Ephraim Quell's bony face wore a mirthless, ghastly grin as the
schooner rushed into the white foam-smoke of the breakers. Suddenly a
grinding crash quivered through the craft's whole fabric. It ended in a
terrific shock that rocked the craft over on its side and flung them
all helter-skelter against the rail.
"We've struck!" cried Ephraim Quell. "Her whole bow must be torn
out--we can't last ten minutes on this bar."
The schooner, tilted sharply, was hanging on the bar and being smashed
and hammered by the terrific waves that rushed in and exploded against
it. The thunder of the raging waters was hideous.
Clark Stannard, bruised and shaken, was scrambling to his feet. The
other five, tense but unterrified, also regained their feet. It was
evident the schooner would quickly be battered apart.
Clark's voice rang hard and commanding over the din. "Get the equipment
and supplies into the long-boat! We'll head upriver in it, before that
gunboat can arrest us. Hurry!"
While Clark worked furiously to loosen the lashings of the big
long-boat, the other five hastened below decks and returned staggering
under the weight of rifles, ammunition boxes, rations and medicine
cases and other supplies, which they piled into the long-boat. There
was no panic and no confusion--only desperate, urgent haste.
The gunboat was standing to at a safe distance outside the bar. Now as
the last equipment was loaded into the long-boat, the cracking crash of
the schooner's rending timbers gave ominous notice that the _Venture_
was about to break up. The men leaped into the boat.
"Lower away!" Clark shouted.
Frantically, Ephraim Quell and Link Wilson paid out the ropes. As the
long-boat's keel touched the boiling surf, Mike Shinn and Blacky Cain
and Clark pushed off fiercely with the heavy oars.
The long-boat shot into the thick of the raging breakers. They were
deafened by the thunder, blinded by flying spray. Clark yelled orders,
and convulsively they pulled at the great oars, inching precariously
through the breakers into the broad river-mouth.
Then the long-boat won out of the exploding waves, glided into the calm
yellow waters of the wide, sluggish river. Before them, its marigold
expanse wound inland between thick, dull-green mangrove swamps. As they
pulled rapidly upstream toward the first bend, they heard the gunboat
firing after them from outside the breakers. The shots fell short--and
in a few moments they were around the first bend.
"We made it!" Clark exclaimed. "But we've got to keep going--that
gunboat might send boats into the river to pursue us. And it's over two
hundred miles upriver to the Kiridu country."
"Oh, Lord!" groaned Mike Shinn ruefully. "That's an awful lot of
rowin'."
Clark shrugged grimly. "You'll find it worse when we have to leave this
boat and strike into the jungle on foot."
The sun sank in a blood-red murk behind them as they pulled steadily
upriver. A humid, stifling heat and swarms of vicious mosquitoes
tortured them. On either shore were the endless mangroves, with their
impenetrable abatis of tortured, twisted gray branches and dull green
foliage. Birds screamed through them and the tall reeds of the mud
flats.
Clark looked back down the red-lit, winding river, as his shift at the
oars ended. He hoped fervently that the gunboat's officers would not
think it worth while to pursue them in small boats upriver. He knew
they'd figure he and his men were going into certain death anyway, at
the hands of the wild Kiridu tribes. And they might be right.
Clark's dark, virile face twisted in desperate resolution. Neither
French laws nor blood-lusting savages must keep this expedition from
winning through the jungles of the mysterious Kiridu to the fabled
Lake of Life. He _must_ find that lake, must bring back the shining
waters old Asa Brand craved. He dared not fail.
_2. The Lake of Life_
Clark Stannard had first learned the amazing thing Asa Brand had in
mind, in New York weeks before. He had been surprized to receive
Brand's note requesting him to call--he couldn't guess what the old
multi-millionaire wanted with a penniless young adventurer like
himself. But he had obeyed the request promptly, in a vague hope of
getting from Asa Brand the money he needed so desperately.
For ten years Clark had batted around the world in irresponsible,
adventurous exploring expeditions, heedless of his family back home.
