A GREAT SURPRISE.
"Wow! now, what do you think of that?" exclaimed Andy, raising his
head, just as one of the big turtles native to these warm waters might
thrust his out of his shell.
"Why, that was only a warning to bring us up short, and pay attention!"
declared Frank. "Because, as you saw, the ball splashed the water ahead
of our bow."
"But Frank, we don't mean to head across?" cried Andy, getting up on his
knees, the better to see.
"To be sure we don't. That was all settled long ago; and you notice that
our good Felipe is still keeping her nose headed straight upstream. Now
out goes the searchlight, just as we arranged. Wonder what they'll think
that means!"
"Perhaps they'll believe they knocked it overboard with that shot!"
suggested Andy, who could joke, even when facing troubles as thick as a
sea fog.
"Listen!" Frank exclaimed, "there's a chap with a pair of leather lungs,
shouting a lot of gibberish. I suppose he's demanding our surrender, and
threatening to blow us to smithereens if we decline to believe him."
"One good thing is that each minute takes us further up the river, and
every foot counts in this game of runaway. Already we're past where the
gun stands; and those fellows are working like fun to get her turned
around, so as to point after us. While they load we're doing more
stunts. Yes, and Frank, we're leaving 'em in the lurch, I do believe."
"Sure thing," returned Frank, composedly, "only both of us want to duck
when it looks time for the blamed old gun to bang again. They mean
business from the word go, now, and will shoot to hit! By some accident
it might run afoul of the boat, and splinters fly. There, get ready to
drop, Andy! It's coming!"
It certainly was, for immediately another flash sprang up, accompanied
by the same deep bellow, as the fieldpiece was discharged. No doubt,
while it may have been rather out of date in pattern, the cannon was
good enough to have done savage execution, handled by expert German or
French gunners.
But there did not seem to be any such among the rag-and-bobtail army of
the new aspirant for the presidency of Colombia. At any rate, the
missile whizzed and whined past the retreating boat, missing her by
yards.
"Bully!" shouted Andy, jumping up and cutting a few pigeon wings on the
deck to illustrate just how pleased he was. "By the time they're ready
to let her off again we'll be nearly out of range. And from the looks of
the bank I feel pretty sure they never can catch up with us, toting
their old gun along."
Three minutes later there came the third report, and they heard the ball
pass high overhead, proving that the marksmen had entirely lost all
traces of the boat and simply fired at random.
"That settles it," said Frank, decisively.
"Do you think so?" asked his chum, joyously.
"No question about it, Andy. Like the government official on the wharf
at Barranquila, they realize that the game didn't work, and if they want
to get us they'll have to lay some new plans when we come back
again. But we're not bothering our heads about that, you know."
"Never even cut a chip off our boat!" declared Andy.
"Well, I'm going back and get the rest of my nap. Wake me up at four,
remember. I want the last watch," and Frank dove within his stateroom
with as much seeming indifference as though this thing of being fired
upon with fieldpieces might be an everyday occurrence in his experience.
Morning dawned upon the Magdalena. Frank was on duty at the time and
drank in the lovely picture. Birds flew overhead, cranes arose from
along the shallows in near the shore, where they had been fishing for
their breakfast, and there were many strange feathered creatures to be
seen, such as the boy had never up to now set eyes upon.
Some of the crew were trailing fish lines astern and every now and then
a prize would be hauled aboard, which later on might afford a meal for
passengers and workers.
Andy soon made his appearance, the rising sun having sent a few slant
rays into his sleeping quarters and aroused him by falling on his face.
"This is something like, eh, Frank?" he remarked, as he drew in a big
breath of the bracing morning air.
"I should remark, yes," was the other's reply.
"We've apparently left all our dangers behind," Andy ventured. "That is,
I mean there's little likelihood of our being robbed of our precious
machine now, with both government officials and envious revolutionists
left in the lurch."
"I was just asking Felipe and he says we shall have another day and
night of bucking up against this nasty current. You see, Andy, it's on
an unusually big bender right now, which makes it doubly hard to fight
it."
"Oh, well, what can't be cured must be endured, I guess. So I'll try to
take it as easy as I may and be thankful it's no worse," Andy replied.
The morning passed without any event worth mentioning. And all the while
they kept steadily at the business of eating up some of the two hundred
miles that Felipe assured them lay between Magangue and the city at the
mouth of the big river.
Another thing was worrying Andy, however. He finally broached the
subject to his comrade knowing that in this way he would get relief.
"That blessed old engine has been doing bully for a long time now,
Frank, but judging from past experiences, she's due for another sulky
fit soon. Whatever would we do if she let down all of a sudden, while we
were right in the worst kind of a swift current? My! we'd be carried
miles downstream before we could do anything."
"Oh, no we wouldn't!" remarked the other, smiling.
"Then you've been thinking it all over and made ready to offset a balk,
I bet anything," declared Andy, with vehemence.
"Do you see that anchor forward?" asked Frank, pointing from where they
stood on the raised deck aft. "Well, that's got a good long stout chain
attached and is placed where a kick will send it over. Notice old Quita
squatting close by? Think he's taking a snooze, he seems so quiet? But
all the time the old chap's on the alert, and he has his orders, too."
"To upset the anchor over the bow, you mean?" asked Andy.
