him fell away the lesser growth of the jungle. Other tall trees still
surrounded him, but as he shinnied up a high branch, at last a vista to
the east opened up. For a long time he gazed, with all the exultation
of the civilized white man, on an object of immense value to his race,
even though surrounded and protected by a ring of savagery. Before him,
shimmering in the clear moonlight, lay the irregular truncated cone of
Red Mountain, the enormous vein of cinnabar parting its upper half like
pink layer cake! Black seams of coal measures streaking the mountain
face told of the geological period when the mountain was born. Behind
it piled up the stratified peaks and table-lands of similar mountain
formations. The whole story lay clear in the educated, scientific mind
of the boy, and he thrilled with its significance. Here lay the true
geological formation of the interior of Dutch New Guinea, with Red
Mountain as a last outpost. Behind him lay the tremendous fault of the
Great Precipice, with its chain of volcanoes resulting from that mighty
crack in the earth’s surface. But before him lay all the mineral wealth
of New Guinea--coal measures, iron ore, what not--that would make this
vast island, the largest in the world--almost a continent--a land of
the utmost value to the white race!
Coming back to earth from these explorer’s dreams, Nicky got out his
compass and took the mountain bearing. It was not over two miles from
where they were to the slopes of Red Mountain. Between them lay a low,
jungle-clad ridge; beyond it a swale or hollow of some kind, and then
the slopes themselves. He swarmed down the tree to report, and then
they all set out eagerly, in a straight line through the dry, arid
thickets.
In half an hour they reached the top of the little ridge, and the
curator found a leaning dead tree and climbed out on it for a long,
soul-satisfying look for himself. Returning, they pitched down into the
swale, crossed it, and began to climb. Their watches said four o’clock
in the morning, so it was necessary to hasten, as they would be in
plain sight on that bald spot.
Up and up the steep hillside they struggled, bidding the jungle
good-by, negotiating shelves and rocky escarpments that turned out to
be ledges ten feet high when they came to them. Far overhead towered
the flat side of the mountain, almost a precipice, and the depths
dropping below warned them that it would be mountaineering of the most
dangerous kind.
A few more ledges; soul-harrowing crawls up rocky faces to which
they clung with feet digging into tiny crevices and fingers clawing
desperately at crumbly holds, and they had reached the bottom edge of
the vein!
Dwight’s pick dug into the rich, red ore, and a lump of translucent
scarlet crystals, hard as adamant and surrounded with a matrix of
crumbling red ore, fell out into his hand. He passed it to the curator.
“We’ve sure gone through hell for it, sir!” he exclaimed. “I guess
we’ve done our bit for New Guinea, eh?”
“We sure have!” exclaimed the curator, feelingly. “You and Nicky each
get a specimen like this and stow it in your packs. And now, fellows,
an air line for our camp on the lagoon. We can make it in two days!”
XI
THE FLIGHT TO THE COAST
Dawn was paling in the east as they crept slowly down the ledges of
Red Mountain. The going down was far worse than the climb up, and the
tent flies had to be called in play again to get over vertical drops
of ten feet or more where one’s eyes could not see below how to climb
down. Even then the haunting fear that some old pygmy watcher from the
village might have spied them on the mountain side lent haste to their
descent. It was with relief that they all gathered in the depths of the
jungle again.
“Now, then, fellows, there’s only one way we can do this march to the
coast. We three will have to keep together while Sadok scouts on ahead.
Baderoon I’m going to turn loose, and let him run for it for Cassowary
Camp and then down that trail to the Outanata village, where he can get
a war party started back to rescue us.
“Baderoon, you-fellah run catch’m Outanata man?” he asked.
The negro grinned. He looked fresh and fit, and his long legs could
take him like a moose through the jungle.
“_Orang-kaya_ give me-fellah sign take ’long black boy?” he suggested.
“Sure! They might murder you for your mirror, in all your youth and
innocence!” laughed the curator. “Here, Nicky, get out a couple of your
empty alcohol tins. The chief’d love them, to put in his ears.”
Baderoon eyed them longingly as Nicky got out the cans from his
rucksack. He’d have dearly loved to put them in his own ears, only the
important detail of stretching the lobe enough for such ornaments had
been neglected in his youth. Such does contact with civilized whites
debase the poor savage! He handled the cans reverently, and finally
stowed them somehow in his loin cloth.
“Tell’m the Thunderer make war on litty black men--plenty heads!”
grinned the curator. “Run--plenty--too much!”