But now his father was suddenly dead, and his mother and sisters faced
poverty, and his young brother, crippled by an accident, needed an
expensive operation if he was ever to walk again. Clark had no way
of earning the needed money--his only trade was adventure. So he had
snatched desperately at Asa Brand's cryptic request, immediately.
He knew a little about Brand, of course--everyone who read the
newspapers did. Old Asa was the third richest man in America, and for
fifty years had been reckoned the hardest, most merciless business
mogul in the country. His ramified financial interests spread their
octopus arms over the whole nation.
Asa Brand received him in bed, sitting propped up against pillows in a
luxurious bedroom of his gloomy Fifth Avenue mansion. The old man was
quite bald, and his hairless, yellowed skull and wrinkled hatchet-face
and scrawny neck made him look like an ancient, unclean vulture. He
peered at the young man with shrewd, bright blue eyes.
"Stannard, I understand you've made two exploring trips into inner
French equatorial Africa," he said in his cracked, shrill voice. "They
tell me that you know the hinterland there as well as any white man
living."
That, Clark admitted bluntly, was true. But he added, "I know the
country as far in as the Kiridu region, but not beyond. No white man
who ever went into the Kiridu has come back, not even two airplane
mapping expeditions that tried to fly in there some years ago."
Asa Brand's Adam's-apple worked in his scrawny throat and there was a
pulse of repressed eagerness in his bright blue eye as he asked, "Have
you ever heard of a weird lake that's supposed to exist deep back in
the Kiridu country--one called the Lake of Life?"
Clark nodded, surprized. "I've heard the native legends. The tribes
believe the story absolutely, and their fanaticism on the subject is
why no white man is allowed to enter the Kiridu."
Asa Brand, his bald vulture-head leaning eagerly forward, urged, "Tell
me what you've heard about it."
Clark said thoughtfully, "Well, the yarn is current among all the
Central and West Africa tribes, and they all say the Lake of Life lies
somewhere back in the Kiridu country. They say the waters of that
lake shine like light, and that those shining waters contain the pure
essence of life. They believe all life on earth began somehow from the
lake, and say that whoever drinks its waters becomes immortal, undying.
"But they also say that nobody can drink the waters of the Lake of
Life, for it is surrounded by a ring of mountains which they call the
Mountains of Death. No living thing can cross those mountains, they
claim, for there is a terrific _juju_ or spell on them that kills
instantly. And they add that even if one could cross the mountains, he
could not drink of the Lake of Life, for it is guarded by mysterious
beings, called The Guardians. The natives won't speak much of those
guardians, but say that they are very terrible and powerful, and that
they are not human."
Asa Brand's eyes were shining with tremulous emotion. His cracked
voice rasped, "Yes, yes--that is the story which I have read. Tell me,
Stannard, what do you think of it?"
Clark pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Well, it may be that mountains
really exist back in the Kiridu, and that there's a lake at the center
of them, which the blacks have seen or heard about."
"But what do you think of the story that the waters of the Lake of Life
contain the essence of life?" asked Asa Brand eagerly. "That drinking
them would vastly extend one's life-span?"
Clark stared at him. "Why, that is obviously nothing but a wild native
fable."
Asa Brand started as if stung, and demanded shrilly, "How can you be so
sure? You've never seen that lake--no white man has. How can you tell
what great powers its waters might have?"
And as Clark's black brows drew together incredulously, Brand continued
excitedly, "Since I first heard of the legended Lake of Life, I've got
hold of every possible scrap of information about it. I'm convinced the
lake exists, and that its waters do possess supernatural virtues."
The old multi-millionaire's eyes glowed with his dream. "There _must_
be more than fable to it when millions of African natives believe in
it so utterly. It's always been a belief of mankind, that some secret
spot holds the pure essence of life, the potentiality of immortality.
The ancient Hebrews thought of it as a tree of life, but the Greeks
and later the Arabs maintained it was a spring or lake. The Crusaders
sought for it in Syria, and Ponce de Leon hunted it in America.
