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Title: The Lost Mine of the Amazon - A Hal Keen Mystery Story
Author: Lloyd, Hugh, Fitzhugh, Percy Keese
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Lost Mine of the Amazon - A Hal Keen Mystery Story" ***
A HAL KEEN MYSTERY STORY
THE LOST MINE
OF THE AMAZON
By
HUGH LLOYD
Author of
The Copperhead Trail Mystery
The Hermit of Gordon’s Creek
The Doom of Stark House, Etc.
_ILLUSTRATED BY_
BERT SALG
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS : : NEW YORK
Copyright, 1933, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Inc.
_All Rights Reserved_
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A Riddle 1
II An Intruder 10
III Pizella, the Inscrutable 16
IV A Deck Chase 24
V A Story of the Past 28
VI A Familiar Follower 36
VII Hunches 41
VIII A Dutch Uncle 48
IX Exit Rene 56
X Safety? 63
XI A Vigil 70
XII For the “Cause” 77
XIII Alone and Waiting 85
XIV Rodriguez Has Company 91
XV A Day and a Night 96
XVI With the Morning 100
XVII A Guest of Savages 106
XVIII Convalescence 112
XIX A Prisoner 118
XX The Passing of Big Boy 126
XXI A Jungle Vision 131
XXII Felice and Hal 137
XXIII Some Talk 144
XXIV Old Marcellus 147
XXV After Dinner 152
XXVI A Familiar Voice 157
XXVII And Then 163
XXVIII He Who Risks Nothing 168
XXIX A Snooping Yankee 175
XXX Pale Death 180
XXXI A Decision 186
XXXII The Coronel Goncalves 190
XXXIII Renan! 197
XXXIV A Fear 202
XXXV A Phantom of Hope 206
XXXVI Adios! 210
THE LOST MINE
OF THE AMAZON
CHAPTER I
A RIDDLE
Hal lay rigid in his deck chair and watched from under half-closed lids.
The dapper little man came toward them soundlessly and approached Denis
Keen’s chair with all the slinking agility of a cat. Suddenly his hand
darted down toward the sleeping man’s pocket.
[Illustration: SUDDENLY THE MAN’S HAND DARTED DOWN TOWARD THE SLEEPING
MAN’S POCKET.]
Hal leaped up in a flash, grasping the little man’s pudgy wrist.
“What’s the idea, huh? Whose pocket do you think....”
Denis Keen awakened with a start.
“Hal—Señor Goncalves!” he interposed. “Why, what’s the fuss, eh?”
“Fuss enough,” said Hal angrily. “The fine Señor Goncalves has turned
pickpocket I guess. I saw him reaching down to your pocket and....”
“But you are mistaken,” protested the dapper Brazilian. His voice,
aggrieved and sullen, suddenly resumed its usual purr. “See, gentlemen?”
he said with a note of triumph.
Hal and his uncle followed the man’s fluttering hand and saw that he was
pointing toward a magazine thrust down between the canvas covering and
the woodwork of Denis Keen’s deck chair.
“I came to get that—to have something to read,” purred the Señor. He
turned to Hal with that same triumphant manner. “Being short of chairs,
I have shared this one with your uncle. This afternoon I have sat in it
and read the magazine. I leave it there at dinner and now I come to get
it—so?”
“Which is all true,” said Denis Keen, getting to his feet. “I’m terribly
sorry that my nephew put such a construction on your actions, Señor
Goncalves—terribly sorry. But he didn’t know about our sharing chairs
and that accounts for it.”
Hal’s smile was all contrition. He shrugged his broad shoulders and gave
the Brazilian a firm, hearty handclasp.
“My error, Goncalves. You see, I don’t know the arrangements on this
scow yet. I’ve been knocking around below decks ever since we left
_Para_—talking to the crew and all that sort of thing. It’s my first
experience in Amazon, South America.” He laughed. “I just came up a
little while ago and after snooping around found Unk asleep in that
chair so I just flopped into the vacant one next. Then you came
along—well, I’m sorry.”
Señor Goncalves moved off into the shadows of the upper deck, smiling
and content. The small echo of his purring goodnight lingered on the
breeze, bespeaking the good will with which he parted from his new-found
American friends.
Hal and his uncle had again settled themselves in the deck chairs and
for a long time after the Brazilian had gone they sat in silence. The
boat ploughed on through the softly swishing Amazon and there was no
other sound save the throbbing of the engines below.
“Well, Hal, ‘all’s well that ends well,’ eh?” said Denis Keen, stifling
a yawn. “I’m mighty glad that our dapper Señor took our apologies and
parted in a friendly spirit. It goes to prove how necessary it is for
you to curb that reckless reasoning of yours.”
Hal shifted his lanky legs and ran his fingers through a mass of curly
red hair. His freckled face was unusually grave as he turned to his
uncle.
“Gosh, you didn’t fall for that, did you?” he asked with not a little
surprise.
“Why not—you were in the wrong! As I said before—your recklessness,
Hal....”
“Unk, that wasn’t recklessness; that was just plain cautiousness. If you
had seen the way he came sliding and slinking toward you in the
darkness, you wouldn’t be so touched by the little tussle I gave him.
People don’t sneak around looking for mislaid magazines—they stamp
around and yell like the dickens. I know I do. Besides, he made no
attempt to take the magazine; his browned and nicely manicured hand shot
straight for your inner coat pocket and I don’t mean maybe.”
“Hal, you’re unjust—you’re....”
“Now, Unk,” Hal interposed. “I’m not that bad, honest. I know what I
saw, and believe me I’d rather think that he didn’t want to go for your
inner pocket. But he did! If he was so bent on getting the magazine and
if his feelings were ruffled to the point that he made out they were,
how is it he went off without it!”
“What?”
“Why, the magazine. There it is alongside of you, right where it was all
along.”
“So it is, Hal.” Denis Keen thrust his long fingers down between the
canvas and the woodwork and brought forth the disputed magazine. He
studied it for a moment, shaking his long, slim head.
“Well, do you still think it doesn’t look mighty funny, Unk?” Hal asked
in smiling triumph.
“Hal, my dear boy, there’s an element of doubt in everything—most
everything. You’ll learn that quickly enough if you follow in my
footsteps. And as for this particular incident—well, you must realize
that Señor Goncalves suffered insult at your hands. You admitted
yourself his feelings were ruffled. Well then, is it not perfectly
plausible that he could have forgotten the magazine because of his great
stress? I dare say that anyone would forget the object of his visit in
the face of that unjust accusation. Señor Goncalves was thinking only of
his wounded pride when he bid us goodnight.”
“Maybe,” said Hal with a contemptuous sniff, “and maybe not. Anyway,
I’ve got to hand it to you, Unk, for thinking the best of that little
Brazil-nut. You want to see things for yourself, huh? Well, I’ve got a
hunch you’ll see all you want of that bird.”
“What could he possibly know or want?”
“Listen, Unk,” Hal answered, lowering his voice instinctively, “the
Brazilian Government must have a few leaks in it the same as any other
government. They invited the U. S. to send you down here to coöperate
with them in hunting down the why and wherefore of this smuggling
firearms business, didn’t they? Well, what’s to stop a few outsiders
from finding out where and when you’re traveling?”
“Good logic, Hal,” Denis Keen smiled. “You think there must be informers
in the government here giving out a tip or two to the rebel men, eh? In
other words, you think that perhaps our dapper Señor Carlo Goncalves is
a rebel spy, eh?”
“Righto, Unk, old scout. And I think that Brazil-nut was trying to pick
your pocket—I do! Listen, Unk, have you any papers you wouldn’t care
about losing right now, huh?”
“One, and it’s my letter of introduction from Rio to the interventor
(he’s a sort of Governor, I believe) of _Manaos_. It’s a polite and
lengthy document, in code of course, asking his help in securing a
suitable retinue for our journey into the interior after that scamp
Renan.”
“_Renan!_” Hal breathed admiringly. “Gosh, Unk, that fellow’s name just
makes me want to meet him even if he is being hunted by two countries
for smuggling ammunition to Brazilian rebels.”
“He’s merely wanted in connection with the smuggling, Hal. Naturally he
takes no actual part in it. He merely exercises his gracious personality
in forcing unscrupulous American munitions manufacturers to enter into
his illegal plans. Renan is a soldier of fortune from what I can
understand. No one seems to know whether he’s English or American—it is
certain that he’s either one or the other. But everyone is agreed that
he’s a man of mystery.”
It was then that they became aware of a figure moving in the shadows
aft. Hal jumped from his chair and was after it in a flash. However, the
figure eluded him, and though he searched the deck and near saloon for a
full five minutes he returned without a clue.
“Not a soul anywhere, Unk,” he announced breathlessly, “I circled the
whole blame deck too. Didn’t even run into a sailor. Funny. Were we
talking very loud that time?”
“Not above a whisper. Hardly that. I dare say one would have had to come
right up to our chairs to catch a word. Regardless of your hunches, Hal,
I never take chances in talking—not anywhere.”
“I know—I just thought maybe ... say, Unk, is the Brazil-nut’s cabin the
fourth one from ours?”
“I believe so. Why?”
“Just that there wasn’t a light or anything. But then, maybe he went to
bed.”
“Even a Brazilian like Señor Goncalves has to go to bed, you know.”
Hal smiled good-naturedly at the playful thrust and shook back an errant
lock of hair from his forehead.
“Even so, Unk, my impression of him is that he goes to bed when other
people don’t. Don’t ask me why I think it. I couldn’t tell you. That
bird is a riddle to me.”
“And you’re going to solve him yourself, I suppose?”
“Me?” asked Hal. He laughed. “I’d like to, but, who knows?”
Who, indeed!
CHAPTER II
AN INTRUDER
As they undressed for bed they heard the throb of the engines cease and,
after the captain gave some orders in blatant Portuguese, the boat
slowed down and stopped. An obliging steward informed Hal that they were
anchoring at the entrance to the Narrows, waiting for daybreak before
they dared pass through its tiny channels.
“Then that means we’ll have a nice, quiet night to sleep,” said Denis
Keen, stifling a yawn. “Those engines are the noisiest things in
Christendom.”
Hal undressed with alacrity and said nothing until after he had crawled
into his bunk.
“You feel all right about everything, huh, Unk?” he asked thoughtfully.
“That is—I mean you don’t think that these revolutionary fellows would
have any reason to get after you, huh?”
Denis Keen laid his shoes aside carefully and then got into the bunk
above his nephew.
“My mind’s at peace with all the world,” he chuckled. “I’m not
interested in the revolutionary fellows—I’m interested in trailing down
Renan to find out how, when and where he gets in communication with
American munitions men. That’s my job, Hal. It’s the American munitions
men that the U. S. government will eventually handle satisfactorily, and
I’ve got to find who they are. As for Renan—if he’s a U. S. citizen and
we can get him on U. S. territory—well, so much the better. But if not,
Brazil has reason enough to hold him, and if I can help them to do it, I
will. Of course, in sifting things down to a common denominator, the
Brazilian rebels wouldn’t have any reason to think kindly of me. My
presence in their country is a warning that their munitions supply will
shortly be cut off.”
“Then the Brazil-nut—if he is a spy, would have reason enough to want to
find out what you know, huh?”
“If he is a spy, he would. If he could decipher my letter he would find
out that the Brazilian Government has reason to believe that Renan is in
a jungle spot many miles back from the _Rio Yauapery_. It is in a
section still inhabited by wild tribes. But Renan wouldn’t worry about a
little thing like that. If he’s visiting General Jao Ceara, commanding
the rebel forces, then the savage element is twofold. From all accounts,
Ceara’s got a wild lot of men—half-castes for the most part—he’s one
himself.”
“Man, and we’ve got to go to a place like that!”
“Maybe not. If I know these half-castes as well as I think I do, they
can be bribed into giving me a little information. In that way I can
find out when and where the next munitions shipment is due and lo, to
trace the rest of the story, both before and after, will be
comparatively easy.”
“I hope so, Unk. Gosh, there’s promise of thrills, though, huh?”
“Some. We’ve been promised adequate military protection. We’re to work
out of _Manaos_. Now I’ve told you all I know, Hal, so put your mind at
rest for the night. My precious code letter is safe in my pajama pocket.
Go to sleep. I can hardly talk, I’m so drowsy.”
Hal stretched out and, after pounding his pillow into a mound, lay down.
He could catch a glimpse of the deck rail through the tiny window and
watched the shadows playing upon it from the mooring lights, fore and
aft.
A deep, languorous silence enveloped the clumsy boat, and now and again
Hal caught a whiff of the damp, warm jungle in the faint breeze that
blew about his curly head. It gave him pause, that smell of jungle, and
in his mind he went many times over every detail of what his uncle had
told him concerning Renan, that colorful man of mystery who was even
then hidden away in a savage stronghold.
The thought of it was fascinating to an adventurous young man like Hal
and he felt doubly glad that he had given up the prospect of a mild
summer in the north woods for this strange and hazardous journey on the
Amazon. He closed his eyes to try and visualize it more clearly and was
soon fast asleep.
His dreams were vivid, fantastic things in which he did much breathless
chasing through trackless jungle after hundreds of bayonets. That the
bayonets were animate, breathing things did not seem to surprise him in
the least. Neither did he feel any consternation that this vast army of
firearms should suddenly resolve itself into one human being who quickly
overpowered him and stood guard over his supine body.
Ever so gradually his subconscious being was aroused to an awareness
that another presence was standing over him and looking down upon his
sleeping countenance. Startled by this realization, Hal became suddenly
alert. He felt a little chilled to lie there trying to feign sleep while
he thought out what move he should make first.
Suddenly, however, he knew that this alien presence was no longer beside
him. He heard not a sound until the door creaked and in a second he was
on his feet shouting after the fleeing intruder.
A sailor came running and at Hal’s orders he continued the chase while
the excited young man hurried back into the cabin to get his shoes.
Denis Keen was by that time thoroughly aroused and on his feet.
Hal explained the situation in a few words while he pulled on his shoes.
“I guess I surprised him, Unk—just in time,” he said breathlessly.
“Just in time to see him get away,” said Denis Keen significantly. “My
pajama pocket....”
“You mean, Unk....”
“That my letter has been stolen.”
CHAPTER III
PIZELLA, THE INSCRUTABLE
Before Hal had recovered from his astonishment, there burst into the
cabin, the sailor, who was leading a cringing, ratlike little man.
Behind them came the captain, wringing his hands excitedly and talking
in vociferous Portuguese.
“Many pardons, Señors!” said he, bowing apologetically. “This
half-caste, Pizella—he come up from steerage to rob you—yes?”
“I’ve been robbed of something important,” Denis Keen answered and
explained in Spanish the importance of his letter.
The captain was irate with the half-caste, Pizella, and with the aid of
the sailor proceeded to search him most thoroughly. But this availed
them nothing.
“Nothing?” Hal asked. He glanced at the sailor. “You sure this is the
bird I told you to beat it after?”
“Most certain, Señor,” the sailor assured him. “I caught him half-way
down the stairway.”
“Hmph,” said Denis Keen, “question him, then.”
A few more minutes ensued in which the captain and the sailor took turns
at arguing with the man in an unintelligible patois. But nothing came of
this either, for the half-caste protested that he was entirely innocent.
“Then what can we do?” the captain beseeched Denis Keen. “We find
nothing stolen on Pizella, the young Señor Hal does not know sure that
it was he in the cabin—he admits it very truly when he asks the sailor
was he sure.”
“That is very true, Captain,” said Denis Keen. “My nephew could not
swear to it that this man was the intruder, can you, Hal?”
Hal could not. A fair-sized group of upper deck passengers had gathered
about their cabin door listening to the singular conversation. At the
head of them stood Señor Carlo Goncalves in a state of partial
dishabille and listening attentively.
When Denis Keen had dismissed the wretched Pizella because of lack of
evidence, the dapper Brazilian came forward twisting his little waxed
moustache and smiling.
“Perhaps you have lost not so very much—yes?” he asked sympathetically.
“Perhaps not,” Denis Keen smiled. “Just a letter, Señor.”
Señor Goncalves looked astonished, then comprehending.
“Ah, but the letter is important—no?”
“Yes,” Denis Keen smiled, “it is important. You know nothing about this
man Pizella?”
“Nothing except he is half-caste and that speaks much, Señor,” said
Goncalves genially. “They do quite funny things, these half-castes.”
“Such as _espionage_?” Denis Keen asked quietly, yet forcefully.
Hal watched the dapper Brazilian narrowly, but caught not one betraying
movement. The man’s swarthy face showed only a sincere concern that
these aliens should be distressed in his beloved country.
“The half-castes they are all rebels perhaps,” said the man at length.
“But that they should bother the Señors—ah, it is deplorable. For why
should the half-caste Pizella....”
“Perhaps he had reason to believe I had something to do with your
government,” interposed Denis Keen. “I have—as a friendly neighbor. But
my letter—it was one of introduction to the interventor at _Manaos_.
With his aid I am to get together a party suitable to my purpose. I am
interested in anthropology, Señor, just a dilettante, of course, and my
nephew, Hal, inherits the curse.”
Señor Goncalves laughed with great gusto and twisted his tiny moustache
until each end resembled sharp pin points.
“Ah, but that is interesting, Señor,” said he genially. “But as for your
letter—ah, it is nothing, for I myself know the interventor—I can take
you to him.”
“That is indeed kind, Señor,” said Denis Keen relaxing. “Very kind.”
“Ah, it is nothing, Señors, quite nothing. I should be delighted to help
my neighbor Americanos on their interesting journey into the Unknown.
And now shall we enjoy the rest of the journey to _Manaos_—no?”
“Yes,” Denis Keen chuckled. “We shall indeed.”
Hal smiled wryly—he was still smiling when the Señor had bowed himself
out of their cabin to dress for breakfast. Denis Keen observed him
carefully.
“You seem to be laughing up your sleeve, as usual, Hal.”
“I am, Unk. It’s a case of the noise is ended but the suspicion lingers
on.”
“You’re just hopeless, Hal. I watched the man closely—so did you.
Besides, he is acquainted with the interventor and that serves my
purpose. I shall have no further use for the Señor, once I get an
audience with the interventor. He’ll know no more about us than he does
now.”
“Well, that gives him a pretty wide margin, Unk. Wasn’t it telling him a
lot just to say you missed that letter?”
“Not at all. Most Americans on such expeditions as it is believed we
contemplate secure letters of introduction along their itinerary. The
dapper chap is just a former prosperous man forced by circumstances to
go trading into the interior for rubber as his only means of livelihood.
He’s a jolly chap, you must admit, and with an inherent sense of
hospitality. And as for any continued suspicion of him, Hal, you saw
with your own eyes that he was in pajamas and dressing gown, while you
are sure that the man who ran from this cabin was fully dressed.”
“Yes, that’s true, Unk. Oh, I guess I’m just a bug on hunches. I’ll try
and forget it, because I do admit the Brazil-nut’s a friendly little
guy—yes, he isn’t half bad for a shipmate. But I would like to know
about that letter.”
