howled Tim. "How ye fixed? Hurt bad?"
The lieutenant heaved himself into a sitting position, stared around,
clapped a hand to his right shoulder, looked at the red smear his palm
brought away, reeled up, and scrambled back to his rifle. Schwandorf's
bullet had drilled clear through the shoulder, and in falling his head
had struck one of the upright poles. Without a word he got his gun into
action once more, shooting now from the left shoulder. Tim, with a tight
grin of relief, devoted himself once more to trying to shoot down the
dodging German.
The encircling Mayorunas, their first paroxysm of fury vented, now
settled in cold hate to their work. On all sides their clubmen and
spearmen were bludgeoning and stabbing at the close-packed Red Bones,
leaping in, killing, springing back and onward with terrible efficiency.
Beyond these a thin but deadly line of bowmen poured arrows in
high-looping curves over the heads of the hand-to-hand combatants, the
shafts whizzing far up, turning, and plunging down unerringly into the
center of the enemy force. Each of those arrows could, and many did, end
the lives of two or three adversaries by gouging their skins and letting
the fearful wurali into their blood. The blowgun men too were darting
into every opening, handling their clumsy weapons like feathers and
constantly moving to spy out fresh targets.
But the men of Monitaya were by no means escaping unscathed. The Red
Bones, assailed from every quarter and milling about in hopeless
disorder, were fighting now with desperate frenzy. Their own clubbers
and stabbers were charging out and smashing skulls or piercing abdomens,
their arrows rose in all directions at once, and some into whose veins
the wurali had struck sprang in the last moments of life on nearby foes
and bit like mad dogs. With a leader and a chance to form into any sort
of flying wedge they might have broken through with comparative ease and
taken a far heavier toll. But they had no leader: for Umanuh, whose name
meant "corpse," now was a corpse in truth, his merciless brain oozing
from a skull shattered by a Mayoruna clubman; and Schwandorf was very
busy looking out for Schwandorf. So it was every man for himself, with
the devil rapidly taking not only the hindmost, but the foremost as
well.
Thicker and thicker fell the dead. The trenches now not only were filled
to the level of the ground, but piled with a windrow of bullet-torn
bodies knocked down by the ever-spitting rifles. José, Pedro, and
Lourenço abandoned all shelter and knelt in plain sight before the door
which they had kept clear of all close attack. Monitaya, until now a
field general who strode up and down roaring commands and encouragement,
suddenly cast away his regal role and, seizing a club from one of his
bodyguard, hurled himself on the nearest Red Bones--a raving, ravening
demon of destructiveness whose glaring eyes smote terror into those
fronting him and whose weapon swung like the club of Hercules. His
bowmen and blowgun men, at last out of missiles, came charging in with
bare hands or weapons seized from fallen warriors. Maneuvering had
ended. Henceforth the fight was a grappling mêlée.
Then the gunfire dwindled and died. The rifle cartridges were spent.