"Why is such a thing impossible? Scientists to this day don't know how
life started on earth. The theory that life sprang from the waters of
the legended lake is no more fantastic than any other theory. And if
that lake _was_ the source of earth's life, if its shining waters hold
the pure essence of life, it must be true that anyone who drank those
waters would live vastly beyond the ordinary human span."
Clark watched the feverishly excited old man in wonder. Then Asa Brand,
abruptly calm, said flatly, "I'm going to send an expedition to that
part of Africa to find the Lake of Life."
* * * * *
"But such an expedition is impossible, sir!" Clark said, astounded.
"The natives regard the whole Kiridu country as sacred, and kill any
white man who enters it. And because such intrusions stir all the
tribes to wild turmoil, the French colonial authorities have strictly
forbidden explorers to enter the Kiridu."
He added, "Of course, it's a worthy ambition of yours to want to add to
scientific and geographical knowledge----"
"Scientific knowledge be hanged!" shrilled Asa Brand. "It's not to add
to scientific knowledge that I'm sending the expedition. It's because
that expedition is going to bring me back some of the shining waters of
the Lake of Life; waters that will prolong my life, perhaps for many
decades, when I drink them."
And as Clark stared stupefiedly, the old man's excited anger dropped
from him. He suddenly looked a shrunken, withered, fearful thing, and
his voice was a cracked, hoarse whisper.
"Stannard, I've never feared anything in my life, but I'm afraid now.
I'm afraid of dying. My doctors say I can't live more than a year or
two, and that they can't do anything for me. And I don't want to die,
I mustn't die, I _won't_ die! For I haven't lived yet! I've spent all
my life gathering money, and never took time really to live and enjoy
myself. That's why I must put off death, for a while at least--I want
to live before I die. If medical science can't help me, I'll look
elsewhere. And this Lake of Life--it's a chance. Its waters may keep me
living for many years, for decades even, if you can bring some of them
back to me."
"If _I_ can bring them back to you?" Clark repeated, startled. "You
don't mean that----"
Asa Brand nodded his vulture-head. "Yes. I've picked you to lead the
expedition. You know the country, you can do it.
"Here is the proposition. You'll be furnished what men and equipment
you need and you'll go to Africa, penetrate that unknown region, and
find the Lake of Life. You will bring me back a flask of its shining
waters. When you do that, I'll pay you a half-million dollars."
"And if I don't bring the water back?" Clark asked. "If I can't find
the lake, or if I'm killed in there?"
"Then you get nothing, and your heirs get nothing," Asa Brand snapped.
"Only when you deliver into my hands a flask of those shining waters
will you receive your pay. I believe that those waters will extend my
life greatly, but even if they prove without virtue, you will have been
paid for procuring them for me."
A cunning, menacing expression entered the old man's eyes as he added,
"But don't think you can accept my proposition and then trick me,
Stannard. Don't think you can bring back a flask of ordinary water and
fool me. The waters of the Lake of Life are shining waters unlike any
other on earth. I'll know if you try a trick, and you will receive
nothing."
The senile multi-millionaire leaned forward tensely. "Well, do you
accept the proposition?"
Clark felt himself forced to a desperate decision. The young adventurer
had no faith whatever that the waters of the fabled lake possessed
the power of immortality. But there was a good chance that a lake of
shining waters did exist back in the unknown Kiridu. Phosphorescence or
radio-activity made such a shining lake a possibility.
And if it did exist and he could reach it and bring back a flask of
its waters to this death-fearful old man, Clark would receive half a
million dollars--enough, more than enough, to make the future secure
for his helpless family.
Yet it was a deadly dangerous gamble. He knew well the slim chance any
white man had of entering the Kiridu country and escaping death from
its fanatic, savage tribes. And if he was killed in there in the wild
search for the lake, what of his sisters and brother and mother?