“Who wouldn’t? It’s futile to wonder, though. I’m convinced that the
little Pizella isn’t what he looks. I think he took the letter all
right, but my idea is that he’s either hidden it or thrown it into the
river before the sailor caught him at the foot of the stairs. But our
chances for holding him were nil when you couldn’t identify him.”
“How could I in the dark and when he ran so fast, too?” Hal protested.
“I couldn’t say it honestly even if I felt I was right.”
“Of course. But put it out of your mind. The captain has promised to
have Pizella watched closely for the rest of the voyage. Now let’s hurry
and dress so we can get breakfast over with. The Señor promised me
yesterday afternoon that he’d escort me below this morning. He’s going
to explain in his inimitable way two or three quite interesting looking
half-castes that I happened to spot down in the steerage yesterday. He
seems to have a knack for worming historical facts out of people. He did
that with a Colombian sailor who was stationed up forward.”
“Well, look out he doesn’t worm any historical facts out of you.”
They laughed over this together and finished dressing. Breakfast
followed, and when they strolled out on deck to meet the dapper
Brazilian, the steamer was chugging her way through the Narrows.
They spent an interesting hour down in the steerage with the vivacious
Brazilian, then lingered at the deck rail there to view the surrounding
forest which all but brushed the ship on either side. At times it seemed
as if the jungle had closed in and was trying to choke them, and that
they were writhing out of its clutches, struggling ahead with heroic
effort.
Hal felt stifled at the scene and said so. Señor Goncalves was at once
all concern. They would return to the upper deck immediately he said and
proceeded to lead the way, when the half-caste, Pizella, shuffled into
sight. Instinctively they stopped, waiting for him to pass.
He glanced at them all in his shiftless, sullen way—first at Denis Keen
and then at Hal. Suddenly his dark little eyes rested on the Brazilian,
then quickly dropped. In a moment, he had disappeared around the other
side of the deck.
Not a word passed among them concerning the wretched-looking creature
and Hal followed the others to the upper deck in silence. He was
thinking, however, and greatly troubled. Try as he would, he could not
repress that small questioning voice within.
Was there any significance in the glance that passed between the
half-caste and Goncalves?
CHAPTER IV
A DECK CHASE
By nightfall they had wormed their way out of the Narrows and came at
last to the main stream of the Amazon River. Hal had his first glimpse
of it shortly after evening coffee when he strolled out on deck alone.
His uncle preferred reading a long-neglected book in the cabin until
bedtime.
Hal stood with his elbows resting on the polished rail and placidly
puffed a cigarette. The setting sun in all its glory was imprisoned
behind a mass of feathery clouds and reflected in the dark yellow water
surging under the steamer’s bow.
The day had been a pleasant one and Hal had been untroubled by the
morning’s haunting doubts. Señor Goncalves was proving to be more and
more a thoroughly good fellow and pleasant shipmate. There was nothing
to worry about and, had it not been for the singular disappearance of
his uncle’s letter, all would be well.
But he tried not to let that disturb his placidity, and fixed his dreamy
glance on the dense, low-lying forest stretching along the river bank in
an unbroken wall of trees. Being at the end of the rainy season, the
jungle seemed more than ever impenetrable because of the water covering
the roots and creeping far up the trunks of the trees.
A monkey swung high in the bough of a distant tree, a few macaws and
parrots hovered near by seeking a perch for the night. Then the fleecy
clouds faded into the deep turquoise heavens and the shadows of night
stole out from the jungle and crept on over the surging Amazon.
The formidable shriek of a jaguar floated down on the breeze, leaving a
curious metallic echo in its wake. When that had died away Hal was
conscious of a melancholy solitude enveloping the steamer. Not a soul
but himself occupied that end of the deck; everyone else seemed to be in
the saloon, playing cards and smoking.
He yawned sleepily and sought the seclusion of a deck chair that stood
back in the shadow of a funnel. He would have a smoke or two, then go in
and join his uncle with a book.
He had no sooner settled himself, however, than he heard the soft swish
of a footstep coming up the stair. It struck him at once as not being
that of a seaman’s sturdy, honest tread. It sounded too cautious and
secretive, and though he was curious as to who it might be, he was too
lazy to stir in his comfortable chair and find out. But when the
footstep sounded on the last step and pattered upon the deck in a soft,
shiftless tread, Hal was suddenly aroused.
He leaned forward in the chair and got a flashing glimpse of Pizella’s
face as he disappeared around the bow toward port side.
Hal was on his feet and stole cautiously after him. He was certain that
the man hadn’t seen him, yet, when he got around on the deck, the fellow
was almost aft. It was then that he turned for a moment and, after
looking back, darted about to the other side again.
Hal chased him in earnest then, leaping along in great strides until he
came back to where he had started. Pizella was not to be seen, however,
neither down the stairway nor anywhere about the upper deck, which the
irate young man circled again.
After a futile search, Hal strolled past the saloon. Señor Goncalves was
one of the many passengers in there making merry and contributing his
share to the sprightly entertainment. In point of fact, the dapper
Brazilian was the proverbial “life of the party” and his soft, purring
voice preceded several outbursts of laughter.
Hal went on and he had no sooner got out of earshot of the merrymakers
when he heard a door close up forward. Even as he looked, he recognized
Pizella’s small figure going toward the stairway. He knew it was the
half-caste; that time he could have sworn to it, yet....
CHAPTER V
A STORY OF THE PAST
“He swore up and down that he wasn’t near this deck,” Hal declared
vehemently, when he got back to his uncle’s cabin ten minutes later. “No
one in the steerage saw him come up or come down. I was the only one who
saw him slinking around up here—I know it was him this time, Unk! But
the sailors below thought I was seeing things I guess, for when I got
down there, friend Pizella had his shoes and trousers off and was
stretched out in his bunk as nice as you please.”
“Strange, strange,” murmured Denis Keen, putting his book down on the
night table beside his elbow.
“Sure it is. The way I figured it, he must have started peeling off on
his way down. Undressing on the wing, huh?”
“It would seem so, Hal. Your very earnestness convinces me that it was
no mere hunch you acted upon this time. The fellow is up to
something—that’s a certainty. But he wasn’t anywhere near this cabin. I
heard not a sound.”
“And the Brazil-nut was strutting his stuff in the saloon, so he’s out
of the picture.”
“Well, that’s something to feel comfortable about.” Denis Keen laughed.
“Surely you didn’t think....”
“Unk, when there’s sneaking business going around like this that you
can’t explain or even lay one’s finger on, why, one is likely to suspect
everybody. Anyway, I guess they’ll keep closer watch on him just to get
rid of me.”
“No doubt they’re beginning to suspect that you have some reason for
picking on Pizella. Either that or they’ll think you’re suffering from a
Pizella complex. But in any case, Hal, I think it won’t do a bit of harm
to have the man watched in _Manaos_.”
They forgot about Pizella for the rest of the voyage, however, mainly
because Pizella did not again appear above decks. Hal quickly forgot his
hasty suspicions and was lost in the charm of the country on either side
of the river. The landscape changed two days after they entered the
Amazon, and in place of the low-lying swamps, a series of hills, the
_Serra Jutahy_, rose to their right.
After leaving the hills behind, they caught a brief glimpse of two
settlements, larger and more important than most of those they had seen.
The captain pointed out the first of these, _Santarem_, which lay near
the junction of the Amazon and _Tapajos_, the latter an important
southern tributary.
“_Santarem_,” the captain obligingly explained, “should interest the
Señors.”
“Why?” Hal asked immediately.
“It is full of the romance of a lost cause,” said the captain. “After
the Civil War in your great United States, a number of the slave-owning
aristocracy, who refused to admit defeat and bow their heads to Yankee
rule, came and settled in this far-away corner of the Amazon.”
“A tremendous venture,” said Denis Keen. “I dare say their task was too
much for them.”
“For some, Señor. Some of them returned to your fair country broken in
body and spirit, but others held on. Only a very few of the older
generation live, but there are the sons and grandsons and
great-grandsons to carry on—yes? A few of these families—they have
scattered up this stream—down that stream. One of them that is perhaps
interesting more than the others is the Pemberton family. Everyone
familiar with the Amazon has heard their sad story. It began when
Marcellus Pemberton, the first, settled in _Santarem_ along with several
other old families from Virginia.”
“Marcellus Pemberton, eh?” said Denis Keen. “That certainly smacks of
Old Virginia.”
“He was a very bitter man, the first Marcellus Pemberton. A very young
man when he went to fight against the North, he fled from his home after
the War rather than bow to Yankee rule. He settled in _Santarem_ with
other Virginia families, took a wife from one of them, and had many
children. All died but his youngest son—even his wife got the fever and
died. Marcellus and his youngest son left the settlement then and went
to live a little way up the _Rio Pallida Mors_. And so it is with that
son that the story centers, even though he married an American señorita
from _Santarem_.”
“And they had a son, huh?” Hal asked interested.
“Yes, Señor Hal. But of him I know little—the grandson. It is as I said
Old Marcellus’ son who is interest—yes? Ten years ago he disappeared
mysteriously. His wife died heartbroken a little later and left behind
the girl Felice, a fair flower in the jungle wilderness, and the
grandson who must now be twenty-five. Felice, like the good girl she is,
stays with her grandfather who is now getting very old.”
“And I suppose they’re as poor as the dickens, huh?” Hal queried.
“They’re starving to death I bet, and yet I suppose they’re keeping up
the old tradition. Pride, and all that. They ought to know the war is
forgotten. Peace and good will ought to be their motto and bring them
back to the U. S.”
“Too true, Señor Hal,” the captain agreed, “but they do not stay for
that, I do not think. They stay because of an uncertainty and that is
the sad part of the story. I did not tell you how the Señor Marcellus,
Junior, died ten years ago.”
“Ah, I thought this wouldn’t end without Hal getting the pièce de
résistance out of the story,” Denis Keen chuckled.
“Well, I notice you’re listening intently yourself,” said Hal
good-naturedly. “Go on, Captain.”
“To be sure,” said the captain amiably. “It takes but a moment to tell
you that Señor Marcellus was looking for gold up the _Rio Pallida Mors_
(_Pale Death_)—most people call it _Dead River_, Señors. One day he
started out prepared for his long journey to his lode and he stopped a
moment to tell his wife to promise him that, if some day he did not come
back, they would not rest until they found his body. He had what you
call a presentiment—no? But his wife she promised and the children
promised, also his father. So he went and as he feared he did not
return.”
“And they never found him?”
“No, Señor Hal. Neither did they find where his lode had gone. To this
day they have found neither him nor the mine. And so they look always
for his body. The Indians they say he has come back from death in the
form of a jaguar and every moonlight night he shrieks along the banks of
the river, crying for his children or his father to come and find his
body in the rushing waters of _Pallida Mors_.”
“A tragic story, Captain,” said Denis Keen. “They must be an unhappy
group up there, being reminded of their father’s sad ending every time
there’s a moon.”
“Something spooky about him being reincarnated in jaguar form, huh?
Gosh, they don’t believe that part of it, this Pemberton family, do
they, Captain?” Hal asked.
“Ah, no. They cannot even believe he is really dead, Señors—they say
they _won’t_ believe it till they find his body. And so they wait and
the jaguar shrieks on moonlight nights. But _Santarem_ is long in the
distance, Señors—the story is ended.”
“Not for the Pembertons, I guess,” said Hal sympathetically. “Gosh blame
it, I’d like to help those poor people find that man so’s they could get
away and live like civilized people.”
“I think,” said his uncle, after the captain had left them quite alone,
“that you have enough on your hands right now. What with your worries
about Pizella, my future worries about tracing these munitions to Renan,
I think we have sufficient for two human minds.”
“Aw, we could tackle this Pemberton business afterward, couldn’t we,
Unk? Even if we just stopped to pay them a friendly visit. Gol darn it,
I should think they’d be tickled silly to talk to a couple of
sympathetic Americans after living in the wilderness and surrounded by
savages all their....”
“I take it this _Pallida Mors_ will have you for a visit, come sunshine
or storm, eh, Hal?”
“And how! A nice little surprise visit to the Pembertons,” Hal mused
delightedly.
Destiny thought differently about it evidently, for Hal was the one to
be surprised, not the Pembertons.
CHAPTER VI
A FAMILIAR FOLLOWER
They departed from the main stream and proceeded up the black waters of
the _Rio Negro_ just after sunrise. _Manaos_, with its modern buildings,
crowded streets and electric lights, was indeed a “city lost in the
jungle,” for a half mile beyond the city limits, the jungle, primeval
and inviolable, lay like a vast green canvas under the sparkling
sunlight.
“No one in the city knows what is in that forest twenty miles away,”
Señor Goncalves informed Hal and his uncle as they drew into the wharf.
“_Manaos_ does not care to know, Señors, for she prefers to be a little
New York and forget the naked savages that roam the forests.”
“Believe me, I wouldn’t forget the naked savages if I was a _Manaosan_,”
said Hal earnestly. “I’d take hikes into the jungle and see what was
doing.”
“That is understood, Hal,” laughed his uncle. “But there are few
_Manaosans_, if any, that are cursed with your snoopiness. Life
apparently means much to them and they are far too wise to risk that
precious gift just to find out what the wild, naked savage is doing in
his own jungle. You don’t mean to tell me that you are adding the
suburbs of _Manaos_ to your already overcrowded itinerary!”
“Listen, Unk, I’m going to see all there is to see and you can’t blame
me. Gol darn it, this is my first trip to Brazil and the Amazon, and
I’ve only got a few months to see it in. Boy, it’s the chance of a
lifetime maybe, so why miss anything?”
The dapper Brazilian twisted his trim little moustache and laughed.
“Ah, Señor Hal he has the right idea, Señor Keen,” he said. “He goes in
for—what you call it—sport? Ah, but that is well. So I shall show him
places—no? There are the movies to go to—even you shall see this
afternoon a fine aviation field where is a great friend of mine, José
Rodriguez. He is what you Americans call the _Ace_—yes?”
“Gosh,” Hal said, “I’d think it was immense to meet a Brazilian Ace.
Think he’d like to take us up for a spin around?”
“Ah, that is just what I was going to suggest, Señor Hal. He is very
kind, José. Perhaps you would like him to take you for the spin over the
_Manaos_ jungle, eh?”
“Great—_immense_!” Hal enthused. “You do think of things, Goncalves—I’ll
say that for you! So we start this afternoon, huh?”
“To be sure, Señor Hal.”
It was something to look forward to and Hal did all of that while the
amiable Señor escorted his uncle to _Manaos’_ best hotel. The trials of
registering and selecting comfortable rooms always bored him and he
preferred returning to the hostelry when all those formalities were over
with.
Consequently, Hal strolled through the busy little city after having
breakfast at a quaint coffee house. Up one street and down another, he
ambled along with a grace that attracted attention wherever he went.
Clad in white polo shirt, immaculate flannels and sport shoes, his
splendid, towering physique and crown of red-gold hair stood out in bold
relief against the short, dark-skinned _Manaosans_. More than one dusky
damosel arrayed in New York’s latest fashion allowed herself a second
glance at him in passing.
But Hal was invulnerable where the _Manaos_ maidens were concerned. His
weakness was adventure. Also, during the first part of his stroll he was
too interested in watching the thousands of Amazonian vultures which
hovered overhead. Garden after garden was crowded with strange birds:
egrets with their delicate feathers, duckbills, curious snipe with claws
in the bend of their wings, and parrots shrieking in an alien tongue as
he passed.
Once he stopped to observe a blustering _jaribu_, or Amazonian heron,
who was trying to lord it over two gorgeously plumed egrets. Suddenly he
was aware of a shadow behind him, and when he turned he saw Pizella not
ten feet distant. Hal swung completely about and faced the half-caste.
“You’re not,” he said calmly, “following me, are you?”
Pizella was inscrutable. He did not even slacken his shambling pace and
as he caught up with Hal his shifty eyes were expressionless and seemed
not to see his questioner. In point of fact, he even made so bold as to
attempt to pass right by.
But Hal would have none of it. He leaned down from his great height and
closed his large, slim hand tightly over the man’s scruff.
“I was talking to you, Pizella,” he said quietly. “Maybe you can’t
understand my language, but, by heck, you can understand what my hand
means.”
Pizella’s face never changed. He glanced up at Hal in that same
expressionless manner as if he neither heard nor understood. To make
matters worse a crowd began to gather and in a couple of seconds there
was such a pushing, babbling and confusion that the half-caste got away.
Hal pushed through the throng after him but was destined to
disappointment. Pizella was nowhere in sight. Gardens to the right of
him, gardens to the left of him—the man might have escaped through any
number of them. In any event, he was not to be found.
After searching for almost two hours, Hal turned back to the hotel,
thoughtful and troubled.
CHAPTER VII
HUNCHES
“It’s got to look downright serious, Unk,” Hal said, after entering
their rooms in the hotel. “It’s not just a coincidence, my meeting him
like that, or he wouldn’t have pulled away when he saw his chance. Why
wasn’t he reported to the police?”
“The captain promised me he would attend to it, Hal. Apparently he
didn’t. I myself saw Pizella not fifteen minutes ago.”
“How—where?”
“Señor Goncalves has a room on the next floor,” Denis Keen explained. “I
had occasion to think that perhaps I could get him to give me that
letter to His Excellency, the interventor, this afternoon and I went up.
Just as I got to the Señor’s room, whom was he showing out the door but
Pizella.”
“_Unk!_ You....”
“Wait a minute before you come to conclusions. I did. Goncalves acted
annoyed more than surprised—I would even go so far as to say that he was
somewhat agitated.”
“With you coming unexpectedly?”
“He directed a flow of abuse at the departing Pizella’s head. Told him
not to show his nose around there again and words to that effect. Then,
with his usual cheeriness and perfect hospitality, he invited me in and
told me that Pizella had the brass to seek him out and ask him for a job
as guide on his expedition. So that explained it.”
“What do you think about it, Unk?”
“Everything,” Denis Keen chuckled, and rose to fleck some ashes from his
cigarette. “Perhaps that poor devil has really been seeking a job as
guide right along. Perhaps that is why he did all that sneaking around
the boat—one can’t get much out of him. He seems hopelessly ignorant and
yet there’s always that sullen look and shifty eye to consider.... Oh,
well, he’s either one thing or the other—an ignorant half-caste or an
exceedingly clever half-caste. I’d like to know which.”
A knock sounded at the door and at their summons a boy entered with a
note. Hal took it.
“From the Brazil-nut,” he said after the boy had gone. “Very informal.
He says: ‘Will the Señors excuse me from accompanying them to the field
at two o’clock this afternoon? Business will detain me, but I beg of the
Señors to not disappoint my very good friend, José Rodriguez, as he has
made arrangements and has set aside time to take you up for the
spin—yes? A car will come for you at two, Señors.... Regretfully....’