Baderoon laughed merrily and set off into the jungle without a word. By
some way known only to himself he would cover those thirty miles that
day, threading alone through the trackless jungle. By noon next day a
war party of the Outanatas would be halfway back to them, thirsting for
a foray on their ancient enemies, the pygmies--with the powerful aid of
the man who called down the lightnings--or the curator was no judge of
human nature!
After Baderoon had gone, they studied the mountains and valleys to the
south for some time, planning a route.
“That big sugar loaf to the northeast looks familiar to me, Nick,” said
the curator. “Don’t you remember it, from our banyan tree outlook?”
They got out the map, and presently located it from bearings taken on
the map from their position on Red Mountain. Once on that sugar loaf,
it would be easy to locate the bald knob above Cassowary Camp.
He pointed out the shoulder to Sadok. “We go there,” he explained. “You
stop ’long front. You see black man, make’m call like red lory, two
time, and come back.”
Sadok comprehended quickly, and with a white flash of his teeth led
on, his sumpitan balanced in his hands for instant use, and so they
set out. In two hours they had reached the shoulder, some six miles
through the jungle, and were cautiously reconnoitering for a lookout.
After some climbing, a ledge was found that rose over the summits of
the trees below. They wormed up it and lay flat in the grass on its
edge, spying out the country with their glasses. Over to the east rose
the cone of the old volcano, with the pygmy village on it, the girls’
tree huts visible like white specks in the sunlit clearing. Beyond that
was the mountain with the great banyan tree on its north shoulder, and
beyond that again in the blue distance, about twelve miles off, the
bald knob above Cassowary Camp.
But it was the green jungle below them that they searched most
carefully. The view below was not reassuring. The haze of at least
three fires rose above the trees at widely different points. Allowing
forty men to each war party, there would be over a hundred of the pygmy
warriors outlying between them and their home base.
“We’ll stay right here, boys, until the rain--and then, by George!
we’ll try to push through them during the storm!” declared the curator,
with sudden resolution. “It’ll be pitch black for at least two hours
after that. How’s the ammunition, fellows?”
“I’ve only got twelve cartridges left, sir,” said Nicky, lugubriously,
“and Dwight has two clips, and then he’s through.”
“Well, I’ve only got four shells, myself,” said the curator,
cheerfully. “Two of them are thirty-yard close-ups. We’ll have to
husband ammunition for a possible rush, and depend on Sadok. You got’m
plenty dart, Sadok?” he asked.
The Dyak shook his head and opened the cover of his bamboo quiver.
“Poison him all gone, too!” he announced.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us, then! We’ll camp and get something
to eat, and then wait until the clouds come before setting out.
Meanwhile we’ll have to find a upas vine, or something like it. Either
of you boys know strychnine when you see it?”
They shook their heads. Botany was out of their line.
“Got to know ’most everything if you’re a scientist,” grinned the
curator, deprecatingly. “Well, the species we want is _S. tieute_,
native of all this archipelago, the upas vine. It’s a climbing shrub,
five-leaved, with little bunches of berries in a leathery rind like a
small dried orange.”
“I think I’ve noticed one or two like that, sir, myself, going through
the jungle,” said Dwight, reminiscently. “Climbs all over larger trees,
doesn’t it?” He sketched a leaf on a bit of rock as he spoke.
“Yep. That’s him. You and Sadok scout around for one while Nick and I
get ready some eats,” said the curator. “You may also find the upas
_tree_, which is of the bread-fruit family, but I doubt it. Never heard
of it south of Java. Look for a tall tree a hundred feet high, with
lanceolate leaves and berries in a drooping cluster. Both are used for
poisoning arrows and darts, from the Philippines south.”
Dwight arranged a lory call for Sadok, in case either of them should
need the other, and they separated, each vanishing into the lower
jungle.
Dwight walked along, searching the jungle growth with keen eyes.
Gradually his course led him around the flank to the south and into
a deep ravine, with great trees dropping down the slopes below him
into the depths. It was impossible to see far, in here, so he climbed
up a small tree and looked out. The ravine led up the mountain side,
with all the jungle spread out like a map on its flanks. Searching
carefully each giant trunk, he at length spied one overgrown with a
profusion of some vine that looked promising, and, marking it, he set
out. In ten minutes he was close enough to the vine to examine it more
carefully. The reddish bark, the five-fingered leaf, looked as if it
might be one of that famous family of strychnine trees that extends
all around the tropics, from India through the archipelago, to South
America and across Africa. Dwight thrilled with a primal, almost
superstitious fear as he looked at this sinister representative of
its race. It was more deadly than a cobra, if it could bite you! All
the stories he had ever heard of the poisonous air that surrounds the
strychnine trees came to him; and that fabled Valley of Death in Java,
grown thick with upas trees in which nothing can live, came to mind. He
kept his distance from the dreaded vine, respectfully, and was about to
try to reach Sadok with a call, when voices coming through the jungle
arrested him. He sank into the undergrowth and watched through its
green depths.