Clark's brown, rugged face became rock-like as he made his decision. He
told old Brand, "I'll go." He added, "I'll need four or five men, at
least--we'll have to strike into the Kiridu afoot from the headwaters
of the Bembu River, and you can't use native porters, for they won't
take white men into that sacred country. I don't know where you'll find
men who will join such a risky venture."
"I'll find the men," Asa Brand's cracked voice had promised with eager
readiness. "And they'll be men who won't balk at any danger."
Asa Brand had found just such men. By devious ways and agents, he had
brought together the five hard-bitten, ruined, hunted men who had
agreed to follow Clark Stannard to the devil himself as long as they
received the pay the old millionaire promised, when they returned.
Brand had procured the schooner and equipment, too, following Clark's
specifications and lists. And two weeks after his first meeting with
the old financier, his desperate expedition in search of the Lake of
Life had sailed for Africa.
_3. The Mountains of Death_
_Boom!_ _Boom!_ Through the suffocating noon hush of the jungle
throbbed the odd, percussive sound, like the deep quavering of muted
gongs.
Black heart of Africa, throbbing in hate and menace! Its malign whisper
was a sinister promise. _Boom! Boom! Boom!_
Mike Shinn gave up his oar to Lieutenant Morrow and scrambled back to
lie panting in the stern of the long-boat, his huge, freckled fist
dashing a rivulet of perspiration from his brow.
"I _wish_ those damned drums would stop," he panted. "This rowing's got
me hanging on the ropes anyway, without havin' to listen to that day
and night."
Blacky Cain turned his unshaven, predatory face from his oar and
snarled, "You and me both. You'd think there was a thousand jazz bands
in this damned jungle, to hear it."
Clark Stannard, his hard brown face a little gaunt from the past week's
strenuous toil, told them grimly, "Those drums are the telegraph system
of the jungle tribes. They've kept tabs on us ever since we first
entered this Kiridu country."
The long-boat was forging slowly up an upper tributary of the Bembu,
a black creek no more than a hundred feet wide. On either shore there
rose, not the obscene mangrove swamps of the coastal region, but a
solid wall of towering, stupendous trees. This was the true jungle,
the mighty equatorial forest that blanketed the heart of the dark
continent. Huge banyans and baobabs and ebony trees interlocked
branches, laced into solidity by snaky lianas and rubber-vines and
climbing palms.
This insanely luxuriant vegetation teemed with life. They had heard the
distant trumpeting squeal and crash of elephants many times in the last
week. The chatter of birds and scolding lemurs was silenced ever and
again by the squall of an angry leopard. Submarine-like hippopotamuses
swam from in front of the long-boat in ponderous alarm. Crocodiles
crashed and splashed through the reeds, and millions of mosquitoes
swarmed out onto them from the eternal twilight of the dank forest.
Eight days had passed since they had started up the Bembu. Eight days
of heat and mosquitoes and back-breaking toil, during which they had
crept deeper into the forbidden Kiridu country, first up the main
river and then up this narrow, unexplored tributary. Clark estimated
that they were nearly three hundred miles inland; and that they were
well into the Kiridu was indicated by the ominous throb of the native
_goudougoudous_ or signal drums, which they had been hearing for two
days.
Clark said, "I think we'll reach the end of this creek before long.
Then we'll try to get bearings on those mountains, the Mountains of
Death, that are supposed to encircle the Lake of Life."
Ephraim Quell broke his usual dour silence to say, "Queerest course
I ever sailed on--hunting for a lake whose waters give immortality,
surrounded by mountains they call the Mountains of Death."
"Yeah, it's all a wild pipe-dream of old Brand," rasped Blacky Cain.
"But what do we care, as long as he pays off? Me, I didn't come for the
pay but to get out of the country. I was gettin' too hot."
Lieutenant Morrow, tugging at his oar, remarked curtly, "There may be
more to the legend of the lake than we think. After all, science has
no idea really how life started on earth."
Mike Shinn grunted, "I'd trade you my share in the lake right now for a
dozen bottles of cold beer."