He’s signed his name with a flourish, Unk. Well, it’s up to us to put in
our appearance alone. I....”
“Then you’ll put in _your_ appearance alone, Hal. I have no intention of
going. I’ve got a more serious matter to attend to. Besides, I’m not
keen about airplaning in any country—much less this. I’d be just as
pleased if you didn’t go either.”
“Aw, Unk, you’d think I was some kid. Why, I can handle controls now
like nobody’s business. Besides, this Rodriguez is an Ace! Do you
suppose anything’s likely to happen just because we’re in Brazil?
Gosh....”
“Oh, I know, Hal. It’s absurd, I suppose, for me to object to your
going, but I guess you’re wishing some of that accursed hunch business
on me. Something’s making me feel this way.” He laughed uneasily.
“Perhaps I’m just a little upset about other matters. Still, promise me
you’ll be careful—I could never face your mother if anything happened to
you while you were with me.”
“Unk, you’re the limit! You’d think I had never set foot in a cockpit
before! Why, Mother’s been up in the air with me. She says I’m a world
beater and she’s going to let me try for my pilot’s license next year.
Why, she came up with me twice when Bellair was down on a visit to teach
me. Gosh....”
“All right, Hal,” said Denis Keen, pacing up and down the room. “You’re
old enough to know what you’re doing, I suppose. This Bellair—he’s one
of the famous brothers, eh? Oh, I know they’re considered expert airmen.
Glad to hear they’ve taught you what you know. Guess they could give you
some fair pointers as to what to do in a tight place, eh?”
“And how!” Hal exclaimed with a wry smile. “They don’t teach anything
else but. They’re stunters on a large scale, and if you can’t learn
about planes from them, you’ll never learn. But why all these questions
about what I learned from the Bellairs, huh? Are you really afraid I
might get into a tight place with an expert like this Rodriguez is
supposed to be?”
“Well, strangers, you know, Hal ... methods are varied among airmen,
aren’t they? Oh, I know you’re laughing up your sleeve. Now’s your
chance to poke fun at me about hunches, eh? Well, I won’t give in to it,
then. You go ahead. We’ll have luncheon, then I’ll ride with you in the
car that Señor Goncalves has so generously sent for. The mansion of His
Excellency, the interventor, is half-way toward the field, I’ve been
given to understand.”
“You going there this afternoon, Unk? Why, I thought Goncalves was going
to write that letter and fix it for you to go there tomorrow?”
“No, he changed all that when I saw him in his room just a while ago. He
told me he had already telephoned the interventor, explaining my want of
guides and an interpreter, and His Excellency, being terribly busy with
the affairs of State, requested Señor Goncalves to arrange those matters
himself.”
“In other words, the interventor doesn’t want to be bothered with you,
huh, Unk? He wants the Brazil-nut to do the work.”
“So the dapper Señor told me in his inimitable way. But the fly in the
ointment is this—Goncalves doesn’t know that it is the duty of the
interventor to see _me_, neither does he know that it is of paramount
importance for me to see His Excellency regarding Renan and Ceara before
I leave _Manaos_. His Excellency apparently didn’t understand who the
American Señor was whom Goncalves was trying to tell him about. They
assured me when I left Rio that the interventor here would be notified
of my coming. So I’m going this afternoon and no one is to be
enlightened as to my whereabouts—_no one_! Understand, Hal?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Hal laughed. “Go to it, Unk.”
“Most assuredly I will. I’ve got to see His Excellency about getting
Federal aid. Do you know, Hal, I had the feeling when I was talking with
Goncalves in his room that he wasn’t any too anxious for me to see the
interventor! His attitude ... I don’t know ... perhaps, I imagined that
too. Come on, let’s wash up and get down to luncheon before I hatch up
some more hunches to worry about.”
“Unk,” Hal laughed, “you’re a chip off the young block and I don’t mean
maybe.”
CHAPTER VIII
A DUTCH UNCLE
Hal got out of the car at the edge of _San Gabriel_ aviation field and
looked about. Leveled from the surrounding jungle, it was situated at
the extreme end of the city and here and there over its smooth-looking
surface were divers planes, some throbbing under the impetus of running
engines and some still, with their spread wings catching the reflection
of the afternoon sun.
Three good-sized hangars dotted the right side of the field and Hal
caught a glimpse of mechanics busy within. Several groups of men stood
about chattering, while here and there some nondescript individual
loitered about with that solitary air that at once proclaimed him as
being one of that universal brotherhood of hoboes.
One, whose features were distinctly Anglo-Saxon, despite the ravages
which the South American climate had made upon his once fair skin,
strolled over to Hal’s side the moment he espied him. He was hatless and
his blond hair had been burned by countless Brazilian suns until it was
a kind of burnt straw color. And his clothes, though worn and thin, gave
mute testimony of the wearer having seen a far happier and more
prosperous era than the present one.
Hal caught the look of racial hunger on his face and warmed toward him
immediately.
“Hello, fellow,” said he with a warmth in his deep voice. “My name’s
Keen—Hal Keen.”
A light shone from the stranger’s gray eyes.
“Carmichael’s mine, Keen,” he said pleasantly. “Rene Carmichael. Awfully
glad to speak the English language with a fellow being.”
“But Americans aren’t speaking the English language, Carmichael,” Hal
laughed with a twinkle in his deep blue eyes. “Nevertheless, as long as
you can understand me, that’s all that counts, huh?”
“It’s music to my ears, Keen,” answered Carmichael gravely. “It’s
deucedly odd how one will criticize Americans when one is safe at home,
but just get away in this corner of nowhere and see the smiling face and
broad shoulders of a Yankee pop up out of this dark-skinned crowd! I
tell you, Keen, it makes a chap like myself almost want to fall on your
shoulder and weep.” His weather-beaten face crinkled up in a smile, as
he looked up at Hal. “You don’t carry a stepladder around with you so I
can do that, eh?” he asked whimsically.
“Nope,” Hal laughed. “Notwithstanding my height, I couldn’t conceal it.”
He glanced at Carmichael sympathetically. “Funny what you just said
about Americans—I’ve thought that way about Englishmen too and yet as
soon as I laid eyes on you, I felt just like you say you do. Kindred
spirits and all that sort of thing, huh? Anyway, I guess the real
trouble, the reason for all our prejudices is that we dislike everything
we don’t know and, consequently, can’t understand, huh?”
“And now that you’ve met a regular Englishman—what is it, love at first
sight?” His eyes danced with merriment.
“You’re aces high, Carmichael. I’m tickled pink we’ve run into each
other, that’s a fact. My uncle and I were supposed to look for a
Brazilian named Rodriguez out here who is dated to take us for a spin.
Unk couldn’t come, so here am I alone. How would you like to take his
place? I’d feel better if you came along—someone who can understand me.”
The fellow studied Hal closely for a moment, then nodded.
“I’ll come, but I shouldn’t really. I’m due to sail for _Moura_ at four.
I’ve got a toothbrush and one or two other necessities of life back at
the hotel which I have to get.”
“Then you’re not a ho ...” Hal just caught himself in time. “Honestly,
I’m sorry, awfully....”
“Save the effort, Keen. I love to be thought a hobo. As a matter of fact
I am—in a sense. I’m very poor really, but I don’t _have_ to wear my
clothes as long as I’ve worn this suit. It’s just that it suits my—ah,
purpose.” He laughed and his voice was musically resonant. “Literally,
though, I’m not a hobo. I really do _something_ for a living, and a hard
enough living it is, old chap.”
“I believe it,” said Hal earnestly. He studied the fellow a moment,
taking note of the buoyant broad shoulders and tall slender figure. For
he was really quite tall, when one did not consider Hal’s towering
height.
“You’re deucedly odd for what I’ve heard about Americans, Keen,” said
Carmichael. “You’re straightforward and honest, and not a bit snoopy.
Seem to take me at my face value and all that. No questions—nothing.”
“Why not?” Hal countered. “It wouldn’t be my business, Carmichael. But
somebody’s given you a devil of an opinion of Americans! I know there
are some pretty poor specimens that go shouting around in Europe, but
there’s lots of the other kind too, and lots that stay at home. Well, I
guess I’m the kind you haven’t heard about, huh? I’m snoopy in some
things, though—don’t think I’m not.”
“Aren’t we all?” Carmichael returned. “It’s the way of life and people,
I suppose. But there’re some kinds that get on a chap’s nerves. Yours is
the kind that doesn’t. That’s why I want to tell you not to take
seriously what I gave you to understand about my being from the
continent. I’ve lived all my life in Brazil—perhaps that’s why I like to
play for five minutes or so that I’m really a native of some other
country. I was educated in an English school in Rio and for eight happy
years I fooled myself that I was a citizen of some Anglo-Saxon country.
No doubt that sounds deucedly odd coming from a chap born here. But I
shall never assimilate Latin ways if I live to a ripe old age in this
desolate corner of the world.” He laughed bitterly. “I can only hope
then that I shall be allowed the company of Anglo-Saxons in the spirit
world, eh, Keen?”
“If you wish to live among Anglo-Saxons as much as that, Carmichael, I
should think you’d get your wish before you die.” He looked across the
field and saw a short, helmeted figure coming toward them. “Don
Rodriguez, I bet. He’s smiling, so that must be he. He’s smiling with
recognition as if he’s been given a pretty accurate description of me.”
“And a description one could never forget,” said Carmichael. “You must
tell me more about yourself, Keen—that is if you care to. If all
Americans are like you, then I want to meet heaps of them.”
“Well, I’m glad I’ve done so much for my country,” Hal laughed. “And
I’ll tell you all you want to hear. Wait until we get up in the
air—we’ll have a little shouting party, huh?”
“Righto.”
The helmeted figure came straight to Hal with outstretched hand and
black, smiling eyes.
“Señor Hal Keen—tall like a mountain and red at the top,” he said in
broken English, and laughed. Then he turned to Rene. “And this is the
Señor uncle—no?”
“Yes,” answered Carmichael with a swift chuckle, “his Dutch uncle.” And
in an undertone to Hal, he said: “Do I look as old as that?”
“It depends on how old looking you think an uncle ought to look,” Hal
grinned. “My unk seems like a kid to me yet. He’s not forty.”
“And I’m not thirty,” said Carmichael with a poignancy in his voice that
did not escape Hal. But he was all laughter the next second and he
added: “At that I can still be your Dutch uncle, eh? Your Uncle Rene?”
“I’ll tell the world you can! _You are!_” Hal turned then to the
still-smiling Rodriguez. “When do we hop off in your bus?”
“Ah, to be sure,” said the aviator. “The plane, you mean, eh? She is
there—see?” he said, pointing to a small, single-motor cabin plane. “Now
shall we take a fly over the jungle, you and the Señor uncle?”
“Sure,” they answered unanimously. And as they followed at the aviator’s
heels, Rene whispered: “I kind of like this, being your Dutch uncle. And
as long as he thinks so....”
“Why bother to explain, huh?” Hal returned in the spirit of the thing.
“There’s not that much difference between a real uncle and a Dutch uncle
anyway.”
But Hal was to learn that there _was_ a difference as far as Rodriguez
was concerned.
CHAPTER IX
EXIT RENE
When they got to the plane, Rodriguez proceeded on into his cockpit,
motioning his passengers to make themselves comfortable in the tiny
cabin. After a moment they were off.
They bumped across the field, then rose into the air, hesitated a moment
as if they were going to fly straight for the jungle, then soared high
into the blue. Hal nodded with satisfaction, after a half hour had
elapsed.
“Some beautiful country,” he shouted at Carmichael. “Like a big painted
canvas.”
“You wouldn’t think so if you got lost in it,” Rene shouted back. “This
fellow’s taking us for quite a long hop, eh?”
Hal nodded and looked out of the tiny window down upon the endless sea
of jungle over which they were passing. The plane roared on through the
glistening blue and for a time neither of the young men spoke. Yet they
were both aware of a peculiar sound coming from the motor. It was not
missing, yet each revolution seemed more labored than the one preceding
it.
Rene looked at Hal questioningly.
“I’ve traveled in these things plenty, but I don’t know a thing about
them. But I can tell the thing isn’t running perfectly.”
“It isn’t,” Hal roared across to his newly found friend. “We’re going to
have trouble in a sec and I don’t mean maybe. If I could talk to
Rodriguez I could find out, but his English is painful and my Portuguese
hasn’t even begun.”
“If that’s the difficulty, Hal,” said Rene unconsciously using the name
with all the affection of an old acquaintance, “why, I can help you out
that way. I can speak Rodriguez,” he added with a conscious chuckle.
“Gosh, that’s fine,” said Hal. “Come on, we’ll pile up there and you ask
him.”
The Brazilian seemed surprised to see his two passengers appear in the
narrow, low doorway of his cockpit. In point of fact, Hal sensed that he
was even startled. The smile that he gave them looked twisted and
forced.
Carmichael questioned him in Portuguese, an undertaking which seemed
interminable to Hal. Meanwhile, the engine sounded worse and after
another second it began to miss. They were in for trouble. Rodriguez’
gloomy face augured the worst.
Hal noticed then with something of a start that he was wearing a chute.
Neither he nor Carmichael had been asked to wear one and he wondered
why. It puzzled him greatly.
“Ask him what’s the idea?” Hal queried, drawing Carmichael’s attention
to the pilot’s chute. “Do we look like orphans? We’re his guests.”
Carmichael stared at the chute, then grabbed Rodriguez roughly by the
shoulder and a flow of Portuguese ensued. Suddenly he turned back to
Hal, his weather-beaten face a little drawn.
“Of all absurd excuses, Keen—he says he didn’t think to ask us if we
wanted one. This is the only one on this plane—the one he’s safely
wearing. He also says the bus is doomed—comforting news. We’re no less
than two hundred miles from _Manaos_ already and there isn’t a deuced
place for him to land in this jungle.”
“Then if he thinks we’re doomed, why the devil doesn’t he turn back!”
Hal said impatiently. “What’s the idea of continuing north? Besides
there _might_ be a place we can find if he’s got the nerve to fly low
enough to see. There’s a chance that we’ll pancake and get a bit banged
up, of course, but it’s better than letting a bus crack up right under
our noses without us making any attempt to prevent it! If you ask
me—he’s yellow!”
“I’m thinking so too, Keen.” Carmichael frowned. “You seem to know more
about planes than this chap—at least you use your head in a pinch. What
do you think the chances are if we landed as you suggest. It’s dense
jungle right below.”
“If we could find a bit of a clearing we could take it easy and let her
go nose first. One thing, I guess it’s all swamp down there, huh? Well,
that’s a help—it makes a softer berth. But to answer your question—if we
can find a clearing large enough, there’s a darn good chance for us
skinning through whole.”
“But little chance of us getting out,” said Carmichael thoughtfully. “I
can answer that, for I know the jungle. One of us ought to bail out in
that chute right away and take a chance that this east wind blows him
near enough to a settlement so that help could be had. It’s necessary
for one of us to go, Keen. Otherwise we’ll all be lost. As long as
Rodriguez is wearing the chute....”
“No,” said Hal decisively, “we’ll flip a coin. Heads goes with the
chute, tails stays. It’ll be between you and me, then between Napoleon
there and yourself. O. K.?”
“Suits me. Here goes—I’ll spin,” said Carmichael, taking a Brazilian
coin out of his pocket and flipping it in the air. “Yours first, Keen,”
he called as the coin came down on his palm.
It was tails. Carmichael’s flip brought heads and with the next turn the
pilot lost too. Hal lost no time in ripping the chute from him and
adjusting it on Carmichael.
“Good luck to you, fellow,” he said. “I’ll try to find a spot as near
here as possible. Have you got our position.”
Carmichael nodded gravely. Rodriguez uttered a little squeal, the color
went from his face and in a second the plane began to wobble. Hal pulled
him from behind the wheel and himself righted the ship.
“I’ll keep hold of her now,” he assured Carmichael who stood anxiously
in the low doorway of the cockpit. “Our brave Ace isn’t fit to steer a
baby carriage. He hasn’t morale enough to keep himself going, much less
a ship. All right, now, I’m giving you enough altitude to let you clear
us nicely. Can’t keep it up more than a couple of minutes though. Listen
to her missing! Bail out now, Rene,” he added, using the latter’s
Christian name unconsciously. “See you later.”
“Sooner than that, Hal,” Carmichael smiled wistfully. “Promise me you’ll
be careful.”
“Doggone right I will! Scoot now!”
Hal knew he was going, knew he was gone. There was that about
Carmichael, he felt, that one immediately missed—that effulgent
something which seemed to radiate from his slim person. Now that light
had gone with him and there was no sound but the unsteady throb of the
motor. Rodriguez was huddled over in the corner of the cockpit
shivering, with his eyes fixed fearfully over the illimitable roof of
the jungle.
Hal, however, had ceased to consider his presence at all. Moreover,
there wasn’t time. Every precious second he used in circling lower and
lower over the glistening green jungle and trying to remember word for
word the valuable advice that the famous brothers Bellair had given him
as to what could be done in a pinch.
He had cut down a thousand feet, then two thousand, and then he could
pick out the colorful birds flying from tree to tree. A few hundred feet
more and he could see them quite plainly. After that he dared to let her
dive a little and coming out on an even keel he saw something between
the dense foliage that made his heart thump.
It was a clearing.
CHAPTER X
SAFETY?
Hal shut down the motor after that, let the plane circle once more under
its own momentum, then pointed her nose straight down toward the
clearing.
Within a flash he had slid from behind the wheel, reached over in the
corner and dragged Rodriguez by the collar, pulling him into the cabin
with a swift jerk. That accomplished, he flung himself down to the
floor, head down, and called to the cowardly pilot to do the same.
Hal tried to keep his mind a blank during the ensuing seconds.
Rodriguez’ shrieks of fear, the tearing, ripping sounds of the fabric,
and the shattering of glass did not make him move a muscle. And when he
did stir it was by force, for the plane thrust her nose into the swampy
ground with such an impact that he was thrown the length of the cabin
floor.
There was another terrific vibration, another shattering of glass and,
before the plane settled her nose in the mud, Hal and the pilot were
whisked summarily against the cockpit door. Then all was still.
Hal straightened up as best he could. His head felt bruised and when he
looked at his hands they were covered with blood. Aghast, he saw that it
came from Rodriguez, who was lying quite still beside him in a pool of
blood. An ugly gash had severed the fellow’s dark throat—his lips were
gray.
Hal tumbled about in getting out his handkerchief from his back pocket,
for the tail of the ship was in mid-air, and he was all confused. But he
managed to bandage the pilot’s throat temporarily and set about rubbing
his wrists. At that juncture an ominous smell floated by with the jungle
breeze.
“Ship’s caught afire, all right,” he muttered, as a small spiral of blue
smoke floated past the shattered window at his elbow.
Hal was out of it in a moment, jumping down into the soggy ground and
pulling the unconscious Rodriguez after him. A rumble sounded through
the plane and the next second it was enveloped in high, shooting flames.
