INDIANS AND PRISONERS.
The red priests of Zataclin had not been thrown long into confusion, nor
had they permitted their superstitious fears to keep them from taking
prompt action against the daring invader of the temple.
Around the upper floor of the temple ran an inside gallery, which at
intervals opened on an outer gallery.
To the inner gallery they rushed as soon as they discovered that the
white man had escaped from the temple with the captive. They yelled to
the people below, urging them to crowd the white men close up against
the walls, yells which the white men heard without comprehending their
meaning.
The people obeyed, forcing them along the wall, so that they were
brought under the priests on the gallery. Then at the opportune moment
the priests flung down that big net which enmeshed the white men and
made them prisoners.
In a very few minutes the entire party of white men and the woman were
captives in the hands of the howling inhabitants of Zataclin. Instead of
being tied, they were simply dragged along enmeshed in the net—dragged
back to the wide door of the temple, and then dragged on inside. The
Indians yelled shrilly, and the priests who superintended this curious
method, shouted loud commands.
When within the temple, the ends of the net were caught up by scores of
hands, and the net and those within it were lifted bodily and borne up a
broad stairway into a room. Having been pulled into this room, the
prisoners were dropped to the floor, still swathed in the binding folds
of the net. Then a heavy door was closed on them and they were left
alone. Beyond the closed door they heard the Indians yelling fiendishly.
It was as strange a capture as was ever made; the prisoners were like
snared birds. For a few moments after their rough usage they could do
nothing but lie panting on the floor. At length Buffalo Bill got out his
knife, after prodigious effort, and began to cut the cords of the net.
He called to the other men to do the same, and they, too, got out their
knives and began to slash at the net.
Not a weapon or other bit of property belonging to the white men had
been touched. Perhaps the Indians feared to touch the things the white
men had in their possession, since the strange fire sticks had the power
to inflict wounds and to make that thunderous roar and spout deadly
smoke.
It took Buffalo Bill but a moment to free himself, and then he began to
cut the cords that held Miss Fernald.
The girl had swooned again under her rough treatment, and the scout and
Lieutenant Butler were trying to restore her. She was not long
unconscious. When she was helped to her feet, and Lieutenant Butler led
her to a couch by the wall, the couch being formed of the coats of the
men, she tried to smile her gratitude, yet urged them not to take so
much trouble for her. She looked earnestly at the famous scout, whom she
recognized with intense gratitude, for she was aware that it was he who
had so daringly invaded the temple to release her.
Within their close prison they listened to the ominous sounds outside.
“There is one thing,” said the scout, as he fingered his trusty
revolver, “they have favored us greatly by letting us keep our weapons.
We can hold a regiment at bay here.”
“But they can starve us out without much trouble,” said Lieutenant
Butler.
Young Lawler was walking slowly round the room, studying its
configuration.
“There is a hole up there, where the light and air come in,” he said.
“There may be something above it.”
“If we could get up there we should be only that much farther from the
ground,” suggested Lieutenant Butler, and, acting upon that suggestion,
the scout studied the opening in the roof of the room.
“We can get up there, if we think it best,” he said. “We can make ropes
out of the cords of this net, and use them to climb with. That part will
be easy enough. I fancy we shall want to see where that hole will lead.”
Seeing that she had recovered somewhat, Lieutenant Butler began to ask
questions of Miss Fernald. Soon they heard her story. She had wandered
forth for a stroll, and had got turned around, as they had supposed, and
lost herself; after that she had wandered on and on in a vain endeavor
to find the camp. While crossing the sandy area where they had seen her
footprints, she had been pounced upon by a hideous creature.
“An orang-utan!” said Professor Bounderby, with the accent of positive
knowledge. “It must have frightened you very much.”
“It frightened me almost to death,” she said, “but he was not an
orang-utan.”
“No?” he cried. “Not an orang-utan?” He got out his pencil and notebook.
“What was it, then?”
All were now bending to listen.
“My dear young lady, if it was not an orang-utan, what kind of beast was
it?”
“It was a man.”
“Not a beast, but a man! That is impossible. We saw its footprints,
and——”
“It was a gnarled, bent man, hump-shouldered, with very large, long
arms, and twisted, naked feet like claws. And he was an Indian, though
he did not wear paint nor feathers, his clothing was simply some skins
sewed loosely together. When he pounced on me, I fainted. But I regained
consciousness by the time we reached the high bluffs that encircle this
valley.
“In those bluffs was an opening, which held a queer elevator, and down
that elevator and through a black tunnel he took me. When we came out I
saw this valley and this temple, with the houses.
“I was so frightened that when he ordered me on I did not try to resist.
I was helpless, and I think I was nearly crazy. He brought me to this
temple, and here I was placed in a room somewhat like this. To-day I was
tied, taken out, put in a pavilion that men carried on their shoulders,
and set in the midst of a vast procession. When we got to the temple
again, I discovered that I was to be murdered—killed by the priests as a
sacrifice to their gods.”
Her face grew paler at the recollection of her experience, and she
closed her eyes as if to shut it out of her mind. She opened them, and
went on with her story.
“And then this brave man came—this man whom you call Buffalo Bill, the
American scout. The rest you know.”
Bounderby still held his notebook and pencil. The professor’s thirst for
knowledge seemed to make him forget his position and danger.
“Tell me,” he urged, “about this queer dwarf who captured you. Did you
particularly observe his feet?”
“I noticed them—they were gnarled and twisted, as if they had been cut
and subjected to torture. I never saw feet like them.” She closed her
eyes again and shuddered. “But there are others here like him,” she
added. “Another just like him, or nearly like him, brought food to me in
my prison, and when I looked out—there were bars in my prison—I saw
still others.”
“More dwarfs of that kind!” cried Bounderby, so astonished that he
neglected to use his pencil. “Perhaps we have found here a race of queer
dwarfs.”
“I should not call them dwarfs,” she corrected. “They were as large as
any of the other Indians, only they were knotted and twisted, and they
walked bent over. And they were clothed differently from the other
Indians.”
“Re-mark-able!” said Bounderby. “Simply past all belief.”
“Yet it is but the truth.”
“My dear young lady, I do not doubt your word; I mean, it is simply so
strange that it staggers the imagination.” Then he began to write
furiously in his notebook, talking out the words as he set them down.
“Remarkable!” he said, as he concluded. “Re-mark-able!”
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