"And I'd trade mine for a tall drink of tequila and a good-lookin'
_muchacha_," drawled Link Wilson with a slow grin.
Clark sensed rebelliousness in them. He told them forcefully, "There
must be some kind of unusual lake in here. And wherever or whatever it
is, we're going to find it."
Yet Clark could not blame them for not believing. His own sober sense
rejected the possibility of the lake. It was only desperation that made
him cling to the hope of its reality; for unless it existed, unless
he reached it and returned with some of its waters, he had no hope of
getting the money his family needed so desperately.
Onward they toiled, six browned, unshaven men in solaro-cloth suits
and dirty pith helmets, forcing the heavy long-boat up the narrowing
creek. There was no complaint from any of this hard-bitten crew as they
struggled on through the stifling afternoon hours. Yet their nerves
rasped to the ceaseless, monotonous throbbing of the drums.
By midafternoon, the creek had narrowed to a shallow stream barely
thirty feet across. Huge trees interlaced arched branches above them to
shut out the searing sunlight, so that they rowed on in strange green
gloom. The dank, heavy breath of the jungle was overpowering here. Then
they rounded a bend, and at once stopped rowing. Ahead of them the
stream ended in a swampy, unnavigable slough.
"This is all the further _this_ boat's goin'!" exclaimed Mike Shinn.
Clark Stannard nodded. "From here on, we go on foot. Pull over to the
shore and we'll beach the boat there."
* * * * *
They dragged the heavy long-boat through the squashy black mud and
papyrus reeds to firm ground. There they piled out and stood, panting
and slapping vainly at the fiendish mosquitoes.
Clark cast keen eyes around the jungle. He noted a huge banyan tree
that towered far above the rest of the forest.
He ordered crisply, "Get our equipment and supplies out of the boat and
divide them among the pack-sacks. I'm going to climb that banyan. If
the mountains exist, they should be visible from up there."
Clark found it hard getting up the lower part of the giant banyan,
but once in the upper branches the climbing was fairly easy. It was a
different world up there, a swaying green world of dappled sunlight and
clinging vines and flashing birds. He reached the highest attainable
crotch, two hundred feet from the group, and then peered north and
eastward. His sweeping gaze abruptly fixed.
He was looking far across the sunlit green roof of the jungle. In the
dim distance, a short range of steep, dark mountains rose at least ten
thousand feet above the steaming forest. Huge, frowning ramparts and
scarps and ridges lifted like menacing fangs. And his heart leaped as
he saw that the frowning range was ring-shaped. He was looking at the
rumored Mountains of Death, and they were real.
Clark's black eyes slitted in excitement. If the mountains existed,
might not the shining lake supposed to lie inside them exist also?
He could not understand the reason for the extraordinary ring-shaped
formation of the range. Then, as his eyes swept along the circular
rampart, he made out the silver thread of a narrow river that seemed to
flow with great swiftness through the jungle toward the mountains.
He carefully took compass readings, and then excitedly descended. He
told the others, "The Mountains of Death lie east-northeast from here.
They're no more than forty miles away--we ought to make them by late
tomorrow afternoon."
They shouldered the heavy pack-sacks into which the equipment had been
divided, and picked up their automatic rifles. Bandoliers were slung
over their shoulders, and the packs contained a store of ammunition for
the heavy pistols in their belts.
Clark pointed out an elephant trail leading east. "We'll have to follow
the game trails. It would take days to hack a path."
They moved forward along the winding elephant trail, which was like a
tunnel through the solid green jungle. Their rifles were in the crooks
of their arms; their eyes intently scanned the walls of vegetation on
either side, alert for a sudden, yelling, savage attack.
But though they pressed on through the long, hot hours for the rest of
that day, no attack came. The drums seemed to throb faster, louder, as
they slowly advanced to the mountains. The hollow boom came from ahead,
from behind, seemingly from everywhere. It whispered of gathering
forces, of impending onslaught, Clark knew.