Hal stumbled and tripped, sinking into mire over his ankles. But he
managed to drag Rodriguez’ heavy, inert body along, dodging and
trampling down bushes, creepers, and clinging vines that grew in the
little spaces between the tree trunks.
[Illustration: HAL MANAGED TO DRAG RODRIGUEZ’ HEAVY, INERT BODY ALONG.]
After what seemed an endless journey to him, he came at last to a sort
of eminence, a tiny area of higher ground that showed evidences of
having been a former human habitation. The jungle, however, was
beginning to reclaim it, for the whole space was covered with a
substantial growth.
Hal looked about thoughtfully, but seeing that it was the only suitable
spot in sight, he lay Rodriguez down carefully. After that he hunted
around them for a few sticks of wood and started a fire to keep away the
mosquitoes.
That done, he set about trying to revive the pilot and after a trying
five minutes saw his eyelids flicker, then open.
“It’s I, Rodriguez! _Keen!_ We’re here—_safe_! How you feeling?”
The fellow seemed to understand perfectly, for he nodded and a look of
hope came into the black eyes that were so filled with fear not fifteen
minutes before. Hal noted that his lips, however, were an ashen gray.
“You saved the plane—yes?” Rodriguez muttered weakly.
“Nope,” Hal answered, shaking his head vigorously. “It’s up in
smoke—fire. We should worry though, huh? We’re saved, anyhow.”
Rodriguez smiled feebly and lifted his head, looking around, interested.
Suddenly he put his hand to his bandaged throat and a terrified
expression filled his eyes.
“Is it danger—no?” he asked Hal.
“No,” Hal lied. “You’ve just got a bad cut, Rodriguez. You’ve lost a lot
of blood. Just lie still and take it easy. I’ll get some more wood to
keep these pesky mosquitoes away.”
“The glass she cut me—no?” He seemed to be obsessed by his wound.
“I’ll say she did. That’s why I wanted you to lie face down as I did. I
knew we were in for something.”
“I feel weak like baby.”
“I’m sorry, old fellow,” said Hal sincerely. “I’m sorry we couldn’t let
you take the chute and escape all this, but it wouldn’t have been
sporting. _Understand?_”
The pilot nodded weakly. He even smiled.
“I was not frightened for death so much, Señor Hal. More I was
frightened for myself—my sins.”
Hal frowned until his freckled brow wrinkled into one deep channel
between his bright blue eyes. Then a light of understanding spread over
his fair face and he smiled.
“Oh, you mean your religion, huh, Rodriguez?” he asked. “You mean you
were afraid of your sins in case you did die, huh?”
Rodriguez made the sign of the cross and his dark-skinned hands fell
limply to his sides.
“Yes, yes, Señor. My sins were many—too many to die a peaceful death,
Señor. I would have to tell you....” He closed his eyes and seemed to
doze off.
Hal shrugged his shoulders and got up. He could hear the burning plane
snapping and cracking against its steel frame. Its acrid fumes carried
on the breeze even to where he stood and hung heavily on the air in a
blue haze.
A monkey scolded sharply from a near-by tree and instinctively Hal
picked up a piece of dead limb and swung it at him.
“Can’t you see there’s a sick boy here who needs sleep!” he stage
whispered to the animal above them.
The monkey stared down with an almost sad expression on its little old
face. Then after he scolded some more he swung along to the opposite
branch and was soon swallowed up in the dense foliage.
Hal continued to gather more wood after that, looking at his patient at
five-minute intervals. But Rodriguez slept on, despite the fact that a
fresh bandage had been adjusted—the pilot’s own handkerchief.
It was almost dark in the dense forest before Hal stopped. His pile of
wood had become quite high—enough to do them for the long night, he
thought, as he sat down on it to have a smoke.
A parrot screeched somewhere in the distance, the jungle teemed with
life and sound, and yet it seemed to Hal he had never sat in such
oppressive silence before. Suddenly, to his great delight, Rodriguez
awakened and, noting the glow of their campfire, smiled.
“Ah, it is comfort, the fire,” he sighed. “You know the jungle—no?”
“Yes,” Hal answered with a cheerful smile. “I’ve been in Panama—yes. I
know the jungle.”
“Ah,” the pilot sighed weakly and closed his eyes again.
Hal glanced at him quickly and a fear asserted itself. Rodriguez’ throat
was still bleeding profusely—the fellow’s face had a ghastly look in the
firelight.
Did it mean death?
CHAPTER XI
A VIGIL
The black vault of heaven with its twinkling stars could be seen in
narrow strips through the entangled tops of closely growing trees. Hal
looked up at it longingly from time to time and wondered if a searching
party did come flying overhead, whether or not they would be able to
penetrate the dense screen and see them.
Their campfire, though piled so high, seemed pitifully inadequate for
such a purpose, and he experienced a sinking sensation in his stomach
when he thought how much less it could be seen in the daylight. Too,
Carmichael might not be any better off than they. Parachutes very often
failed one. Perhaps it would have been better if they had all stuck and
taken their chances together. Rodriguez was in such a bad way.... Hal
had long ago given up trying to stop the bleeding. But he felt so
hopeless about it, so helpless. There seemed nothing for him to do but
sit and wait.
He leaned over to the woodpile from time to time, replenishing the
blaze. Sometimes Rodriguez would sigh, then sink into a deeper sleep
than before. Hal was always hoping that the sleep was doing him good,
but it occurred to him after a time that the pilot’s strength was slowly
ebbing and that it wasn’t slumber, but a torpor which held him in its
grip.
His heart went out to the young man and he completely forgave him his
cowardice. Certainly Rodriguez was getting the worst of it. Perhaps it
was true that he had feared the consequences of his sins more than his
actual departure from life. Hal shrugged his shoulders at the
thought—the Latin temperament was indeed strange.
For a little while after that, Hal began to think of food and water. He
had had neither since luncheon and, for a healthy young man with his
appetite, that was a fearful length of time to go without nourishment.
But that too seemed an after consideration in the face of the present
pall that hung over that strange little jungle camp.
Hal reached out and taking Rodriguez’ hand felt of his pulse. He knew
little about such things, yet enough to realize that the pilot’s pulse
beats were anything but normal. At times he could barely distinguish any
pulsation at all. Moreover, the fellow’s hand felt cold and clammy in
his own.
When he went to relinquish his hold, Rodriguez showed some resistance.
He held feebly to Hal’s warm, strong hand and smiled.
“I feel not so cold, Señor,” he explained hesitantly. “It’s....” he
seemed too weak to say more.
“You mean it makes you feel better and warmer for me to hold on to your
hands?” Hal asked him solicitously.
Rodriguez nodded.
“All right, fellow. Here, give me the other one—I’ll rub them, huh?
We’ll have a little holding hands party.” Hal chuckled, trying not to
see the questioning, poignant look in the pilot’s eyes.
He went to sleep again this way, but Hal kept hold of both his hands,
pressing them with his own at intervals. It gave him a peculiar
sensation, this maternal gesture on his part, and if he had not felt so
utterly sad about Rodriguez’ condition he would have been abashed at his
display of tenderness.
The long hours crept by—a glimpse of full moon showed in a single silver
moonbeam through the trees. From the depths beyond the clearing came the
mournful sound of living things unseen. The weird plaint of the sloth
came drifting down the breeze, tree frogs and crickets clacked and
hummed with a monotony that was utterly depressing, and once the air
shook with a thunderous concussion from some falling tree.
Hal started but it did not seem to bother the airman. He merely moved in
his torpor and muttered unintelligibly. After five minutes of this he
spoke aloud, feebly yet clearly.
“It was for the _Cause_, Señor ... the _Cause_. Señor Goncalves he too
did it for the _Cause_. But ah, how it troubles me, Señor....”
“What troubles you, Rodriguez?” Hal asked, pressing gently down on his
hand. “What are you talking about, fellow?”
The airman seemed not to hear, however, but went on muttering, sometimes
aloud, sometimes not. Hal came to the conclusion that he was in a sort
of delirium and realized that he ought to have water for the suffering
fellow. Suddenly he began talking again:
“Señor Goncalves he came to me and asked would I take the Señors, uncle
and nephew, up for the _Cause_ ... for the _Cause_. I was to wear the
chute—I was to escape, Señor ... escape, eh?” He laughed feebly,
bitterly. “Ah, but I am punished ... punished. It is I who don’t escape,
eh? I who would see two innocent Señors die for the _Cause_ ... now....”
There sounded then through that dark, breathless atmosphere a call
steeped in wretchedness and black despair—the wail of that lonely owl,
known to bushmen as “the mother of the moon.” Hal had heard many times
when lost in the jungle of Panama what portent was in that cry, and he
was thinking of it then when Rodriguez raised his head with effort.
“Ah, Señor Hal!” he cried in a terrified whisper. “’Tis ‘the mother of
the moon’ and evil to me, for I have heard it. Ah, Señor....”
“Lie back, old fellow,” Hal soothed him. “Now there, calm down! I’ve
heard about Old Wise Eyes too, but you don’t think I believe it, do you?
Back in the good old U. S. we’d call that hokum pure and simple. Nothing
to it. It’s just an old owl hooting his blooming head off because he
hasn’t the brains to do anything else. In other words he’s yelling
_whoopee_ in Portuguese or Brazilian or whatever you spiggotty down
here. I bet you haven’t understood a word of what I said? No? Well, I
don’t blame you exactly.”
“I have not much time, Señor. I am weak ... the owl she....”
“Now for the love of Pete, Rodriguez, forget it!” Hal said, scolding him
gently. “It tires you too much to talk about such hokum. Lie still and
if you can only hold out perhaps Señor Carmichael will get help to us
soon. He may have got a break and landed near some settlement.”
“Señor ... _Carmichael_?” asked the airman faintly.
“Sure,” Hal answered smiling, “that’s the fellow who went out in the
chute—the fellow who came up with us. His name’s Carmichael. Oh say, I
almost forgot, Rodriguez—of course you wouldn’t understand—Carmichael
and I were only fooling you about him being my uncle. My real uncle
couldn’t come—he backed out at the last minute. I met Carmichael at the
field just before you came along. Understand?”
Rodriguez did understand—only too well. His ghastly face looked more
ghastly than ever. He pressed desperately on Hal’s warm hand and sighed.
Suddenly he released his own right hand and from forehead to breast
devoutly made the sign of the cross.
“Señor Hal,” he gasped, “I am dying ... there is something I must
tell....”
CHAPTER XII
FOR THE “CAUSE”
“Aw, Rodriguez, you’re just feeling kind of low down, that’s all,” Hal
soothed him. “In the morning you’ll be shipshape, you’ll see. Things are
just sort of looking black to you.”
“I am dying, Señor Hal!” Rodriguez repeated. “You must listen or I shall
not die peacefully!”
“Aw, all right, old top. If it eases you to tell me something, go ahead.
But you’ll be as fit as a top in the morning. From what I know of
Brazil-nuts, they’re pretty darn hard to crack,” Hal added facetiously.
The ghost of a smile flickered about Rodriguez’ ashen lips but soon he
was grave again.
“I am for the _Cause_,” he said faintly; “I pledged my life, my honor
for the _Cause_ if need be, Señor.”
“You don’t mean the rebels?” Hal asked, taking a moment to replenish the
fire.
“Ah, you call it that, Señor. To us it is the _Cause_. We want
freedom—political.”
“That’s what all you birds say. But go on, Rodriguez.”
“Señor Goncalves he is a comrade of mine, Señor—a comrade in the
_Cause_. And Señor Pizella....”
“Aha, we’re getting somewhere,” Hal interposed, taking a sudden
interest. “Pizella, huh, Rodriguez?”
“Yes, Señor. He was given command to follow your Señor uncle, for you
were suspect to what you call—thwart?... yes, thwart General Ceara’s
plans. The General he expect big munition shipment and your Señor uncle
he was suspect to perhaps prevent the guns from coming. So Pizella he
was told to find out if Señor Keen had letter and what it say about what
he was going to do.”
“And it was Pizella who took that letter from my uncle when we were
sleeping, huh?”
“Yes, Señor Hal. And that night when passengers are in saloon, Pizella
he takes letter to Señor Goncalves’ cabin and leaves it there for him to
decipher. They work together—no, Señor?”
“I hope to tell you they do,” Hal said thoughtfully. “Just as I
suspected from the beginning, but Unk wouldn’t listen to anything about
Goncalves. Yet he must have suspected something this afternoon ... but
go on, Rodriguez.”
“Señor Goncalves he find out from letter that your Señor uncle is on
trail of Ceara’s munition shipment—no? That Señor Goncalves is ordered
by Ceara not to let happen. He must do anything, everything to
prevent—yes? Señor Goncalves thinks one way—to invite your Señor uncle
up in plane with me—the plane she is crippled over the jungle and what
happens—no?”
“Yes,” Hal answered grimly. “I see. It was all a hoax—a plot, huh? Only
I was the fly in the ointment. To get Unk to fly, you people had to get
me interested, but it fell out anyway. Unk has probably found out
everything from the interventor by now—I wouldn’t doubt but that they’re
even suspecting foul play with me already. But Goncalves, they’ll get
him....”
“Ah, if they can, Señor. But the Señor he was gone after noon today. He
is now with the General Ceara and they are traveling toward a safe
hiding place in the jungle.” Rodriguez gasped at this juncture and lay
still a long time because of his extremely weakened condition.
Hal looked at him, sympathizing, yet doubting. Suddenly he leaned over
the Brazilian.
“But why are you telling me all this, Rodriguez? Isn’t it against your
famous _Cause_?”
“Ah, but yes,” answered the airman in such a whisper that Hal had to
listen intently. “But when one is dying ... one’s sins against one’s
brother man.... Señor Hal, my religion prompts this. My soul she would
never rest unless I asked your forgiveness.”
“Rodriguez, old scout, I still insist you’re not going to die, but if it
makes you get stronger, I’ll tell you that I have nothing in my heart
toward you but good will. What have you done to me? Oh, I know I _could_
have been cracked up plenty, but the thing is, I’m not.”
“Not yet, not yet. But you are two hundred miles perhaps from white man,
Señor. It is fever and jungle—no water, savage Indians before you get
out. Señor Hal, you will die and I am the cause. I send you to it and it
makes me afraid to die.”
“Bosh, old egg,” Hal said with a cheerfulness that he did not quite
feel. “I’m a lean horse for a long race and, as I told you, I’ve been
lost in the jungle before. Of course not quite as serious as this—I
didn’t have a lot of bloodthirsty Indians to take into account. Still, I
can handle that when I come to it. Where there’s a will, huh? But say,
let’s not talk of gloomy things—tell me how you managed to get that
plane crippled just at the crucial moment?”
“A powder, Señor, like sand,” he gasped. “She was poured into the
oil—enough to make her grind up the engine in the hour—no?”
“I’ll say it would. Clever trick. A gritty substance, huh? Enough to
completely disrupt the machinery. Well, it did all right. _And how!_ And
you were supposed to try and save yourself as best you could with the
chute, huh? Well, I’m sorry now we didn’t let you do it. You wouldn’t be
feeling so rotten now. Carmichael’s the kind that can skim through
things, I’m certain. I can’t believe he won’t get out.”
“It is my punishment, Señor, my religion she slaps back for thinking too
much of the _Cause_ and not enough of human life ... _your life_!”
“As I told you before, Rodriguez, forget about me. I’m not holding it
against you. I’m alive and kicking so far, and if I don’t keep it up,
well, then I’m not as good a guy as I thought I was. I’ve got brains and
the Indians haven’t. Fever and water and ... well, I haven’t got them
yet, but if I do, I’ll pull through.”
“And if not, Señor Hal, would you curse José Rodriguez?” asked the
airman pathetically. “Would you curse me if the Indians....”
“Absolutely not, old top,” Hal assured him. “You thought you were doing
right for the _Cause_—doing as you thought was right. Why should I get
peeved at _you_? Little Hal isn’t that way. Now rest yourself and forget
your worries. You must be tired out after all that chatter. Close your
eyes, old fellow.”
“I do not have the need, Señor Hal,” came the response. “Things are
fading—even your face, your bright eyes. I can no longer see them. They
are in a mist.”
Hal leaned forward, startled. Rodriguez’ hands were becoming colder,
more limp, but he did not think it was so near. He could not believe it
even then ... he had never seen anything just like it, never witnessed a
death so calm, so apparently without effort.
Rodriguez must have sensed Hal’s thoughts, for he nodded his head
feebly.
“One bleeds to death without pain, Señor Hal,” he whispered. “Do not
worry I am suffering. The world becomes dimmer but something else comes
in its place—a light that is bright and makes me happy. Since you have
say you will not curse José Rodriguez I see it clear.”
Hal could not talk—he could only grasp tightly the limp, cold hands in
his own. But Rodriguez seemed to understand, for his features relaxed,
and when the lonely owl again sent its despairing call through the
silent jungle night, he did not seem to start as before. His lips barely
moved, but Hal caught the words.
“‘Death to Thee who hears me,’ cries ‘the mother of the moon,’” he was
saying. “Death to me, Señor Hal; death to _you_! And when it comes,
remember to say a prayer for the departed soul of José Rodriguez!”
Hal promised, choking back a tremor in his voice. Suddenly he heard a
strange rustle in the tree opposite, and when he looked up, he saw a
glassy pair of eyes staring down at them in the firelight. “The mother
of the moon” had come to pay them a visit.
Hal shivered despite an effort to keep calm. The owl with its broad face
and strange, glassy eyes looked eerie as it sat perched upon the
swinging limb above them. Then, after what seemed an interminable time,
it flapped its wings and flew into the blackness beyond.
Hal was suddenly aware then that the pilot’s hands had ceased to return
his pressure. They became colder, limp. A sepulchral silence seemed to
envelop the little camp in that moment; nothing stirred save the elfin
breeze that whispered in the tree tops.
José Rodriguez was dead.
CHAPTER XIII
ALONE AND WAITING
Hal kept his fire going until the red glare of dawn forced its light
through the jungle mists. Gradually the awful gloom lifted and he was
able to take stock of his surroundings. Swamp, trees with creepers and
clinging vines growing in the spaces between, and high overhead, a flock
of _urubus_ (Amazonian vultures) circled in monotonous precision.
Hal rubbed his heavy-lidded eyes vigorously and shook his disheveled red
hair back into place as best he could. The drone of the whirling
vultures just evident with the advent of dawn already annoyed him. What
would they be if help did not come before another premature twilight had
settled over the forest? He dared not think of it.
He could not bring himself to the thought of a grave for Rodriguez in
the jungle. It seemed to be an admission that there was no hope for
rescue. Yet there were the vultures waiting, waiting....
Mid-morning came and despite the grim presence of death, Hal felt
savagely hungry and thirsty. He had been careful about his cigarettes;
there were six left. He selected one now and though in need of its
soothing reaction, he could not smoke it because of his empty stomach.