The voices came nearer, guttural tones that set him shivering with
excitement. They were coming down the ravine on his side and would
pass quite near him, he judged. He drew his automatic and waited.
Then three diminutive black-bearded warriors came into view, passing
down what must have been a trail through the jungle, although he had
not noticed any in crossing. They passed silently through the green
glade, and then two more came into view. Before them they drove a
prisoner, a tall Papuan.
Dwight gasped as he looked to make sure--it was Baderoon--captured by
the pygmies!
All the generous instincts of youth rose up in him at the sight, and
without thinking further he raised his pistol and fired at the nearest
pygmy. With grunts of surprise they all bolted into the forest, while
Baderoon leaped into the jungle and came running toward him, his arms
bound behind his back. Dwight raised his helmet out of the underbrush
an instant so Baderoon could find him, and then sank out of sight. An
arrow came singing and tanging through the twigs, and then Baderoon
stumbled into his lair and fell at his feet.
“_Orang-kichil!_ Cut!” he gasped, turning over on his face. Dwight
drew his hunting knife and severed the fibers that bound him. Baderoon
wriggled over, his face alight with its happy, care-free Papuan smile.
Then came the grim lines of pain as he bore stoically the throes of
returning circulation in his arms. Dwight kept up a cautious vigil,
expecting momentarily an arrow from some unseen source in the jungle.
And the presence of the deadly upas vine behind him did not leave any
illusions as to how that arrow would be armed!
Still the stealthy silence! It was his first taste of real jungle
fighting, and the boy would gladly have exchanged it for any amount
of odds in the open, where one could see and think. Not a bush moved,
not a stick cracked; the pygmies might have utterly vanished from the
earth, for any sign that the jungle gave to the contrary.
Then came the call of the Papuan lory, twice repeated. It was not far
off, and it roused Dwight to a frenzy of hard thinking. The curator and
Nicky, with perhaps Sadok, also, were coming, having heard his pistol
shot. They must be warned at any hazards. To move from his place of
concealment was death. He cudgeled his brains for an answer, turning
over one plan after another rapidly and rejecting them all.
Three of anything means “Danger!” in the wilderness, all over
the world; such a signal they would at once comprehend, and act
accordingly. Three pistol shots would give his location away by their
smoke. Dwight raised his voice and gave the lory call three times in
answer.
Bows instantly twanged in the jungle, and two arrows swished through
the thickets around his position. Dwight took off his helmet and peered
furtively through every vista, searching every tree trunk, but not a
sign could he discover whence they came.
Then came the cough of Sadok’s sumpitan from somewhere, and a small
black-bearded hill man rose suddenly out of the bushes, not thirty feet
away, and fell over backward, silently.
“Me go! Me-fellah catch’m bow’n arrow!” whispered Baderoon, from the
ground, wringing his wrists vigorously and eying Dwight’s hunting knife
longingly.
Dwight nodded approval. Two could play at this bushwhacking game! And
none better than their own native bushman. He handed Baderoon the knife
and the Papuan melted off into the undergrowth toward the body of the
dead pygmy.
A long, sinister silence set in. Dwight watched in every direction,
scanning the forest intensely through his leafy screen, but nothing
that he could fire at appeared. Then a sudden shock of fright went
through him. Surely that bush over there was much nearer now than when
he had looked at it last! Surely it was not natural, growing so close
to the roots of that giant euphorbia that towered up near it! Nature
did not grow bushes in such dense shade! He was about to fire into it,
when a long black arm struck out from behind the tree trunk and there
was a flash of bright steel, while the bush writhed in convulsions and
then lay still.
Baderoon! In spite of his religious taboo against steel, he had broken
it for them. Dwight could appreciate that, and he began to have immense
confidence in their two wild allies. In the jungle, where he and the
curator and Nicky were helpless, these two were masters. They could
beat the pygmies at their own game.