As they marched eastward, they glimpsed ever and again the dark,
frowning ramparts of the mysterious mountains. And when night fell, and
they made a fireless, watchful camp in a little clearing, Clark and his
men could see the distant ridges and scarps black against the African
stars, a giant and unbroken ring of titanic peaks and ridges.
"What the devil made the mountains round like that?" Mike Shinn asked,
puzzled. "They look just like a big fence put up there."
"I've no idea of the cause of that ring-shaped formation," Clark
admitted. "It's quite unprecedented, as far as I know. We may be able
to learn more about it when we reach the mountains tomorrow."
"_If_ we reach them tomorrow, you're meanin'," drawled Link Wilson,
reclining with his rifles across his knees, rolling a brown-paper
cigarette. "The _hombres_ beatin' on those tom-toms may have different
ideas."
They all listened. In the solid blackness of the jungle night, the
throbbing boom of the drums was much louder, brutal in its hate and
menace. They seemed to hear vague whispers, murmurs of stealthy
movement in the forest, ghostly gathering of phantom hordes.
The six men slept in shifts that night, waiting tautly for the expected
attack. But the unseen natives made no attack, and when the blood-red
dawn came, they shouldered their packs grimly to go on.
They made their noon halt in a game trail less than five miles from the
base of the mountains. From here they had a clear view of the steep,
dark slopes of the weird range, lying barren in the hot sun without any
speck of vegetable life on them. A feeling of awe gripped Clark's men
as they stared.
They had just started forward again, when Ephraim Quell halted
suddenly. His nasal voice exclaimed, "Listen!"
* * * * *
Clark halted with the others, listening. No sound broke the green,
twilight stillness of the damp jungle.
"The drums have stopped," said Quell tightly.
"Thank the Lord for that!" muttered Mike Shinn.
But Clark's brown face stiffened. He said, "When the blacks suddenly
stop the _goudougoudous_, it means they're ready to attack. They must
already be near us in the jungle. On toward the mountains, men!" his
voice rang harshly. "On the double quick!"
They started forward along the wide game trail on a rapid trot, heavy
packs thumping against their backs, rifles raised.
Suddenly a spear flashed out of the jungle wall like a streak of light.
Link Wilson ducked, whirled and fired in a flash, and the crack of the
rifle ended in a shriek of agony.
Instantly a tremendous roar of savage voices broke from the surrounding
forest.
"_Amafuka Kilima Amafuka!_"
At the same moment, a shower of spears shot out of the green forest
into the trail.
But the spears missed the white men. On the instant that the lank Texan
had fired, Clark Stannard had yelled to his men.
"Ambush! Into the jungle!"
He had dived toward the trees on the right, the men plunging after him.
For to remain in the open trail was to permit themselves to be stricken
down by spears to which they could not answer.
They crashed into a green gloom that seemed peopled thick with black
warriors lying there in ambush. Hideous, nightmare shapes they seemed
in that weird twilight, tall black warriors who wore head-dresses of
black plumes and whose naked bodies were painted from head to toe with
ghastly white skeleton outlines. They looked like crouching skeletons
in the forest gloom, and they were momentarily taken with surprize by
the swift crash of the white men into their midst.
Then for moments it was a wild chaos of hellish battle between Clark's
men and the natives into whom they had plunged. Hideous shrieks and the
whizz of spears rang chorus to the staccato roar of rifles as the white
men shot.
Mike Shinn, his clip emptied, clubbed his heavy rifle and with a roar
of rage crashed its butt down on a black-plumed head. Link Wilson
reeled back against a tree, gun arm running blood from a grazing
spear-wound, but with his left hand he jerked out his belt pistol
and shot with the swiftness of a wolf's snap. Clark saw a hideous,
skull-painted face drive inward beneath his last bullet, and yelled for
his men to group together around a great tree.
They had cleared that immediate portion of the jungle of the blacks,
but with a raging roar, the others who had lain in the prepared ambush
were surging wildly across the trail and through the trees toward them.