And as a gesture of economy he pinched it out and replaced the stub in
the pack.
After a period of inactivity, he suddenly decided to leave his gruesome
charge for a few moments and go visit the scene of the wreck, just for
something to do. It made him feel inexpressibly sad, however, for in
viewing it he saw that two of the surrounding trees had burned
considerably and their charred trunks were sagging in such a way as to
cause the foliage on the upper limbs to lean toward the foliage of the
adjoining trees and thus screen off a good part of the clearing from
above.
There was little left of the plane but the framework, and the crippled
motor was all but buried in the mire. Hal gave it but a hurried glance
and walked back to his little camp, steeped in despair. He couldn’t put
down the thought that Carmichael had not succeeded and that he need not
expect any help from that source.
He would not give in to those imps of discouragement within, but bravely
kept his eyes on that chink of sky shining through the trees. Noon came
and was gone, the vultures had increased in number and Hal saw, with
sinking heart, that they were getting bolder, flying lower and lower.
He gathered a quantity of dead leaves, all the foliage that he could
find in the immediate neighborhood, and made a temporary bier for the
dead airman. In lifting him over into it, he felt something hard and
bulging in the back pocket of his trousers. Hal drew it out and saw to
his joy that it was a thirty-eight calibre revolver and seemed to be
fully loaded.
A further search of the young man’s pockets revealed nothing but some
small change and the usual miscellaneous collection one is apt to find.
Hal sighed with relief when the task was over and carefully put all his
findings into Rodriguez’ helmet.
That done, he sat down and made a careful inspection of the gun. True to
his first hope, there wasn’t a chamber discharged and this discovery
gave Hal pause, for it occurred to him that Rodriguez had had in his
possession a most effectual weapon with which to make good his intention
of bailing out in the parachute. Why then had he not used it?
Hal came to the conclusion that it must have been because Rodriguez’
character was a contradiction. Though he could participate in a
murderous plot, when it came to carrying it out, he thought more of the
effect that it would have on his soul, than he did of his beloved
_Cause_.
“Not a half bad scout at that, poor devil,” Hal summed it up. “How do I
know what my behavior would be under a like condition? I certainly
wouldn’t see innocent people crash to their deaths and keep an easy
conscience.”
Hal pocketed his gun carefully and rambled about the neighborhood the
remainder of the afternoon. Just before the gloom crept into the
clearing he bethought himself of all the fantastic tales he had heard of
the bounty of the Amazon jungle. Most of the stories gave one the
impression that food could be had by reaching out and plucking it from
the fruit-laden trees. Never, he realized, was a condition more
exaggerated, for the primeval jungle in which he was lost had little or
nothing to offer in the way of food.
He had found a few trees which seemed to offer some promise of allaying
his hunger, but after a few bites of the fruit he was forced to throw it
down in disgust. It was too bitter for human consumption. Other fruit
which looked more palatable he was afraid to touch, fearing poisoning
might be the result.
And so just as the first shadows of the premature twilight stalked the
jungle, Hal espied an _inambu_, or forest fowl, fluttering homeward for
the night. A well-timed shot, however, intercepted him and he fell
straight into the clearing.
Hal’s hopes rose a little after that. He found, surprisingly, that he
could do wonders with his two bare hands. The fowl was plucked and given
as good a cleaning as was possible, considering the lack of water. And
if he was a little skeptical as to its sanitary merits, he did not allow
the thought to spoil the pleasant anticipation of a poultry dinner.
He gathered wood again, piles of it, and built a fine fire. Darkness had
settled before the meal was cooked, but Hal was indifferent to
everything save his primitive cooking. The fowl required all his
attention and had to be roasted over the fire by means of a stick which
he had broken at one end into a sort of make-shift prong.
He consumed the whole bird, and though it was rather tasteless without
salt, he was thankful for that much. Water he tried not to think of.
Sleep he could have for the taking, and he set about piling wood onto
the fire so that he could sleep for an hour or two without fear of
having the jungle night prowlers disturb his much-needed slumber.
The hands of his wrist watch pointed to eight o’clock as he settled
himself close to the fire. The heat was a little uncomfortable, but he
dared not risk sleeping away from its protecting glow. And as he shut
his eyes to the dismal solitude about him, his prayer was a hope that
tomorrow would bring help.
But Hal was to learn that tomorrow never comes.
CHAPTER XIV
RODRIGUEZ HAS COMPANY
Hal awakened at the witching hour of midnight to find that he was being
deluged in a rainstorm, his fire was out and he couldn’t see anything
but the radium-faced dial of his wrist watch.
He jumped up and scurried to the shelter of some near-by trees,
shivering in his soaked clothes. Something moved swiftly near by, he
heard a rustle of leaves and the patter of slow, velvety footsteps on
the soggy ground.
In a second he had delved into his pocket and brought out his package of
matches. But they were dry and he had one lighted in an instant—in time
to catch a flashing glimpse of a jaguar’s yellowish-brown spots as it
leaped across Rodriguez’ temporary bier and disappeared between the
trees.
Hal shouted to frighten it and his match burned out. He continued to
shout, meanwhile breathlessly seeking for some of the drier pieces of
wood which he had stored beneath the trees. The rain stopped then, but
still it took him an interminable time to coax a flame out of the damp
wood. But at last he succeeded and after he had coaxed the flame into a
fairly generous fire he set about drying out the rest of the wood.
From time to time he glanced at the telltale mound in the shadows and
each time he shivered. The jaguar incident brought home to him the
realization that necessity forced Rodriguez’ last resting place to be in
the jungle. Decency forbade a recurrence of that midnight scene and he
knew that dawn would bring again the black scavengers of the air in
increased numbers. Nothing but a quick, effectual burial would drive
them away.
It was the only way out.
Hal spent the remainder of the black hours drying his clothes. His
immaculate flannels were now a brownish hue, spotted here and there with
mud and wrinkled into a state that defied even the dry cleaner. And his
shoes, once so trim and smart looking, were not recognizable because of
several layers of clay which had dried upon them.
Just before a new day dawned in the jungle, Hal groped his way through
the dark to the scene of the wreck. He built a small fire there to give
him light and proceeded to hunt about the framework for something which
could be used as a spade. But that availed him nothing, and he was about
to give up in despair when he happened to notice the trench which the
crippled engine had burrowed as it fell. The propeller, he saw at once,
had completely loosed itself in the impact and was lying a few feet
distant.
Hal pulled it out of the mud and with it a frightened spider which ran
across his hand, leaving a trail of poison which caused not only an
intense burning but severe inflammation as well. In point of fact, all
of Hal’s jungle trials seemed to begin with that spider’s infection.
He sucked out the poison as best he could and trudged back to the
clearing with the propeller. Dawn found him using it as a spade with
which to dig a last resting place for José Rodriguez, and if it was
rather ineffectual as an instrument, it was none the less fitting that
it should be used in preparing an airman’s grave.
The sun was high in the east when Hal had pounded the last bit of mire
into place. Solemnly, then, he dug the propeller at its head and left it
there as a marker. For a moment he stood glancing at his handiwork,
feeling inexpressibly sad and without hope. His hand caused him much
pain; he was weary from irregular sleep and his thirst knew no bounds.
The grave seemed to be the final gesture. It was his admission of lost
hope and he voiced it aloud. Not a bit of use was there to scan the blue
chink of sky. Carmichael was not to be the means of his rescue, he felt
it just as surely as he felt thirst. What would be the means of his
rescue, if at all, he could not feel. Indeed, the thought itself seemed
to be swallowed up in the vague mists of the future.
He turned his back on the lonely grave, wrapped in despair. Nothing
mattered much except that he get a drink of water, somewhere, somehow.
He turned east, thinking that at least he was facing _Manaos_ and if he
was fortunate enough to keep going in that direction he would some day
reach there.
“_Some day!_” Hal laughed bitterly. “It’s like tomorrow, I guess—it
never comes.”
And as he stepped from the clearing into the trackless maze of jungle, a
beautiful yellow-breasted, black-coated bird warbled at his back with an
insistence that Hal felt was nothing but mockery. Its cheerful whistling
note he could not bear. It was decidedly out of place in that dismal
solitude, he thought, as he turned to view the creature.
But he quickly changed his mind, however, when he saw that the
silver-throated creature had hopped onto a limb of the tree that
shadowed Rodriguez’ grave. The bird seemed to defy all that was sad and
with its graceful head to one side it poured out a medley of cheer in
the trilling call, _pir-i-pi-pi, pir-i-pi-pi_. And strangest of all, the
beautiful little creature seemed to be directing its efforts toward the
silent mound beneath it.
Hal turned his back on the clearing for good and all, then. He could do
it now with a heart less heavy. At least he would not have that
contemptible feeling that he was leaving a fellow being in the eternal
solitude of the jungle.
Rodriguez would never be alone.
CHAPTER XV
A DAY AND A NIGHT
Hal groped his way through another jungle day and just as the shadows
began to creep through the forest he came upon an almost overgrown
trail. He was overjoyed, for it was the first indication he had seen
that something else besides animal life had trod that lonely region.
Also, he could see in the deepening gloom that the foliage and trees
became more attenuated from this point on.
Did it mean that he was approaching a settlement? Civilization? Even in
his extreme joy he dared not hope for that much. But the anticipation of
seeing a human being was quite enough. That and a drink of cool water
was all he asked for.
His hand hurt him constantly and he found it difficult to use it at all.
Consequently he went around picking up the wood for his fire with his
left hand, which seemed to take him considerably longer. And when night
closed in he had only enough to burn for a few hours.
He decided to make the best of it—in point of fact, he felt too utterly
weary and feverish to do otherwise. Just then he was powerless to do
aught but spread out his flannel coat and lie down. The making of
campfires was beginning to get on his nerves.
But he managed another fire, hoping against hope that it would be the
last. He piled onto it all the wood that he had gathered, then lay down
on the spread coat and thought over the day which he had just spent.
He had killed two fowls which meant two bullets less in his gun. Also he
was down to two cigarettes and the same number of matches. It was a
matter of necessity that he reach some sort of settlement that next day.
A horrible chill shook him from head to foot, when he thought of what a
time he would have if another day’s tramping brought him no more than
the day just closed.
Finally he got to sleep and tossed for two hours, dreaming horrible
dreams. When he awakened, the fire was dead and he found himself
besieged with mosquitoes. There was no brushing them off and even when
he used up his next to the last match to light a cigarette and smoke
them out, he had little or no success.
The itch and sting of them drove him to distraction, and after an hour
he gave up all thought of trying to sleep. Then for a long interval he
paced up and down his little clearing with his coat pulled about his
head. After that proved uncomfortable he decided to grope his way
through the dark and take his chances. Anything to keep going.
He did.
He hadn’t gone but five hundred feet when he remembered about the trail
and its promise for the morrow. What was getting into him that he could
forget that so soon? Was he delirious? Certainly he felt he would be if
he couldn’t sleep some more somewhere and rest his feverish, aching
body. But the memory of the trail became very vivid, very promising
then, and he decided not to go one step further.
And Hal’s life rested on that decision, for he had hesitated upon that
step. One foot, however, had already been plunged forward and he felt
water close over it. In a moment he had drawn it back, trembling and
shaken, for something had rubbed against it. And in a nervous abandon he
took out his last match, struck it against the little box and held it up
to see that he had barely escaped certain death.
For the flickering light of the match showed him to be standing on the
brink of a stagnant jungle pond. And lying on its slimy banks was a huge
alligator blinking curiously at the tiny flame and occasionally opening
its cavernous jaws.
The light went out, but Hal found his way back to the camp and he stayed
there until dawning.
CHAPTER XVI
WITH THE MORNING
Hal was sick when daylight seeped in through the trees; he felt much too
sick to do anything but stay right where he was. But the nearness of the
pond housing an alligator, and the hope that the trail revived, did much
toward giving him the strength and initiative to go on.
The trail skirted the pond, for which he was tremendously thankful. He
gave it a furtive glance in passing, but there was nothing save a
good-sized ripple on the slimy-green surface, and Hal decided that the
monster must be taking his morning bath.
“And he can stay under until I get out of sight,” Hal muttered savagely.
“One look at that fellow will last me for a long, long time.”
He trudged along, feeling more and more encouraged at the decided
thinning out of the jungle. He felt freer, more like breathing than when
back in the dense forest, and the broad expanse of daylight in the
heavens set his heart to beating faster.
He almost forgot that his body ached and that his head throbbed
terribly. Fever racked him and his right hand was so swollen that it was
practically useless. But there was always the trail winding in and out
of the trees, lost one moment in a maze of bushes between the trees,
then coming up again a few feet further on.
The sun came up in a vast red ball, and Hal could see its reflection now
upon the shining leaves in the tree tops. He had stopped a moment to
look at it, when he heard a sudden rustling noise in the distant bushes.
He stepped up, realizing that it sounded like some heavy object plunging
about in the undergrowth, and was about to withdraw instinctively, when
there arose in the morning air a blood-curdling roar.
Before he had time to retreat, the bushes parted and out from them
leaped a jaguar. Its spotted back reared high in the air and, with an
infuriated squall, it came down at Hal’s feet. An arrow sticking out of
its thick neck told the story.
Obviously the animal was as much surprised as Hal, for it backed down a
moment, crouching on its hind legs and swinging its tail with a great
thumping sound each time it switched on the ground. But not for a moment
did it take its savage eyes from the astonished young man before it.
Hal saw at once that the animal was suffering great pain from the arrow,
but the wound was not mortal. Its frequent squalls betokened anger and
revenge against all humanity, and, from the hard glint in its eyes, this
retaliation would be thorough.
Hal did not stir from the spot, but, with a stealthy gesture, he reached
around to his back pocket. The next second he had aimed the gun at a
spot right between the jaguar’s steely eyes, but his aim was poor with
his left hand and he knew it. Consequently, the second the explosion
occurred, he was fleeing toward the nearest tree.
Up the slimy trunk he clambered, but not before the animal reached out
and clawed his right leg. Nevertheless, he hitched himself up, biting
his lips with pain, and settled on the nearest bough. Meanwhile, the
jaguar was crawling after him, hissing and emitting blood-curdling
cries.
Hal aimed the gun again, this time supporting it as best he could with
his swollen right hand. The bullet sang, the jaguar screamed, and before
its echo had died away in the tree tops, it fell with a terrific thud
and rolled five or six feet before its spotted body became rigid in
death.
For a long time, Hal stayed where he was, fearing that the cat might
suddenly revive. But when ten minutes had passed and there was no sign
of such a miracle, he carefully replaced the gun in his pocket and
undertook to get down from his uncomfortable retreat.
He soon found that he could not use his leg at all and had to slide to
the ground, blistering his good hand and feeling faint when he tried to
stand upright. He reached out to support himself on the tree trunk but a
wave of giddiness passed through his throbbing head and though he felt
himself sinking he seemed not to be able to prevent it.
He found himself in a heap and seemed to have neither the strength nor
the desire to do aught but stretch out and lie where he was. Pain
governed him now from head to foot and he feared for his wounded leg.
But the fear soon gave way to a sort of apathy out of which he did not
rise.
His eyes noted indifferently the sun climbing higher in the blue
heavens. It gleamed quite strongly through the swaying branches and, in
its glistening light, various-colored birds flitted about. Suddenly he
saw something black moving with a familiar whirling motion.
They circled closer and closer to the tree tops, swaying with each
revolution of their huge black bodies like some small army of the sky
moving earthward as a single unit. There was a fascination in that
continuous circling, Hal found—a rather dread fascination, and he
vaguely remembered that the dead jaguar lay not fifteen feet from him.
Then when their black bodies barely skimmed the tree tops he bethought
himself of his own physical condition. He knew he was getting weaker by
the moment. Besides his wounded leg and infected hand, some strange
fever seemed to be consuming him. Suddenly a horrible thought came to
him.
Did it mean that he was destined to die in that unholy spot? Did it mean
that those gruesome scavengers of the air were waiting for that moment
to arrive? Something was holding them off from descending upon the
hapless jaguar—was it himself?
Hal shivered and shuddered, yet he hadn’t the power to stir his body one
inch. He could only lie there and stare at the black mass moving nearer
and nearer, yet waiting, waiting.... But suddenly they seemed to be
rushing toward him—either that or he was rushing up toward them! But no,
it was neither—he himself was sinking down, down....
Strange cries pierced the air then, cries that were not uttered by bird
or animal or white man. Strange painted bodies moved in the brush, moved
stealthily but surely, and black, questioning eyes peered out at the
singular scene of a dead jaguar and a red-haired white man lying but
fifteen feet apart.
CHAPTER XVII
A GUEST OF SAVAGES
After a few more minutes’ observation, twenty-five naked savages crawled
out of the brush, crept up to Hal’s prostrate body and held a noisy
conference. Then they took turns feeling his feverish brow and the
irregular heart beats pounding beneath his powerful chest. Suddenly two
of the warriors leaned down, one taking his head and the other his feet,
and in solemn procession they marched off through the brush, leaving two
of their number to skin the jaguar.
Evening came before Hal was conscious of anything. When he opened his
eyes he could see the glow of many campfires. A deep gloom seemed to
surround him, but sitting on either side were two Indian women, old and
wrinkled, watching him with blinking eyes and tightly drawn lips.
He had a bitter taste in his mouth, an herb-like taste, but he felt not
so feverish. Also, when he went to raise his right hand he noticed that
it was covered with a sort of claylike substance and the swelling was
almost gone. His leg, too, felt easier and he saw, as he raised it into
the firelight, that it was covered with the same substance that was on
his hand.
Gradually he could pick out a row of pillars supporting the roof, and
from each of these pillars he noticed a frail crossbar to the outer
wall. Between each of these bars he saw Indians sleeping, men, women,
and children. Some slept on skins or leaves and some on the bare ground.
Before each of these groups a fire burned and Hal decided that each
group was a family with their own distinct hearth-fire burning before
their apartments. Over all was a vast roof.
It occurred to Hal, then, that he was in an Indian _maloka_, one of
those vast houses of thatch which the captain of the boat had told them
housed the entire tribe. He was lying in one of the apartments at the
rear, for the low, sloping roof he could have touched with his foot if
he had had the strength to raise it.
A medley of snores resounded through the vast hut and from time to time
he saw the squat figures of warriors replenishing their fires, murmuring
to each other for a moment or two, then retiring again to their
apartments to sleep.
The Indian women guarding Hal watched him continuously while he was
taking stock of his surroundings. Neither one spoke, but he caught a
questioning look in the eyes of the older-looking hag and saw her dart
behind him, bringing up a huge calabash filled with water.
She held it to his lips and Hal drank it greedily. It was warm and
rather too sweet tasting but, nevertheless, water. Never in his life was
he so grateful for anything, although he realized that they must have
been feeding him water on and off through the day, for he felt not
nearly so parched as when he lay under the tree that morning.
When the calabash was empty he looked up at the Indian woman and smiled
his most brilliant smile.