“That’s three,” muttered the boy to himself. Then the essential need
to prevent the other two getting away to the main war parties of the
pygmies and telling them of their presence presented itself. It seemed
vital, to the boy’s imagination, and he even thought of sacrificing
himself by exposing his position to draw their fire, so that they could
be shot by the others and their plans for running the gantlet during
the storm could go through.
He was maturing the idea, when a faint rustle in the jungle back of him
turned him around, with the hair rising under his helmet with alarm
and his pistol ready for instant fire. He saw Sadok’s sumpitan rise up
cautiously out of the green and lowered again, and the boy breathed
relievedly. Presently he caught a glimpse of the Dyak’s brown body
moving serpentlike toward the upas vine. Out of the depths between it
and the trunk of the larger tree overhead the leaves moved. Then came a
quick, silent jab of Sadok’s kriss into the blood-red bark of the vine.
It flashed down again, and Dwight could see the thick, white juice
oozing from the wound in the bark. Two brown hands rose out of the
foliage and tied on the tiny bamboo poison cup with gingerly care, and
then all signs of movement in that direction ceased.
After a long wait, two low calls of the lory came out of the jungle
near by. Dwight answered them.
“Come on out, Dwight,” came the curator’s voice. “They’re gone. We’re
over this way.”
Dwight rose hesitatingly, inch by inch, half expecting every moment to
be pierced by a deadly arrow. Then came the exhilaration of freedom.
He felt wonderfully alive, eager and able to perform prodigies. He
sought out the party, stepping as if on air, his eyes sparkling with an
unearthly brilliance. The curator regarded him curiously as he came up.
“Hel-lo! What’s struck you, old top?” he exclaimed, vivaciously. “You
look as if you’d seen an angel! Mostly devils around here. Baderoon
tells me there were only five of them. They ambushed him and trussed
him up before he could make a kick or a jump. We got two, and two more
got away. The third is outlying somewhere, with Sadok and Baderoon
looking for him.”
“I got that one, myself,” said Dwight. “That was the pistol shot you
heard. He was walking just in front of Baderoon. And I found your upas
vine, too!” he cried, excitedly.
“Ah, that accounts for it,” mused the curator. “Been lying near it a
long while?”
“Accounts for what? Yes, I was right near it, ever since I fired that
shot.”
“Accounts for your looking like a man who has eaten loco weed, son.
You’ll be lit up for a while yet; and you need to, for we’ve got to
make a dash, now that those two got away. There’s a faint essence of
strychnia in the air around the upas vine which acts like medicine on
a human being through the pores, Dwight,” he explained. “You’ll think
you can move mountains and perform prodigies of valor, for a time. Then
will come the reaction, like a man drunk with too much coffee. Well,
boys--let’s go.”
He raised the lory call to bring in Sadok and Baderoon. They rejoined
the party soon, and Dwight noted that the former had the small tube of
fresh poison at his belt.
The party pushed on vigorously. As they swept into the valley where
the pygmies were camped, thunderclouds gathered overhead and drops of
rain began to fall. It grew dark and compass ranges had to be corrected
again. Then came the tropical thunder and lightning with the blinding
downpour of rain, so that the three white men were glad to shroud
themselves in their tent flies. It was a weird march, through the
tossing forest, with rain swirling through the trunks in white sheets,
and flying dead branches crashing down through the grinding limbs.
Sadok and Baderoon flanked the party on ahead; so long as neither of
them came in, it was understood to be safe to push on at full speed.
Their course aimed to pass midway between two of the fires noted from
the mountain above, and then turn and strike direct for Cassowary
Camp. Baderoon was now well armed, with a bow and shield and plentiful
arrows taken from the slain pygmies, and Sadok’s quiver was full of
fresh darts, so that a feeling of elation filled them as they swept on.
The forest was noisy and windriven with the storm; the snap of broken
twigs and the rending of vines and creepers in their path did not have
to be guarded against now. Their only danger was in being seen by some
outlying scout, for whose abolishment they trusted their native allies.
At length the curator pulled out his watch.
“I think we’ve made it, boys!” he exulted. “At the rate we have been
going we must be well past those camps. We’ll bear over to the left
now, and pick up Sadok. Shove along, boys, faster!--so we can catch up
to him!”
They ran through the jungle, bursting and tearing their way through the
undergrowth, twisting around trunks and dodging under creepers. Still
no Sadok. The curator called at intervals, and they pushed on, but no
reply came. Then he stopped and raised the lory screech at the top of
his lungs.