The white men were hastily jamming fresh clips into their guns, except
for Blacky Cain, who was pawing desperately in his pack-sack.
"_Kilima Amafuka!_" screamed the charging blacks.
"Here they come!" twanged Ephraim Quell's voice.
Clark and four of his men turned loose with the rifles, and over the
roar of them heard spears thudding into the tree against whose giant
trunk they stood. The skeleton-painted blacks came on.
"Stand aside!" yelled Blacky Cain's voice.
The gangster had pawed out of the pack-sack the submachine gun he had
brought with him. He had fitted a drum of ammunition, and now, holding
the deadly weapon hip-high, he let go with it.
An unseen sword of lead from the Thompson gun sliced across the
advancing skeleton-like horde, and the front rank of the blacks fell
like ripe wheat. Cain thrust in another drum, and again the deadly
stutter broke above the savage yells. The blacks recoiled through the
trees from that terrific hail of death.
"They can't take it!" yelled Blacky Cain, a wolfish, mirthless grin on
his face. "They're scramming."
"We've only checked them," Clark shouted. "There are hundreds of
them--we've got to get out of here or we'll be annihilated. Quick,
toward the mountains--they're our only chance."
They started a desperate retreat through the tangled jungle. None was
badly wounded, but Clark knew it was but a matter of minutes before the
savages recovered from their setback.
"They're Amafuka--it means People of Death," he exclaimed as they
hastened. "And they were shouting '_Kilima Amafuka_'--Mountains of
Death. There's a chance that they'll be too superstitious about the
mountains to follow us, if we can get to them."
Lieutenant Morrow, his lean young face dripping but coldly unperturbed,
nodded agreement.
"If they do follow us onto the mountains, our number will be up," he
said indifferently.
"Boy, I haven't had so much fun since my mob stuck up the Midwest
National," rasped Blacky Cain, cradling the submachine gun
affectionately as he backed after them through the gloom.
* * * * *
Spears began to flash after them through the jungle as they retreated
toward the mountains. The Amafuka were recovering from the surprize of
the machine gun, and with mad yells of heart-chilling rage were surging
through the forest after them.
Clark and his men halted for a moment and turned to send another
deadly hail of lead through the trees. Then they pressed desperately
on. Ahead, the dark, frowning slopes of the mountains were now visible
through the trees, as they approached the end of the jungle. The uproar
of the battle and retreat was sending birds and monkeys and small
animals racing ahead of them in wild panic.
Closer after them came the Amafuka, and again they had to halt and fire
back to hold the blacks off. Clark's rifle barrel was hot in his hand,
and the reek of burned powder mixed with the dank breath of the jungle
in his nostrils. Then through the thinning trees ahead, he saw the base
of the dark rock slope, a hundred yards from him.
"Run for it now!" he cried. "Once up on that slope, we'll have a chance
to hold them off if they dare pursue us there."
The six adventurers crashed through the last trees and undergrowth,
more birds and monkeys and squealing wild pigs bolting in front of
them. They emerged onto the strip of grass between the jungle and the
first outcrop of the dark rock. From that first ledge, the barren rock
slope loomed up in vast, frowning mystery, a titan wall.
The Amafuka in the jungle uttered a chorus of wild yells as they saw
the white men running toward the rock slope. Clark, in the lead, was
within twenty feet of the rock ledge when he suddenly saw something
that made his brown face go sickly gray.
"Stop, for God's sake!" he yelled, halting.
The others jerked to a halt. Clark pointed a trembling finger ahead.
"Look----"
Two of the wild pigs bolting before them had run up onto the dark rock
slope. The two animals were stricken with instant, incomprehensible
destruction.
For as the animals set foot on that dark ledge, there was a flash of
white force or fire from the rock on which they trod. It reduced the
two little running beasts instantly to scorched, shriveled carcasses.
"God above, the natives' belief about the Mountains of Death is
_true_!" Clark cried. "It's death to any living thing that sets foot on
those slopes!"