“You spiggotty—no?” he asked softly, remembering how often he got some
response from Panama Indians by means of that address.
But he might just as well have spoken to a stone statue, for the woman
stared at him with the same blinking eyes. After a moment she took the
calabash and arose, waddling past the burning fires toward the front of
the _maloka_.
Hal turned his eyes to the other Indian woman who was regarding him
gravely from under half-closed lids. He used the same alluring smile
upon her, but his earnest efforts were all in vain, for she continued to
watch him with the same impassivity as before.
He closed his eyes after that and drowsed at intervals. In his waking
moments he could feel the presence of his female guardians, but
preferred to keep his eyes closed as long as they wouldn’t speak to him.
But on the whole, silence reigned in the vast _maloka_ and now and again
Hal could hear the night voices from the jungle.
Goatsuckers repeated their monotonous refrain by the hour and several
times the eerie plaint of the sloth drifted faintly in on the breeze.
The women dozed occasionally, as was evidenced by their sonorous
breathing, but the moment Hal opened his eyes they seemed to awaken
instinctively.
Then came a long interval when a hush seemed to have fallen over
everything. Hal knew the women were dozing but he kept his eyes closed,
content to lie quiet and rest. He knew that curiosity would avail him
nothing where an Indian was concerned. That much he had learned in
Panama.
Consequently, when he heard the muffled scream of a human voice toward
dawn, he did not stir. But the women were on the alert immediately, for
he could hear them straighten up and lean over him. He feigned deep,
even breathing, however, but continued to listen.
Another scream pierced the early morning darkness, echoing and reëchoing
about the _maloka_. Suddenly the cry, though muffled, was more
intelligible, and Hal was certain that it sounded like someone trying to
call “_help_,” though he could not be sure. It was too muffled, too
distant for him to distinguish anything definite.
In any event, the cry pierced the air for the third time, and, though it
seemed ghostly and unhuman, its poignancy was distressing. Then all was
still again, but Hal had been so startled that he found himself up
resting on his elbow and staring hard at the women.
The elder of the two women stared back at Hal, then suddenly she got to
her knees and with her brown, bony hands made a number of gestures which
the young man was at a loss to fathom. After a few moments of continued
eerie, cowering gestures, he began to understand what she was trying to
explain.
The cries he had just heard were ghostly, not human.
CHAPTER XVIII
CONVALESCENCE
Hal took no stock in that, of course, but, during the long nights of the
week following, he was more than once inclined to be credulous in the
matter. Not a night passed that he did not hear the sad cries issuing
from some point beyond the _maloka_. And though he questioned both the
women and the warriors who came and stared curiously at him, none could
do more than shrug their shoulders and make meaningless gestures in
answer.
Consequently, he was glad when his strength returned and enabled him to
walk as far as the door of the _maloka_. Two young but stalwart warriors
had now taken the place of his female guardians and on this first day of
his convalescence they hovered about constantly, and he was at a loss to
know whether it was because of their tender solicitude for his uncertain
gait or whether they considered him a prisoner.
In any event, he got absolutely no encouragement from either warrior
when he motioned them to show him where the weird night cries
originated. They simply shrugged their shoulders and gestured in such a
way as to indicate that the Indian considered the supernatural to be an
evil manifestation and all evil was to be shunned.
But by and large, Hal got on not so badly with them. He had learned,
after the first day, a series of gestures which indicated his wants, his
likes, and his dislikes. To be sure, all the food they gave him, he
disliked intensely, but as he was likely to starve unless he ate what
was given him, he put a good face upon the matter and took what came as
a rule. Also, he felt eternally grateful to them for having rescued him
from a certain horrible death and nursed him back toward health.
Every few hours during the day the medicine man, a fat, pot-bellied old
warrior, had come and sat at his side droning weird incantations over
his recumbent body and making all sorts of fantastic gestures. Then he
would proceed to delve into a calabash that he had brought with him, and
bring out a smeary-looking mixture which he plastered on the patient’s
wounded leg and hand. And before he terminated his visit he would raise
another calabash to Hal’s lips, nodding for him to drink deeply of the
bitter, herb-tasting fluid which it contained.
[Illustration: A FAT MEDICINE MAN MADE ALL SORTS OF FANTASTIC GESTURES
OVER HAL.]
Nevertheless, Hal continued to get better and, whether or not it was
because of the medicine man’s mysterious magic, he was quite able to
hobble out of the _maloka_ on the second day of his convalescence.
It was, of course, quite a gala day in the little settlement. Men,
women, and children stood about in a staring circle to watch their guest
emerge. All small of stature, they looked up with awe at Hal’s towering
physique and shock of red, curly hair.
He hobbled about the clearing, smiling brilliantly, though feeling dizzy
and weak from his sickness and long confinement in the gloomy _maloka_.
Nevertheless, he could not help smiling, for he felt ridiculous in his
soiled and wrinkled flannels and a ten days’ growth of golden beard.
For quite a time the natives continued to follow him about, but seemed
to tire of it toward afternoon and went back to their various pursuits.
Meanwhile, Hal saw something that gladdened his heart—a river, which his
guardians explained, with violent grunts and gestures, was a little
river to the big river, or in other words, a small tributary.
The larger of the two Indians (his head just reached Hal’s elbow), whom
Hal dubbed “Big Boy,” motioned to a canoe pulled up on the bank. After a
series of gestures which represented a man paddling down the river, he
looked straight up at the tall young man.
“You mean that canoe is for me?” Hal motioned the question. “For _me_ to
go back?” he added, pointing to himself and then to the river.
Big Boy nodded assent.
Hal partook of the evening meal with a little more relish than he
ordinarily would. He sat with the tribe outside the _maloka_ mincing on
the unpalatable _beiju_ pancakes, which were a distinctly Indian
concoction, and thinking of the day near at hand when he could turn his
face toward _Manaos_. He nibbled on the _pimenta_, with which _beiju_ is
always eaten, and forgot that it usually burned his civilized throat.
All his thoughts were on his uncle and how overjoyed he would be to know
that he was alive and well, after he had been given up for lost. For
certainly he must be thought lost and dead. Even his mother must think
it by now. His mother....
Hal got up from the communal supper circle to be alone with the thought
of his mother. The rest of the natives, busy appeasing their hunger,
seemed not to notice him hobbling away toward the surrounding jungle,
particularly his guards.
Hal did not seem to notice this relaxation of their guardianship. In
point of fact, he thought nothing at all about it, so filled were his
thoughts of the day on which he could get word to his mother that all
was well with him.
He found the dimness of the jungle trail inviting and hobbled along deep
in his own reflections. Tomorrow or the next day he would be well enough
to start his journey, he felt sure of it. And he would leave the little
settlement with a heart full of gratitude. Indeed, he had already
tendered to the chief of the tribe his empty gun as a token of deep
appreciation, and with much bowing and grunting, the gift was received
in good spirit.
There was nothing to mar his joy then, so much did he appreciate
recovering from the fever. He stopped, stretched his long arms
delightedly and happened to notice through the trees a small thatched
hut. Before it, stretched out on the ground asleep, was one of the
natives.
Several monkeys disported themselves on the branches of the tree over
the hut and were about to pelt the sleeping native with some nuts. Hal
tried to frighten them off by waving his long arms but they paid no
heed. Instead they set up a chatter and let go a rain of the hard nuts
which fortunately missed their intended victim and hit Hal instead.
“Ouch!” Hal cried as several of the nuts hit his tender head. “For the
love of Mike!”
The words had barely been uttered when out of the gloomy hut came a
heart-rending cry, muffled and unintelligible, yet full of poignancy and
human wretchedness. Hal did not miss its pleading note—in point of fact,
the utter misery of it seemed to make him powerless to do aught but
wonder.
What was it?
CHAPTER XIX
A PRISONER
Hal had not time to consider this at all, for in a moment, it seemed,
the natives had swarmed up from the clearing and surrounded him. And the
native lying before the hut had gotten to his feet in an amazingly short
time, producing a bow and arrow and looking as if he would use it on the
slightest pretext.
Hal’s pet guardian, Big Boy, stepped up to his side at this juncture and
pulling him by the arm urged him back toward the clearing. He did so,
willing but puzzled, and as he turned his back toward the hut, the same
cry of misery broke out, pleading and utterly pathetic.
Hal stopped, hesitated, as if he were going to go back, when he noticed
that a number of the warriors were following him with bows and arrows
drawn. Big Boy, too, marching at his side, had acquired an exceedingly
pugnacious expression on his usually bland countenance.
Straight back to the _maloka_ they marched him, saw him safely to his
apartment in the rear, then left Big Boy standing guard while they
gathered in the front for a long and noisy conference.
Hal could make nothing out of the whole proceedings. He did not know
what it was all about. Yet the uneasy thought recurred that it was not a
promising sign to see naked savages following him about with drawn bows
and arrows. They had not done so before. What did it mean now?
Had his presence before that strange hut incurred their enmity? And if
so—why? Why should that wretched cry bring them swarming to his side and
cause them to treat him as if he had committed some crime? Why?
Hal was to learn why, to his sorrow, and that the way of the Amazon
Indian is indeed very strange.
In the meantime he was doing all in his power to get Big Boy in a spirit
of good will. He coaxed and cajoled to find out why he was being guarded
thus.
Big Boy, ever an admirer of Hal’s powerful physique and commanding
grace, relaxed a little to motion that the warriors of the tribe were
holding a pow-wow to ascertain what should be done about the incident
before the hut.
“What about it?” Hal gestured with one of his sad-sweet smiles. “I have
done nothing.” He shrugged his shoulders and put his hands over his
heart to show that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.
Big Boy melted enough to wriggle his hands in a way that conveyed to Hal
the information that the spirits were offended. His going along the
trail to the hut and hearing those cries made him a thing of evil. And
to the Indian, evil was a thing to be shunned.
Through Big Boy’s lucid mode of expression, Hal learned that a demented
native occupied that hut, or rather he was incarcerated there as
evidenced by the native guarding it. And a demented person, Big Boy
explained by pounding his head vigorously, was unholy, evil. Thus the
person upon whom this evil one cries also becomes evil.
“And so all you guys think I’m evil, huh?” Hal asked, gesticulating
wildly and pounding his broad chest.
Big Boy nodded.
“What can they do about it?” Hal persisted, feeling not a little uneasy.
Big Boy shrugged his shoulders in answer and Hal could get nothing more
out of him for quite a while. He went to sleep and slept for an hour.
When he awakened, he saw that his wrist watch was being curiously
inspected by the Indian.
“Like?” Hal motioned, sitting up.
Big Boy nodded, then, with a grave shake of the head, sat down alongside
of Hal.
The tribe, Hal noticed, were all settled for the night in their
apartments. No one but him and the Indian were awake at that moment. One
could have heard the proverbial pin drop when Big Boy suddenly motioned
to his bow and arrow.
For the next five minutes he enacted with pantomimical accuracy just
what was going to take place in the settlement at dawn. He pointed first
in the direction of the jungle hut, then he pointed toward the chief who
was lying a few apartments distant, sound asleep. Big Boy mimicked that
powerful personage by making a grave face and shaking a sagacious finger
at Hal. Next he silently waved his arms, indicating all the sleeping
warriors in the _maloka_, then pointed toward the heavens as a final
gesture.
Hal comprehended it all, and he almost wished that he hadn’t, for it
wasn’t terribly comforting news.
For his stroll through the jungle trail and the evil that the warriors
believed had been visited upon the tribe through Hal, the sagacious
chief had pronounced sentence on their white guest. That sentence
condemned Hal to death at dawn—death by bow and arrow at the hands of
the tribe’s picked warriors.
Hal shivered and glanced at his young captor a moment. The young man
must have some liking for him, else why did he tell him all this? Could
he use Big Boy’s liking and hero worship to his own advantage?
He tried, using all the wit and cunning that he could muster. Smiles,
pleading looks, and even a cajoling shake of his captor’s shining
shoulder which Hal followed up by thrusting his wrist watch under Big
Boy’s nose. And that did the trick.
The Indian nodded his head, pleased, and sat as still as a mouse while
Hal fastened the watch on his left wrist. When it was adjusted he
indulged in a smile, moving his hand back and forth to see the glow of
the radium-faced dial in the gloom of the _maloka_. He was like a child
with a toy.
Hal waited long enough for him to enjoy it, then nudged him warningly.
Time was fleeting, the fires were burning and every warrior was deep in
sleep. From past observation he knew that such utter silence did not
long reign in the _maloka_. He would have to act and act quickly.
Big Boy rose and motioned his captive to follow stealthily. Hal followed
obediently, but never in his life did he seem to make more noise. The
warriors, however, did not hear it, for no one stirred throughout the
length of the _maloka_. Then they reached the door.
A full moon was coming up and Big Boy motioned Hal to walk close to the
trees. He walked out in full view of the clearing, however, his dark
shining body glistening with every stride. At intervals he stopped,
listened intently, then pattered on toward the river.
They came out on the banks without incident, in the full light of the
moon. The canoe was there—the canoe which the chief had decided was not
to take the white young man back to civilization. But Big Boy had
decided otherwise, and he motioned Hal to hurry, pushing the
frail-looking craft well out into the stream.
Hal got in without a word or a sound. He turned, putting out his hand in
gratitude to the young Indian lad who was saving his life, but was
surprised to see that Big Boy had also clambered in the canoe and had
taken up one of the paddles preparatory to departure.
He only nodded to Hal’s inquiring look and with a few rapid strokes put
considerable distance between themselves and the settlement. Then he
held up his hand on which the wrist watch was fastened, and shook his
head darkly.
Hal understood and it made him feel mean. But Big Boy would not have it
so. He smiled reassuringly to his white friend as if to tell him that it
did not matter. He may have earned the eternal condemnation of the
spirits and of his people by helping the evil-stricken white man to
escape, but had he not gained a wrist watch and a friend? That was the
gist of his violent gestures.
Hal shrugged his shoulders, but he was touched by Big Boy’s devotion.
Truly, the way of the Amazon Indian was strange.
CHAPTER XX
THE PASSING OF BIG BOY
Hal helped Big Boy paddle for two hours, but he was so completely
exhausted at the end of that period that he had to stretch himself out
in the bottom of the craft. The Indian nodded understandingly and
pointed to his white friend’s head as if to say that he knew all along
what toll the fever had taken of his strength. Very wisely he had
reckoned that his tall friend could not stand the strain of the journey
alone.
Hal put out his hand and gave the Indian an affectionate slap. His
gratitude knew no bounds, for he realized more than ever that Big Boy’s
decision to come with him had been actuated by a high and noble motive,
the desire to help a fellow being weakened by fever. And no one knew
better than the Indian how weak his friend would be.
Hal was so deeply affected by this realization that he determined never
to let Big Boy out of his sight, never in his life. And during the long
night hours, though there was not a word spoken, nor a hand moved in
gesture, they found a mutual contentment in each other’s company.
The moon slipped down behind the clouds after midnight and they paddled
through the remaining dark hours. At dawn they came to a deserted
settlement and agreed to get something to eat before going further. Big
Boy motioned that the rest of the journey was going to be strenuous and
that they needed all the nourishment they could get.
He proved himself to be ingenious in the matter of catching fish with
his bow and arrow. And Hal watched him with something like awe when he
got a fire out of two sticks just by rubbing them together for an
amazingly short time.
Big Boy did the honors of cooking the fish also, and Hal had nothing to
do but sit down and help him eat them when they were finished broiling.
Needless to say he did justice to the Indian’s culinary accomplishments.
Hal noticed, however, that Big Boy’s appetite could top his own by a
pretty wide margin. In point of fact, he seemed to stuff, rather than
eat, and washed down the whole with tremendous draughts of river water.
However, he seemed contented and not at all distressed by any thoughts
of indigestion, and greeted his white friend’s questioning look with a
merry shake of his flat, black head.
After setting out again they paddled but a half hour when they came to a
waterfall and were confronted with the necessity of portage. For two
hours they struggled through the jungle with the canoe and came at last
to a stretch of smooth water.
But their good fortune was not lasting, for a half hour found them
confronting a series of rapids. Hal insisted upon doing his share and
took up a paddle, protesting that the breakfast of fish had given him
all the strength he needed for the task.
They raced through the first without incident, but before attempting the
second, a dangerous looking one, they held a sort of pow-wow. Hal was
decidedly against it, but Big Boy, by means of guttural grunts and
sounds, assured him that the thing could be accomplished with careful
paddling.
Consequently, they set out and, from the very first, experienced hectic
moments. For a few hundred yards the rocky cliffs compressed the
river-channel to a narrow gorge. Through this the water angrily forced
its way, venting its fury by sending up foaming spray and high, lashing
waves.
Big Boy motioned Hal at this juncture that he would do the paddling
alone, and as if on second thought he removed the wrist watch and gave
it to his friend. With a grin he motioned toward the spray foaming in
the gorge and shook his black head vociferously as if to say that he was
loath to get the watch wet.
Hal laughed and put it in his pocket for safe-keeping. The next second
they were headed for the gorge, shooting through it with lightning
speed. But halfway through, a wave struck the frail craft, water poured
in, and before they were able to bail it out, another wave caught them
and turned them completely over.
[Illustration: HAL AND BIG BOY WERE THROWN OUT OF THE CANOE.]
Hal came up under the overturned canoe and rapidly swam from under. Once
on the surface he looked about and saw that the Indian had been carried
quite a little distance downstream.
Hal called vociferously and swam rapidly, but the nearer he got the
stronger was the conviction that Big Boy was not as he should be. He
seemed to be floundering about in the current and, as the motion of the
water swirled him about, it was quite obvious from his expression that
he was unable to swim.
Cramps! Hal guessed it in a moment when he saw the Indian’s pale lips
and pain-contorted face. He was paying the penalty for a huge breakfast.
Hal called to him, motioned to him to hold on, but the Indian looked to
be sinking. Too, he was in the very heart of the current which was
gradually bearing him down to the torrent below. By this time, however,
his would-be rescuer was rapidly approaching the spot, endangering his
own life in the attempt.
Two waves in succession caught the Indian at this point and, just as Hal
stretched out to grasp him, he was carried out of reach and plunged into
a whirlpool. Conscious that there was no further hope, he lifted his
black head in smiling resignation, then was churned out of sight by the
roaring force of the water.
Hal cried out in despair, but just at that moment the floating canoe
came past and he reached out and grasped it.
CHAPTER XXI
A JUNGLE VISION
By sheer determination, Hal forced the stubborn craft back into position
and, paddling with his bare hands, he managed to emerge safely at the
other end. Once there, he had no heart to go further and pulled into the
bank to rest and reflect upon the Indian’s sad passing.
It was the saddest experience of his life, he thought as he clambered up
on the bank and sat down. Sadder even than Rodriguez’ death, for the
Brazilian was but an acquaintance, while the Indian had proved himself
the best friend a fellow could have. And what was worse, he felt that he
himself was responsible, for the young man would never have come to such
grief if he hadn’t left his people.
