Case and Frank were not permitted to lie on the ground long after being
seized from behind and thrown down. Frank’s searchlight was taken from
his hand and directed upon his face.
“Humph!” grunted a rumbling voice.
“Only a kid!” grumbled a man who was looking over the shoulder of the
one who held the light, at the same time holding Case to the earth with
a heavy knee.
When the light shifted Frank saw two burly figures with thick breasts
and short necks, with faces masked by great straggling beards. The men
were dirty and unkempt, and their clothes were torn into tatters,
probably, the boy thought, by contract with the jungle.
The lads struggled in vain. Their weapons were taken from them and then
they were hustled toward the fire they had observed from the bush. It
was a roaring fire, built of some gum-running wood, and the heat and
smoke of it well-nigh blistered the faces of the prisoners and stifled
their breath.
After being roughly searched, the captives were bundled against the bole
of a great tree which stood some distance from the fire. They were so
dazed at what had taken place, at the tragic change of situation, that
at first they did not sense what was going on around them. Then they saw
as hideous an object as they had ever set their eyes on bending so close
to the fire that it seemed to them that the flesh must be cooking on his
repulsive face.
One of the men gave this object a stout push in a moment and sent him
whirling in the direction of the tree.
“Watch ’em, Ugly!” he ordered, and the object settled down on his
haunches and glared at the prisoners until it seemed that the evil eyes
must pop out of his head.
The creature who had been called “Ugly” certainly appeared to merit the
name. He was of medium height, black as a negro, but with straight,
black hair, which was knotted and tangled until it resembled a net
complicated by nature as well as by human hands. The boys knew from the
looks of the mass that it had recently been anointed with some kind of
grease, and that it held an odor all its own.
But the most striking thing about the stolid face which now leered at
them over the barrel of an automatic rifle which lay in the fellow’s lap
was its seeming growth of horns. There were three of these, one at the
fullness of the under lip, and two just above the corners of the cruel
upper lip. These horns gave the fellow’s face something of the
appearance of such representations of Mephisto as the boys had seen in
plays.
“No, that is not the Old Nick!” Frank whispered to Case, well knowing
what was in the disturbed mind of his companion in captivity, “that is a
Mura Indian, ornamented according to an ancient custom of his people. He
belongs to a peaceful tribe, and may not be as fierce as he looks.”
“Would he shoot if we made a break for the tall timber?”
“Probably.”
“I’d like to knock those horns down his throat!” Case growled. “He has
no right to keep us here. Would the horns grow out again if I should
knock ’em off?”
Even in the serious plight the boys were in, Frank could not keep from
chuckling at this, for the horns were of wood, and were held in place by
being pushed through the flesh from the inside. When this was explained
to Case his comment was that he would enjoy having the job of fixing the
things on.
“He’d have a sore face for a time,” Case declared, “just like I did when
I had my teeth filled. We’ve got to get away from him in some way.
“We’ll be murdered if we remain here, and we can only die in an attempt
to get back to the _Rambler_.”
“We may have to make a run for it in time,” Frank answered, “but we may
as well wait until we know more about what our capture means. I
understand something of the Mura dialect, and will talk with him when I
get a chance.”
“Go on and do it now,” urged Case. “I’d like to know what this pretty
little scene is all about. What are those Englishmen doing in here,
anyway, and what are they muttering about over there by the fire?”
Frank did not reply, for he was asking himself the very same question
without finding any answer.
“Perhaps they’re here after your cargo,” suggested Case.
Frank shrugged his shoulders despairingly.
“That may be,” he admitted. “That is what I fear!”
“Could they carry it away without a boat?”
“Y-e-s,” Frank admitted, slowly. “Besides, they may have a boat.”
“I’d like to know what kind of a cargo you’re talking about,” said Case,
half-angrily. “It can’t be much if two men could carry it through these
jungles in their naked hands.”
He looked Frank questioningly in the face as he spoke, but the latter
did not fall into the trap. He maintained his accustomed silence
regarding the character of the cargo he had entered the thicket to find.
“Ask him what he’ll take to let us go?” suggested Case, directly.
“We haven’t got anything to give,” objected Frank. “You can’t bribe a
fellow with hot air.”
“If I could,” replied Case, sniffing at the heat of the fire and the
heat of the heavy air that breathed out of the forest, “I could do some
bribing. But this chap would rather have one of our searchlights than
own the First National Bank of Chicago. Try him on that!”
“We haven’t got any searchlights,” answered Frank, dejectedly, taking
note of their electrics in the ham-like hands of their captors. “Those
men have taken them. They seem to be preparing to leave, and perhaps
I’ll soon have a chance to talk with Ugly, as they call him. See! The
men are pointing toward the boat I suppose they’ll be going there next.”
“I hope the boys will give them a red-hot reception!” Case exclaimed in
so loud a tone that one of the Englishmen turned and scowled in that
direction.
“What you lads grumbling about?” he demanded. “If you want to keep whole
heads on your necks, you’d better stow that chin. Ugly is a bit nervous
to-night, and his gun might go off.”
“What are you going to do with us?” asked Case, as calmly as the nature
of the occasion would admit of.
“Keep you for pets!” roared the fellow, impatiently.
“This object in front of us looks to me like the kind of a pet a tough
like you would want,” Case answered, angrily.
The two men whispered together for a moment, paying no attention to the
retort, and then one of them asked:
“How much petrol have you in your tanks?”
Case eyed the speaker with no little curiosity. His figure and dress,
his lack of any orderly arrangement of his ragged garments, told him
that he belonged to the lower grade of Englishmen, still his speech and
manner indicated no little degree of refinement.