It was answered by a faint, single call, a short distance ahead. With
a quick sense of foreboding they moved forward warily. Then their eyes
lit on a brown, muscular figure lying by a tree trunk in the dim light
of the roaring jungle--Sadok!
They flung themselves on the ground with one common impulse, and crept
rapidly forward. Sadok was still alive when they reached him. His eyes
looked over at the curator sleepily.
Then he pointed with three of his outstretched fingers, indicating the
directions with a significant brush of his left forefinger swept out
over the others. He fell over on his side with the effort and closed
his eyes. A long arrow stuck out from the tree over his head and its
carmine tip was covered with a whitish glaze that made one shiver to
look at it. Blood flowed from a slight scratch on Sadok’s shoulder,
where the arrow had merely scraped it. The curator leaped at the wound,
sucking fiercely at it. He shook Sadok roughly, and, reaching for
the medicine box in his hip pocket, poured a pellet into his hand and
forced it between the Dyak’s teeth. Then he rubbed a pinch of purple
powder into the cut and called on the boys to help. Together they
rolled him back and forth vigorously. While they were at it, another
arrow whizzed like a hornet between their heads. They dragged Sadok
behind the tree, while Nicky stood guard with his long-barreled .38.
He could see nothing in the direction the arrow had come from, but the
little hill men were somewhere around them now, that was certain.
Between them, Dwight and the curator had got the Dyak moving feebly
again, and, dragging and pulling him roughly, they all managed to
crawl on through the jungle. Once lost in the underbrush, safety was
assured by vigilance, for their adversaries dared not show themselves,
either. It grew steadily darker, and the crash and boom of thunder
kept up unceasingly. Now and then the vivid flashes would light up the
dark glades and a black form would be seen through the trees, when the
insignificant _pop!_ of the pistols would ring out.
“Now, boys, it’s dark enough to make time!” said the curator, halting
the party. “Here are two poles that I picked up while crawling along.
Make a stretcher of them, and you two carry Sadok, while I cover your
retreat.”
They rolled a tent fly around the two poles and laid Sadok on the
narrow strip of canvas left in between them, while the curator crept
off into the jungle to reconnoiter. The crash of Nicky’s revolver in
his hands came to them once, and after a time he returned and they
rose to push on. The Dyak was heavy, and the two boys staggered along,
forcing their way through maddening vines and thorn ropes that tore at
them in the dark. Behind them, somewhere, was the curator, covering the
slow retreat, circling through the forest, occasionally visible when a
lightning flash lit up the jungle with its vivid glare.
Once or twice the red flash of his pistol spat out in the dark, and
once the sharp blow of an arrow on his back caused Dwight to drop his
burden hastily, while Nicky tore it out of his clothing anxiously and
made sure that it had not penetrated to the skin.
An hour passed, and then, utterly weary, the boys fell in a heap,
pulled down by the wrench of some particularly obstinate vine in their
path. They waited for the curator despondently. They could do no more.
Suddenly Sadok sat up, as if in a trance. He did not speak, but the
boys, delighted with this evidence of returning power, pounced on him
and pumped his arms and legs with all their strength. They were still
at it when the curator returned.
“Glory, Mr. Baldwin--he’s coming round!” yelped Nicky, looking up from
his work. “He’s going to get over it!”
“Looks promising!” smiled the curator, getting out another pellet to
give Sadok. “We can thank the rain for that! No arrow can stay virulent
long in this weather! Raise him to his feet and we’ll try to make him
walk.”
They propped Sadok up and, half carrying him, half leading him, they
set out again. He staggered along as if walking in his sleep, leaning
heavily against first one and then the other of the boys. Gradually the
rain abated and the lightning flashes grew less frequent, so that it
was necessary for the curator to stop and crouch in the jungle to light
up the compass with his flasher concealed under the tent robe. Then
came pitch blackness, and the dripping silent jungle hid them like a
shroud.
“I’m afraid we’ve lost Baderoon, boys,” whispered the curator during
a stop to take a bearing. “He had plenty of chance to locate us, back
there in the storm, we did so much firing. I’ve had to reload entirely,
once. You can’t have more than six shots left, Nick.”
“I’ve got a clip and a half, sir,” interrupted Dwight, cheerily, “and
what is more, Sadok will be in shape again soon. I’ve noticed his
muscles flexing occasionally, of their own steam, while helping him
walk. Let’s go. We’ve got two good hours of this yet!”