After an hour of these vain regrets he hobbled down just below the
rapids, but there was no sign of the Indian’s body. Watch as he did, he
saw nothing but the foaming spray as it roared down the rapids. Big
Boy’s brave, faithful countenance Hal never saw again—not even in death.
He limped on downstream, despondent and irresolute. The canoe was no
good to him without a paddle, the Indian was gone.... Fate, he decided,
was taking an awful whack at him and he resented it. He had planned so
much to repay Big Boy—he had even painted mind pictures of taking him
home to his mother in Ramapo, N. Y. There in the shadow of the
undulating hills he would have looked quite picturesque. But now it
could never be, and the sad part of it was that he had not been given
the slightest chance to show Big Boy his deep gratitude.
Suddenly Hal thought of the watch and he took it out of his pocket,
looked at it a moment, then put it back on his own wrist with a wistful
smile. It had been a queer give and take between them, yet he was glad
that it had been so. Until the longest day he lived, he would always
think of the watch as a farewell token of the Indian’s.
A macaw, gorgeously plumed, flew over his head, and further down along
the bank he noticed that the jungle thinned out. That always meant a
clearing, so he hesitated for a time, drawing back under the trees and
listening. He would not, he determined, walk into any cannibal camps
with his eyes closed.
He listened for fully five minutes and then suddenly noticed something
golden flitting in and out of the trees below. Emboldened, he hurried on
until he saw that it was not a mirage, but a real white girl with a
crown of lovely golden hair who was running along the bank.
Hal’s heart seemed to come up in his mouth then. He wanted to call right
away, but he seemed powerless to do aught but stand and stare at her
slim figure swaying along under her flowing, old-fashioned skirt. And
when she turned to look out over the river, he noticed that her feet
were quite small, despite the clumsy canvas shoes she wore.
He thought of his own appearance then, bedraggled and unkempt. And
though his ruined sport shoes were unsightly indeed, he felt really more
conscious of his terrible growth of beard. Not being able to see
himself, he visualized his appearance as being nothing short of
disgraceful. Certainly, he was not fit to show himself before such a
vision as that girl was who was standing on the bank.
And so in disgust, Hal was about to hide himself until she had gone, but
he was just too late. She caught sight of him, hesitated with wonder,
then started toward him on a run.
With a graceful bow, Hal hurried toward her, also, and steeled himself
for the worst under a critical, feminine eye. But he was destined to be
surprised, for she seemed not to notice any deficiency in his attire.
Indeed, her first observation was quite unexpected.
“_A white man_—my goodness!” she exclaimed in a voice that was husky,
yet not harsh. “My goodness!”
“Just what I was going to say,” Hal returned, blushing consciously under
his beard. “A white girl—my goodness!”
They both laughed, then she cupped her tanned face in her right hand and
searched Hal’s face eagerly. He noted at once that her eyes were gray.
“You’ve been hurt—sick—lost?” she asked solicitously.
“All three,” Hal admitted with a chuckle. “I don’t know where I’ve been,
where I am, or where I’m headed for, but I do know that it’s darn sweet
music to see a white girl in this wilderness and hear her talking the
English language. _Gosh!_”
She laughed, huskily sweet.
“You’re not by any chance that person whom all the Amazon is being
searched for—Hallett Keen?”
“Now I know the reason they haven’t found me,” Hal laughed. “If they’re
searching for me with that name to go by, I wouldn’t care if I was ever
rescued.”
“Then you are _he_?”
“Not Hallett—_Hal_! Hal Keen is the only name my dog knows, and what’s
good enough for my dog is good enough for me. So I’m Hal Keen, by your
leave, young lady.”
“Oh, I’m so happy to meet you, Hal Keen,” she said laughing, but none
the less sincere. “I really am. Particularly am I glad to know you’re
alive. Word came through here four days ago that we were to watch out
for a young man of your description, and here you are! Think of it!”
Then, solicitously: “You’re pale and shaken looking, Mr. Hal—why, you’re
not well!”
“Better than I’ve been in a week,” Hal assured her. “I’ve been through
an awful lot,” he said, telling her the story of Big Boy.
She listened attentively while he talked, and, when he had finished,
regarded him gravely.
“I’ve an idea you’ve been through a great deal more than even that.”
“Some,” Hal smiled winningly. “But there’s plenty of time to talk about
my adventures—it’ll take me too long now. What I want to know is who you
are and why, where are we, and why?”
“It would take too long to tell you why,” she laughed with gentle
mockery, “but I can tell you where we are, first. We’re on the banks of
the _Pallida Mors_, known as _River of Pale Death_, also _Death River_.
It was so called by an Italian scientist who lost his party in the
rapids just about where your Indian boy was lost. And as for me, I’m
just Felice Pemberton and I live....”
“Did you say _just_?” Hal interrupted her.
CHAPTER XXII
FELICE AND HAL
Instinctively they sat down together on the bank. Hal, though weary, was
not hungry nor suffering pain of any kind, and if he had been, he
secretly thought that just talking to the flower-like Felice would drive
it away.
“I heard about you—in fact, I heard about your whole family,” Hal told
her. “My uncle and I listened to the story from the captain on the boat
to _Manaos_.”
“Not a cheerful story, I’m afraid,” she said wistfully.
“That’s why I made up my mind right then and there to pay you people a
visit,” Hal said impulsively. “Funny, how I wanted to do that right away
when I heard what hard luck you folks have had. But I didn’t think I’d
bust in this way—gosh!”
Her gray eyes twinkled as she regarded him.
“I’m glad to have you too, Mr. Hal,” she said earnestly, “but I’m sorry
you had to go through so much to get here. Grandfather will send one of
the Indians down to let your uncle know you’re safe. But just as soon as
you rest, we’ll walk down and get you into a hammock where you can sleep
and recuperate. We don’t have beds up here,” she added with a note of
apology; “we live very simply.”
“Say, a hammock will feel like a feather bed after what I’ve been
sleeping on,” Hal assured her breezily.
“So the _Pallida_ Indians captured you?” she inquired, interested.
“That what they’re called?”
“By us,” she smiled. “They’re a sort of mixture. _Pallida_ identifies
them sufficiently. They’re terribly warlike and superstitious.”
“Well, they were kind enough to me at the go-off. I was in pretty bad
shape when they found me—they nursed me back. That is, a fat old
medicine man did, and from the way I got well, I guess he’s not all
fake. But then they were willing to shoot poisoned arrows into me after
going to all the trouble of making me well. If you savvy that, I don’t.”
She laughed, and got him to tell her the story at the Indian settlement
right from the beginning.
“I know about their superstition,” she told him when he had finished,
“but I didn’t think they’d go to such an extreme as they tried with you.
I’ve heard about the demented native, though. They keep him imprisoned
in that hut in the jungle and none of the tribe will go toward it, face
forward. They back toward it in order to keep the evil spirit from
afflicting them. It does seem awful and odd, but it’s their native and
their business, and nobody interferes. They never bother us, never in
all these years. And they wouldn’t bother to come after you; don’t
worry. Particularly, because one of their number came away with you.”
“Poor fellow,” Hal said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t have had it happen for
the world. He deserved a better fate, believe me.”
“It seems that is the way with those we love,” said Felice with a
poignancy that did not escape Hal.
“I know,” he said sympathetically. “I heard about your father from the
captain, too. It was included in the story. What a tough break for him,
huh?”
“Not only for him, but for all of us. You see, he had finally come to
the conclusion that he was on the verge of a big discovery. He had kept
it quiet, being afraid that it would prove disappointing. Consequently,
we have never been able to find out just where the lode was. That it
contained some gold was proven by the dust he brought home. The last
trip he made was to decide just how much metal the lode would yield and
if it would be worth while to go on.”
“And it was up this river—the _Pallida Mors_?”
“Yes,” Felice answered wistfully, “our river of pale death. We were to
leave this wilderness and live in civilization if Father’s expectations
were realized. I went to school in Rio; we thought of going there to
live.”
“And how a girl like you must like to live in Rio,” Hal said, looking
around.
“But we have neither the money, nor the heart. You heard, I suppose,
that none of us shall leave here for good until Father’s body is
recovered?”
“Yes. But that’s making things awfully hard for yourselves, isn’t it? In
a river where there’s rapids....”
“I know,” she said with a sigh. “We’ve discussed that times without
number. But we always come to the conclusion that Father was seized with
one of those uncanny premonitions that should be given serious thought.
He had a fear that something was going to happen to him and he had a
fear that his dead body would be left unprotected, something ... we’ve
not been able to guess why he had that fear. In any event, we’ve waited
ten years—we’re too poor to do other than stay where we are and we’re
conscience free that we haven’t gone away from the region where Father
died, leaving him alone. Even though we haven’t found him we feel better
about it than if we had gone away.”
“I suppose you do,” Hal agreed thoughtfully. “But it’s tough on you,
Miss Felice.”
The girl’s face lighted up with a radiant smile.
“Not a bit,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve Grandfather to look after right
now and just when I was beginning to worry, along you came. And there’s
a lot of you to come along, Mr. Hal,” she added slyly. “When I first
spied you, I was inclined to think it was a jaguar moving in the bushes;
you backed away so, I was startled. The brownish color of your suit and
the flash of your hair in the sunlight seemed terribly like the creature
until I saw your vast height popping out of the bushes.”
“Gosh, a jaguar wouldn’t be so bold as to come out on the river bank,
right in the daylight?”
“If we are to believe the story the _Pallidas_ circulated, the jaguar
runs and cries at unexpected times. Especially the jaguar in whom they
believe my father has been reincarnated. They say he runs up and down
these river banks trying to lead us to his body and that he has been
caught beneath one of the rapids. Of course, it’s absurd, but I am
always startled when I hear the cry of a jaguar or see one flash through
the brush.”
“They know about how you’re waiting to get your father’s body then,
huh?”
“Of course. Indians have a way of gossiping among themselves, the same
as the white men. And as they’re so terribly superstitious I suppose it
pleased their fancy to make up the jaguar story out of that ghostly cry
that sounds up in their region at night.”
“And this fabled jaguar is supposed to have a human voice, huh?”
“Yes, how do you know, Mr. Hal?”
“I heard it myself. It’s queer, darn queer....”
“That’s what my brother Rene has said.”
“_Rene?_ Gosh, I’ll always like that name on account of a swell fellow I
met. His last name was Carmichael.”
“That’s odd, Mr. Hal. My brother’s middle name is Carmichael.”
“Well, I’ll be darned. That’s not too odd to be a coincidence, Miss
Felice. Let’s get together on this.”
And they did.
CHAPTER XXIII
SOME TALK
Hal acquainted Felice Pemberton with the facts of his acquaintance with
the spies, Goncalves and Pizella. Then he launched onto the topic of his
meeting with Rene Carmichael, and told her in detail all that had
transpired up to the point where they had said farewell.
“That fits my brother,” said the girl worriedly. “It’s _got_ to be him,
for who else is blond and gray-eyed with that name in this desolate
region? And if he said he would get help to you, you may be certain he
would have done so if it was humanly possible. But we haven’t seen him.”
“Then aren’t you worried about him?”
“Not yet,” the girl replied cheerfully. “You see he is something of an
adventurer like yourself. Only he roams about Brazil picking up odd jobs
here and there to support Grandfather and myself. We don’t hear from him
for intervals. What worries me is that he didn’t get help for you.”
“Let that be the least of your troubles,” Hal assured her. “Perhaps he
did. Anyway, I’m safe—and how!”
She smiled and got to her feet.
“Now to let Grandfather meet you,” she said quietly. “He’ll like you
because of your liking for Rene, but I can’t say he’ll be terribly
courteous. You see, he’s not outgrown the bitterness my
great-grandfather brought down here from the war.”
“That’s right,” said Hal, following her along the narrow trail. “That
was your great-grandfather, Marcellus Pemberton, huh? Well, he wasn’t to
be blamed for feeling bitter. Pride. But your grandfather Marcellus; he
shouldn’t....”
“All he knows about Yankees he learned from great-grandfather
Marcellus,” Felice said whimsically, “and that wasn’t very complimentary
from all accounts. So he’s not to be judged on his merits or demerits.”
She laughed. “Rene and I are long enough out of that generation not to
care what the Yankees did. So was my father. He was all for going back
to the United States—to Virginia.”
“That’s right, you people originally hail from Virginia, huh? Well, it’s
a lovely state. You wouldn’t go wrong in going back.”
“Wouldn’t we?” she asked wistfully and seemed to consider it. “What is
the U. S. like, Mr. Hal?”
“The kind of a place that you criticize when at home, but miss it like
the dickens when you go away. Anyway, she’s not so bad as countries go,
Miss Felice. It’s fine for girls.”
“_Girls!_” she repeated softly. “It must be fine. Rio is nice, but no
doubt Virginia is nicer.”
“And safer,” said Hal, looking about the lonely place.
“If you could only tell Grandfather that as convincingly as you’ve told
me,” she sighed.
She glanced up at Hal and he noticed that, despite her tanned face,
there was a pinched look about her that indicated uncertain health. And
he wondered that she had any health at all for having lived all her
young life in that jungle wilderness.
Felice Pemberton, Hal decided, was meant to live in the United States
and nowhere else.
CHAPTER XXIV
OLD MARCELLUS
Marcellus Pemberton, the third, greeted Hal courteously, yet coldly.
White-haired and rugged, he welcomed his guest with all the pompous
grace of the old southern aristocracy. He promised to dispatch an Indian
toward _Manaos_ at once, then sniffing airily asked what part of
“Yankee-land” the stranger had come from.
Hal took it in good part and smiled. There wasn’t a Yankee-land any
longer, he informed the old man. The United States was one; all those
abiding there were Americans. Yankee was an almost obsolete word.
“Not for the spirit of the Old South,” said Old Marcellus defiantly. “We
of the jungle are free men and not to be driven out of our homes by
those who do not agree with our political and personal views. We can
stay here until we die—we have our Indian servants....”
“Slaves?” Hal interposed, looking about at the ragged-looking Indians
moving in and out of their miserable thatched huts.
“An ageless and honorable custom if one treats one’s slaves like human
beings,” said the old man coldly. “I treat mine as best I can after all
these years of poverty. Misfortune and hardship can come to any man,
even to the free man of the jungle.” He said this last as if to reassure
himself that he believed what he had said.
“Misfortune comes to all of us at some time or other, Mr. Pemberton,”
Hal said politely. “I’ve had a touch of it myself, and I’m feeling
rather low down just now. By your leave, I’ll rest until the old vim and
vigor come back.”
Old Marcellus was the soul of hospitality despite his prejudices. To
slight a guest on his property was the last thing in the world he would
care to do, whether that guest was a hated Yankee or no. And, with Hal’s
admission of indisposition, all his innate courtesy came to the fore. He
poured out apologies profusely, and bade his granddaughter show their
guest his quarters.
“Such as they are,” she smiled, as she led Hal to a rude hut next to
their own. “But it’s the best we have to offer—we reserve it especially
for infrequent guests.”
She led Hal through a low, narrow opening and nodded at the single
chair, the hammock and the washbasin on an old-fashioned stand. It was
primitive, but scrupulously neat and clean.
“Things have just gone along so-so with we Pembertons,” she explained
apologetically. “It’s impossible to grow much more than potatoes here.
We raise chickens and a half mile from here we can get all the
pineapples you want to eat.”
“Boy!” Hal exclaimed. “That sounds darn good to me—just like home. And
chicken? Young lady, I’m your friend for life. You don’t happen to drink
such luxurious beverages as tea and coffee, do you?”
“Through Rene’s generosity we allow ourselves that luxury,” she smiled.
“This property yields us no income whatsoever, Mr. Hal. And it yields
but half of our food.”
“Then why on earth do you people stay here?” Hal asked, flinging himself
down on the chair.
“Grandfather again,” said the girl wistfully. “It was here that we found
Father’s canoe and camping outfit, but no lode. And Grandfather, bound
as he is to memories and to the dim, dead past, had us pack up and leave
our more comfortable quarters thirty miles below here and come live on
this poverty-stricken site. He said that if Father had died here, we
should live here in his memory. A queer man is my grandfather, Mr. Hal.
He’s old and I respect him—indeed, I wouldn’t think of being aught but
obedient to his every wish. Still, I cannot help thinking that his
bitterness is not good.”
“Bitterness is terrible,” Hal agreed. “But one thing, it hasn’t affected
you and that’s good.”
“I’ve seen too much of it. It hasn’t affected my brother Rene, except in
a political way. Grandfather’s ideas about free men in the jungle has
affected him, but that’s all. He’s come to believe that the jungle man
should rebel and take part of the earnings of his more fortunate brother
in the cities.”
“What a strange, struggling family you are!” Hal said, watching the
girl’s sad, piquant face. “Memories and the past are all right as long
as they don’t interfere with the happiness of the present, huh? I bet
you think that way, don’t you, Miss Felice?”
“I do, Mr. Hal,” she admitted, “but you’re the first one to whom I’ve
confessed it.”
“Then it’s safe with me,” Hal said whimsically, “and what’s more it’s
better on my chest than on yours. I’m glad I came along to relieve you
of the burden, honest I am.”
“And I’m glad you came along too. Rene stays away so long sometimes. It
gets rather dull.”
“Not when I’m around,” Hal chuckled, and looked down at the girl
intently. “There’s something about me, my uncle always says, that seems
to whoop things up wherever I go. He says I’m not in a place very long
before things just naturally begin to happen. So if that holds good here
too, Miss Felice, just sit tight and hope for the worst.”
She laughed heartily and, shaking her finger playfully at Hal, stepped
outside.
“The worst can’t be too bad for me,” she called back over her slim
shoulder. “The worst would be better than just this!”
And by that same token did Felice Pemberton invite the long arm of
destiny into that little settlement on the _River of Pale Death_.
CHAPTER XXV
AFTER DINNER
Hal reveled in the luxury of a hammock that long afternoon and slept the
sleep of the righteous. He awakened, feeling fresh and stronger than any
time since the plane wreck. And to add to his delight, Mr. Pemberton’s
favorite Indian, Joaquim, was standing patiently at the door proffering
shaving materials and a change of clothes including a worn but clean
pair of khaki knickers.
“The Señor Rene’s,” the Indian explained as he held out the knickers.
“Señor will fit—no?”
“Yes—sure. Rene’s not so much shorter than I. And I bathe in the river,
huh, Joaquim?”
“Yes, Señor. But watch for the electric fish. They send shock and
sometimes people die from it.”
“Well, I’ve got enough electricity in me without clashing with those
fish, Joaquim. Thanks for the tip, anyway.”
And so he bathed without incident, shaved and dressed, then strolled
toward the Pemberton hut, a broad, low structure of mud and thatch.
Felice and her grandfather were on hand to greet him.