“What’s petrol?” he asked, not that he needed information on the
subject, but to keep the other talking.
“You call it gasoline in this blawsted country,” said the other. “How
much have you in the tanks of the _Rambler_?”
“What’s it to you?” asked the boy. “You’re not going to get the boat. If
you go within reach of the boys’ guns they’ll blow the tops of your ugly
heads off. Go on, if you want to! You’ll see!”
“We really need a boat!” laughed the fellow. “And so,” he added, “we’ll
take our chances and leave you to the polite attentions of Ugly while we
go and get the _Rambler_, with your permission, of course!”
“Where is your own boat?” demanded Case. “Why do you have to steal ours.
You aren’t river pirates, are you?”
“Never you mind what we are, sonny,” laughed the Englishman, “and never
you mind about our boat. Perhaps, you know, we lost it on a reef at
Cloud island!” he added, glancing keenly at Frank.
Frank dropped his eyes, showing either embarrassment or lack of courage,
Case could not determine which. Once before, when Cloud island had been
thoughtlessly brought into the conversation by the boy himself he had
shown great confusion. There must be some mystery about Cloud island,
was Case’s conclusion, some mystery of which the Englishman as well as
the boy had knowledge!
Plainly the name of the island had been used to bring to the boy’s mind
some unpleasant recollection, for it had not been necessary, in
mentioning the loss of a boat, to refer to the island at all. Therefore,
Case reasoned, the name meant something to the Englishman as well as to
Frank, and the reference to it had been designed to warn or threaten the
boy. He resolved to know more about Cloud island as soon as he found an
opportunity to talk with Frank! In the meantime, he might be able to get
something of a clue from the Englishman.
“What do you know about Cloud island?” he asked. “I don’t believe you’ve
ever been there. You’re only river thieves!”
The Englishman, not at all angry at the epithet, glanced keenly at
Frank, as if asking a question with his eyes, and the boy, who remained
silent, studied the bearded face intently.
“I know enough about it, lad,” was the significant reply, made directly
to Frank, although he had not spoken at all.
“Are you going there?” continued Case. “To Cloud island I mean?”
“What else do you think I’m being roasted and eaten alive by insects in
this blawsted wilderness for?” asked the other.
“Then why don’t you move on and let us alone?” asked Case.
“All in good time, lad, all in good time!”
“We’re going to move on up the river as soon as you go down,” grunted
the other Englishman, looking significantly at Frank.
With this declaration, which seemed to amount to a threat, the fellow
turned to his companion and the two, after conferring together in
whispers for a short time and giving the Indian instructions in a tongue
unknown to Case, plunged into the thicket, taking the general direction
in which the _Rambler_ lay.
“Now ask Ugly what this is all about!” directed Case, as the backs of
the two men disappeared from the ring of light given out by the fire.
Frank had little trouble in understanding the Indian, and the latter
seemed willing to talk, so all the fellow knew of the purposes and
movements of the Englishmen was soon in the possession of the boy. But
the Indian watched the boys closely as he talked, keeping his automatic
trained on them. He evidently stood in deadly fear of the Englishmen,
and was resolved to do their bidding, even if murder resulted.
“The Englishmen engaged him as guide,” Frank interpreted to Case, “to
take them to Cloud island, at the headwaters of the Amazon. They lost
their boat some distance below, and are determined to take possession of
the _Rambler_. He is to shoot us if we try to get away, and is to have
his ears cut off and his nose pulled out by the roots if he does not
obey orders. That’s all.”
“That’s enough, I think!” Case commented. “But they can’t get the boat!
The boys are there, and will put up a fight for it.”
“The Englishmen will do their best, because they want to turn us back.
Failing in this, they will kill us if they can.”
“Look here!” Case demanded. “What is this all about? Have you ever seen
those men before? Where is Cloud island? What mutual understanding
concerning it lies between you and these men? You may as well tell me,
for I’ll have it out of you.”
Frank gave unsatisfactory replies, and a sullen silence fell between the
two chums.
“I wonder if they will find the boys asleep when they get to the
_Rambler_?” Frank asked, anxiously, after a time. This was no time for
anger between them.
“They surely won’t!” answered Case. “If they do find the boys asleep
they’ll find Captain Joe there with the goods I Say,” the boy added,
“I’ve a good notion to take a hop-step-and-jump for the _Rambler_. I
could get there before they did, and make it a sure thing that the boys
would not be asleep. I believe it is worth trying.”
“Ugly would put half a dozen bullets into you before you got a dozen
feet away,” Frank objected. “See! He’s suspicious of us now.”
“He hears something in the forest back of us,” Case observed. “I wonder
if he will shoot if I turn around to see what it is? It might be a wild
animal, you know.”
“Watch him! Watch Ugly!”
Frank uttered the cry as he arose to his feet and pointed with one hand
toward the guard, now also standing on his feet, the gun lying on the
ground. There was a look of terror on the man’s ugly face which would
have been comical if it had not been so expressive of abject horror. The
fellow’s eyes “hung out like a hat pin,” as Case afterwards expressed
it, and his mouth dropped agape, as if there were no strength in the
fellow to control the action of his jaws.
“For the love of Madge!” cried Frank. “What does the man see?”
“I’m not going to stop to answer that question!” Case replied. “It’s me
for the _Rambler_!”
Ugly did not even notice the lads as they started away. He stood
perfectly still for an instant, then turned and ran, diving head first
into the thicket as a swimmer dives into an oncoming breaker. Case and
Frank paused by the fire and looked back, to discover, if possible, the
danger from which the fellow had flown. What they saw was a face and a
hand of fire, lifting from the ground, behind the tree, pointing and
nodding in the direction Ugly had taken.