"Just that," came Frank's reply. "If anything happens to the machinery
you'll hear a series of quick whistles from Felipe. The boat won't even
have a chance to lose headway before over plumps the big mudhook, and
we'll just take a rest out in the river until repairs can be made again
by Engineer McClintock and his assistants."
Andy looked at his chum admiringly.
"Blessed if you don't just think of everything!" he said; "and get
ready long before it happens. However do you do it, Frank?"
"Oh, it's easy, once you make up your mind," laughed the other. "I took
to it long before this new Boy Scout movement started. You know they've
got as their leading motto the words: 'Be prepared.' And there never was
a better slogan ever given to boys. Think how many things might be
avoided if we were always prepared."
"Yes, I've given the subject much thought," grumbled Andy; "but somehow
I seem to slip up when it comes to the critical time. I stay awake
eleven hours, and just when I doze off in the twelfth watch the blamed
thing happens! It's always that way, seems to me. How can a fellow stay
awake all the time, tell me that?"
"Oh, rats! There's no need of that. Just fix things so you'll be aroused
when it comes along, and be ready to turn the tables."
So they talked away into the afternoon. The engine seemed to be on its
best behavior. McClintock, the Scotch engineer, who was the only
foreigner aboard besides the boys, reported that he was beginning to
have more faith in the machinery. The work of the last twenty odd hours
had certainly been a pretty heavy tax on it and everything seemed to be
going like clockwork.
"I only hope it'll keep up, then," said Andy. "One more night is all I
ask. Then Felipe promises to have us at our journey's end, when I can
see and talk to the very man who picked up that wonderful little
parachute, with its message from the unknown valley among the cliffs. I
wish the time was here right now."
"Felipe, by the way, is taking his rest now," said Frank, after a little
time; "for he expects another night on duty. We still meet many tree
trunks sweeping down on the current. The man at the wheel has to keep on
guard constantly. Look at that tremendous one, will you, Andy? And just
notice how dense the forest is ashore around here. How any one can get
around at all beats me. I should think they'd have to keep their
machetes busy all the time cutting the matted vines away."
"I understand they do," the other went on. "And I rather guess that
there's hardly a country under the sun where an aeroplane would be of
more real benefit than right here in the tropics. Think of avoiding all
that tangle--of floating along, a mile a minute if you wanted, far above
the tree tops and away from all such a muss."
"You're right," agreed Frank, fervently. "And it's the only way any one
could ever hope to discover this strange prison of your father. From a
distance of a thousand feet we can have a big range of vision. With our
good glass it will not be hard to discover the cliffs, if only we figure
out in which direction we can have the best chance. And I think I've got
a scheme ready to manage that."
"I depend on you to do it," said Andy. "Alone by myself I would simply
despair of ever learning anything worth while. But while you are along I
just feel that we're going to succeed."
"I ought to thank you for saying that, but I won't," Frank
declared. "Because it makes me tremble for my reputation as a prophet."
"But you have seen nothing to make you less confident, I hope?" cried
the other.
"To be sure I haven't," replied Frank, readily enough. "On the other
hand, I ought to feel better satisfied than ever, because we've managed
to outwit every cause for trouble that has cropped up this far. We'll
get through this coming night without accident, because we're ready for
anything. Then, when another day dawns, we'll haul in at Magangua, to
hunt José Mendoza up and hear what he can tell us about the parachute
that fell among his cocoa trees."
"Hark! what ails the men forward?" exclaimed Andy just then.
They sprang to their feet and rushed to where they could see what was
going on.
"Perhaps a mutiny!" exclaimed Frank, who could not tell what queer thing
was ever going to happen down in this land, the people of which were so
different from all whom he had ever known before.
Andy uttered a low cry of alarm and began to fumble for the revolver
Colonel Josiah had made him promise to always carry on his person, once
they reached the country of revolutions.
The first sight they obtained told them that something unusual had
indeed happened. A number of the native crew were in range of their
vision, but every man had fallen flat on his face and seemed to be
cowering there as if afraid.
"What in the dickens is it?" gasped Andy.
"I don't know. They are a scared lot, that's sure! Perhaps they saw a
sea serpent alongside! It couldn't be that a jaguar has boarded us. No,
look at old Quito, how he lifts his head and takes a terrified look!
Why, he seems to be observing something up above in the heavens as sure
as you live!"
As Frank shot out these words he, too, bent his head back to scan the
brazen sky above. A cry broke from his lips.
"Why, what under the sun does it mean?" exclaimed Andy, who had also
turned his eyes heavenward to discover a strange thing speeding over the
tops of the trees, one, two thousand feet high, and at the same time
there came to his ears a familiar throbbing that could have but one
meaning.
"An aeroplane!" he burst forth in thrilling tones; "and the sillies down
there think it's just a frightfully big bird about to carry them
off. Hey, Frank, perhaps the government has got one of the new
contraptions after all!"
"Go slow," said Frank. "Suppose you look a bit closer, my boy. Isn't
there something familiar about that same craft up yonder?"
"It's--it's a biplane, Frank!" gurgled Andy.
"Yes, and one you've set eyes on before, too, old fellow. It belongs
to--"
"Puss Carberry!" burst from Andy's quivering lips, as he continued to
stare, as if almost unable to believe his own eyes.