The building boasted of three good-sized rooms, that is, it was one vast
room partitioned off into three. Two of the partitions, Felice
explained, were used as bedrooms and the third, a wide room across the
front of the hut, was their dining-living room.
That room, into which Hal was ushered, boasted of a fair-sized dining
table, a half-dozen rickety chairs, an antique sideboard, and a
dilapidated couch. The kitchen, Felice explained, was in Joaquim’s hut
and under his own supervision.
They sat down to a nicely set table and Hal perceived that Felice’s slim
brown hand had given the extra touches in honor of a guest. A worn but
clean tablecloth gleamed under the candlelight, and the silver, he was
certain, had graced the table of many generations of Pembertons in
Virginia.
Hal ate his fill of chicken, fish, sweet potatoes, cooling pineapple,
and two cups of coffee. True, it was rather bitter and was flavored with
condensed milk, but coffee had never been so welcome and he sat sipping
the second cup with some Brazilian cigarettes which Old Marcellus kept
for guests.
The old man was pleasant, and he beguiled Hal with divers tales of his
experiences in the Amazon jungle. Now and then a note of bitterness
would creep into his feeble voice, but upon looking at Hal’s smiling
countenance he would dismiss his subject and begin on another. But
always he seemed to come back to the same subject, that of his long
missing son.
His days and nights, the whole of his remaining life was spent thinking
of that tragic affair. Hal’s heart went out to him and he wondered what
his life would have been—what all their lives would have been if that
terrible thing hadn’t happened!
Felice had sat quietly through her grandfather’s long recital. Finally
she sat up straight in her chair and shook her small, golden head
determinedly.
“Now Grandfather,” she said, “Mr. Hal has been hearing our story ever
since he came up the river to _Manaos_. Suppose we let him have an end
to this Phantom of Death River and change to a lighter vein.”
“Of course, Felice,” said Old Marcellus. “No doubt the young man is
terribly bored. I forget myself and talk, talk, talk.”
“Not at all, not at all,” Hal assured them. “I lean toward things like
this—I mean toward the supernatural. Of course I don’t take any stock in
it that Miss Felice’s father is roaming around and screaming in jaguar
form. I don’t believe that at all, but the idea fascinates me.”
“That’s because you’re a romanticist, Mr. Hal,” said the girl. “If you
weren’t, you wouldn’t get into a scrape like that plane business. It
pays to beware of strangers, especially men like Señor Goncalves. He
must be a very cold-blooded man to have devised such a scheme. I’ve told
Grandfather how you met him on your way to _Manaos_ and the subsequent
events.”
“Granting all that,” said Old Marcellus, “I can’t understand why the
Señor should want to take your uncle’s life and your own. Why?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask, but didn’t,” Felice said smiling.
“And I forgot to tell you,” Hal explained. “You are people of honor and
I can entrust to you the secret of my uncle’s mission up here. He’s a
secret service man and he brought me along with him on the exciting
chase of a munition’s smuggler. That is, he’s trying to help the
Brazilian Government, in coöperation with our own, to trace the
smuggling of munitions to this country. And if we find the man who’s the
go-between on this end, we’ll soon learn who the manufacturers are in
the U. S.”
“And is the man—_Renan_?” asked Old Marcellus softly.
“Do you know him?” Hal returned eagerly.
Before they could answer, Joaquim appeared in the doorway, gesticulating
to his master and looking quite perturbed.
CHAPTER XXVI
A FAMILIAR VOICE
“What is it, Joaquim?” asked the old man.
Joaquim’s tongue loosed in rapid-fire Portuguese for fully two minutes.
Felice sat tense, her hands clenching the tablecloth and her face
noticeably pale. And the old man, though apparently quite calm, had two
patches of color that came and went at intervals in his bony cheeks.
When the Indian had finished Old Marcellus stood up, talked crisply in
Portuguese, then dismissed the servant. That done, he turned to Hal.
“Just some visitors, young man,” he said courteously. “You will excuse
me?”
“Of course,” Hal said smiling. “I’ve been taking up your time too long
anyhow.”
“No doubt you feel fatigued still?” Felice asked in a strained manner.
Hal was not a little surprised but he managed to conceal it.
“I can always sleep, Miss Felice,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s why
I’ve grown up to be such a big boy.”
She giggled, but grew instantly serious as he said goodnight. Old
Marcellus bowed gravely and showed almost too palpably that he would
feel immensely relieved when his guest was gone to his hut.
Hal felt the situation as one of his temperament feels
everything—_intensely_. He knew that there was some deep, underlying
motive for the strange behavior of his host and hostess. Too, he knew
that the sudden visitors whom Joaquim announced must have given them
cause for deep concern.
“But then that’s their business,” Hal told himself as he strolled toward
the hut. “Why should it have anything to do with me? It’s been said that
every family keeps a skeleton or two hidden in the closet. Maybe this is
the night that the Pembertons are letting theirs out for a walk.”
Hal had quite forgotten the incident by the time he got into his hammock
and under the net so solicitously provided by Joaquim. He was sleepier
than he realized and after smoking another of Old Marcellus’ Brazilian
cigarettes, he closed his eyes willingly.
He thought over all that had happened during the day, particularly his
meeting with Felice. He liked saying her name aloud. There was something
soft and soothing in the sound. He thought of her frailness and thin,
pinched cheeks and immediately he wanted to do something for her that
would make her look bright and healthy, not sad and weary-looking as he
visualized her then.
He had a mind picture of her laughing along some unfrequented trail in
Ramapo, whose picturesque hills took on its winter cloak when the Amazon
was at its highest temperature. She would look pretty, he decided, when
the wind blew hardest and the snow flew thickest. There wasn’t the
slightest doubt about it—Felice belonged in Ramapo and he determined to
tell her so.
Suddenly his thoughts switched to the immediate present. His uncle would
soon hear that he was safe, and so would his mother. At last! His next
move was to start back for _Manaos_. But as he had been gone this long
he could defer it a few days, as long as no one was worrying about him.
The Pembertons interested him too much to leave right off. He chuckled.
The Pembertons? Why fool himself! It was Felice who interested him and
he knew that it was especially so because of the glamour of mystery
surrounding her life in the wilderness.
In any event, he was inspired to do something manly and adventurous for
this frail wilderness flower. And to sleep he went, with this generous
and noble desire making peaceful his deep slumber.
That it was deep, Joaquim witnessed when he crept stealthily under the
doorway of the hut of their honored guest. Soundlessly he stole up to
Hal’s hammock and listened intently for fully five minutes to his soft,
even breathing. Then, with a satisfied air, the Indian stole out again.
Hal, however, being temperamental, was often disturbed by another’s mere
presence. It was so in this case, for he was awake and sitting up in his
hammock before Joaquim’s stealthy figure had cleared the doorway. And
though he was still dazed, he knew that the Indian’s presence was a sign
that Old Marcellus and his granddaughter were up to something.
Hal got into his clothes in a minute and crept cautiously toward the
door. He stood and listened there before he emerged and even then put
out his head and looked about carefully.
There was no sound except the low murmur of voices from Pemberton’s hut.
He could not distinguish them at all and proceeded to move further out
into the clearing when he suddenly saw Joaquim’s squat figure move out
of the shadows and down toward the river.
Hal moved noiselessly up to the Pemberton hut and drew close into its
protecting shadows. Old Marcellus was talking in even tones, calm and
distinct.
“Yes,” he was saying, “this used to be a _Pallida_ settlement. Why do
you ask, Señor?”
“Curiosity, Señor Pemberton,” said a soft, purring voice. “And your son,
his canoe, his camp was found here—no?”
“Yes. But surely you heard the story many times.”
“Not so thoroughly as I heard it lately, Señor. And the _Pallidas_ they
did not come back to claim their settlement?”
“No,” answered Old Marcellus. “It’s their custom not to reclaim a
settlement once they’re driven off by a white man. They have a
reputation for superstition you know.”
“But your son, he drove them off, eh?”
“Yes; he believed there was a lode somewhere here worth a fortune. But
poor man, he gave his life for that illusion. My grandson and I have
hunted the length and breadth of this clearing in vain.”
“Ah, but that is the way of life, eh, Señor? Now we must be going.”
“But did you come only to ask me about my poor lost son? Have you no
_message_?” Old Marcellus asked anxiously.
“None, Señor. Perhaps when next I come. _Adios!_”
Hal waited to hear no more and scooted back to the shadow of his
doorway. Soon he saw the dark figures of men emerging from Pemberton’s
hut and he heard the soft whisper of voices. Old Marcellus he
distinguished by his white, silvery hair, but the rest he could not make
out. Besides, Joaquim’s squat body came wobbling up from the river and
escorted the two short visitors back to the bank.
Hal was puzzled, yet he could not help feeling that there was something
familiar looking about the pair. Certainly, somewhere he had heard the
speaker’s voice inside the hut. That soft, slow purring....
CHAPTER XXVII
AND THEN....
Hal went back to his hammock without having come to any definite
decision. After all, it was difficult to distinguish one’s voice through
layers of mud and thatch, especially when one was talking at a low
pitch.
The following day he had breakfast with Felice. Her grandfather, she
explained, lay abed late because of his age. She seemed gay and carefree
as she spoke and it was hard for Hal to believe that he had seen her so
tense and weary only the night before.
He rested some during the day, took a stroll along the river bank with
Felice, and fished the rest of the day. Old Marcellus kept much to
himself and seemed rather taciturn when spoken to. At dinner that
evening, he did not appear.
“Grandfather is worrying about my brother, Rene,” said Felice.
Hal looked across the table and smiled comfortingly.
“Aw, I guess he can take care of himself, huh? I’ll admit I was worried
too, but since I know he’s your brother and have heard what a ‘rep’ he’s
got, I have the idea that he can take care of himself.”
“I know he can take care of himself,” Felice said thoughtfully, “but we
aren’t always the master of a situation. Rene is sometimes headstrong.”
“Gol darn it,” Hal said, noticing the sadness in her gray eyes, “I do
believe you’re worried about him.”
“I really am, Mr. Hal. You see he’s never kept us waiting so long. He’s
always so concerned about Grandfather and me. Really he’s been all
that’s helped me to bear this lonely existence. I couldn’t bear anything
to happen to him.”
“But my goodness, Miss Felice, I’m certain nothing has happened to him
if he’s such a roamer as you’ve told me! Please don’t worry! If there’s
anything I can do....”
“You liked him, didn’t you, Mr. Hal?” she asked suddenly.
“I’ll say I did,” Hal answered readily. “I thought he was one swell
chap. Man, he’s the kind I like—you know, plain but not stupid.”
Felice seemed relieved. She smiled sweetly and freely then.
“I thought that a nice person like you couldn’t help liking Rene. You’re
so much alike—loyal.”
“Thanks, Miss Felice. I’ll always try to live up to that reputation.”
“Is it a promise?” she asked eagerly.
“Cross my heart and hope to die!”
They were gay after that and strolled about the clearing in the
moonlight before they said goodnight. Hal walked on air to his little
hut and was so thoughtful that he climbed into his hammock with his
clothes on.
But it was just as well, for he hadn’t any desire to sleep and was up
again in a few moments. How could he sleep when a lovely girl like
Felice exacted a promise from him to be loyal? He’d be loyal to her
whole family just to see her smile!
Suddenly it occurred to him that her request for his loyalty was not
only meaningless but odd. What did she want him to be loyal to? To whom?
He felt silly when he thought that he had made a promise when he didn’t
know what it was all about. Still, he could stand feeling silly where
Felice was concerned.
He stamped out a half-smoked cigarette and walked out into the clearing.
It was a lovely night, breathless and clear, with just enough moon for
shadow. Before he realized it, he was down at the river, gazing dreamily
at the swiftly moving water.
Suddenly he heard the unmistakable sound of a canoe paddling toward him.
Instinctively, he drew back under the tree, barely escaped stepping on a
peacefully sleeping snake, and in trying to sidestep it, he slipped and
rolled down the bank into some thick bushes. And there he stayed.
The canoe had already come into view and the bent forms of the two
paddlers were directing its course toward the bank. Straight to the
settlement it glided, like some long, graceful snake.
Hal held his breath as it pushed into the bank. He dared not stir the
bushes for so much as a peek then. They were too close at hand. But then
he had no need to see, for they started to speak and he could listen.
They talked in Portuguese, however, speaking in soft tones. Both voices
struck Hal immediately as being familiar—the one especially so. But
still he dared not stir, for he knew that they had not gotten out of the
canoe. Then after a moment of silence, the familiar voice spoke in
English.
“There is gold here—I feel it,” it whispered. “We must get these
Pembertons away—no? It would be ver’ easy. The _Pallidas_, they perhaps
kill Señor Pemberton, Junior. Why not make it look as if they do it
again, eh? Why not, Pizella?”
“Si, Señor,” came the answer. “Why not so?”
CHAPTER XXVIII
HE WHO RISKS NOTHING
“_Quem nao arrisca nao ganha_,” said Señor Goncalves, twisting at his
moustache. He chuckled softly. “Tomorrow night, perhaps?”
“Si, Señor,” said Pizella in a whisper. “_Quem nao arrisca nao ganha._”
Suddenly the swish of paddles sounded and, with a creaking noise, the
canoe pushed out of the clay and back into the stream. Hal held his
breath listening for them to reveal something more but not a word did
they speak until they put a great deal of distance between themselves
and the settlement.
Hal crawled out of the bushes, wiped his hands on his handkerchief and
scrambled up the bank. He made no effort to conceal himself but walked
with determined step past the Pemberton hut. A flickering light showed
someone to still be up.
“That you, Miss Felice?” Hal asked anxiously.
“Yes, Mr. Hal.” Her small, slim body framed the doorway. “Why, I thought
you went to bed an hour ago!”
“I thought you did too!”
“Yes, but I was restless.”
“Same here. Your grandfather asleep?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Nothing. Say, I was wondering what _quem nao arrisca nao ganha_ means!
Can you tell me?”
“He who risks nothing, gains nothing,” she answered promptly. “Where did
you hear it, Mr. Hal?”
“Oh, from two Brazil-nuts.” He laughed. “How near are we to the next
settlement and how many people live there?”
She laughed softly.
“Of all the questions! But to answer them—we live just twenty miles away
from the next settlement and there’s a tribe of about fifty Betoya
Indians living there. They’re better left alone though, if you’re
thinking of trying to promote good will. Some Brazilian rubber men
mistreated them not so long ago and they’re anything but in a
conciliatory frame of mind.”
“Well, I won’t add to their worry then,” Hal said, feeling rather
depressed. “How long does it take to get to _Manaos_?”
“Two long days. It depends on the skill of the paddler. Sometimes it
takes longer, but certainly it’s not less than that. Are you thinking of
leaving us, Mr. Hal?” she asked wistfully.
“Nope, not yet. In fact, I’m not going until you see or get some word
from your brother.”
“Oh, you’re kind, Mr. Hal! Awfully kind.”
“Not kind—_human_,” Hal laughed. “I have a weakness for human beings
too.”
“I’m glad, for we need someone with that kind of weakness. But you seem
a little—well, serious. What is it?”
“Your brother, Miss Felice. I don’t want to seem snoopy, but I’d like
seriously to see him and talk to him. That’s why I don’t want you to
feel offended if I ask you what idea you have of his whereabouts?”
“Why, er—Mr. Hal,” said Old Marcellus, rising out of the doorway in a
faded dressing gown and an air of injury. “Isn’t this rather a late hour
for you to be talking to my....”
“It makes not the slightest difference whom I talk to, Mr. Pemberton,”
Hal interposed pleasantly. “In fact, I think it would be better for you
to be here. You heard my question about your grandson?”
“Yes, sir, I did,” said the old man with some show of dignity.
“Then you can answer it.”
“Suppose I refuse?”
“That would be absurd. After all, I want to know only to help you and
Miss Felice.”
“Something’s happened—_something_!” Felice gave a little cry. “What is
it, Mr. Hal?”
“I hadn’t meant to tell you, but I suppose it’s the only way to do.
After all, you know this country and I don’t. It’s simply this—not ten
minutes ago while I was hidden in the bushes down at the river I
overheard a conversation between that cat Goncalves and his boy friend,
Pizella. It seems he has in his mind some plan to drive you people out
of here. He said he felt that there was gold and he was going to get
it.”
“Never; not over my dead body!” said Old Marcellus stiffening to his
full height. “If there’s gold here, we’ll get it, not Carlo Goncalves!”
“I hope to tell you,” Hal agreed vehemently. “But to get to the bottom
of this—what is it all about? I don’t mean to pry, but I want to help
you people. I won’t stand by and see that little Brazil-nut misuse you!”
“He is a bad lot, Goncalves,” said Old Marcellus more to himself than to
Hal. “And Pizella too.”
“I could have told you that weeks ago,” Hal said. “But evidently
Goncalves got started when he heard your story from the captain of the
boat. He was one of the listeners. He probably is one of those fools who
thinks that all he has to do is to pull up at some river bank and he’ll
find gold. Gold isn’t found as easily as that. Anyway, Mr. Pemberton,
you people know him, huh? He’s on a friendly footing here?”
“We know him, but not because we want to,” said the old man between
tightly drawn lips. “He’s lately happened—to come here....”
“Now you’re holding back something, Mr. Pemberton. And there’s
absolutely no need to. Nothing you say shall be held against you.” He
laughed gently. “I mean it, even if my uncle is on the government’s
side. I know that in some mysterious way you people are connected with
the revolutionary movement here. You wouldn’t know Goncalves from Adam
if you weren’t.”
Felice, who had been standing silent throughout this recital, suddenly
put her hand on Hal’s arm.
“You are right about us, Mr. Hal,” she said. “We are sort of connected
with Ceara’s side. That is....”
“Ceara’s a patriot and devoted to the _Cause_,” said the old man
suddenly. “Goncalves is a sneak and is in the _Cause_ for greed rather
than patriotic motives. I’ve suspected that right along. Also he wants
power.”
“We meant it when we said that we thought he was inhuman for what he
tried to do to you,” said Felice angrily. “We told him so too! But he
would go to any ends to get the rest of the munitions through. He wants
to start fighting. He’s jealous of Ceara—he’s jealous of my....”
“Your brother, huh?” Hal interposed. “Wasn’t that what you were going to
say?”
Felice and her grandfather nodded.
“I don’t know why we let you know so much,” she said, trying to smile.
“You know why?” Hal asked. “Because you know in your heart I’d rather
help than anything else. Besides I promised I’d be loyal, didn’t I?
Well, I mean it. And I can understand how people all alone like you are
can mix up with the _Cause_ as you call it. You have nothing else to do
in this wilderness. Also, I understand now how your brother could get
into it. It’s a wonder he didn’t get into worse mischief than this with
so much time on his hands.”
“You know then that Rene is....”
“_Renan_,” Hal interposed smiling. “I guessed it quite a few hours ago.”
CHAPTER XXIX
A SNOOPING YANKEE
“Renan Carmichael Pemberton, that is his full name,” said Old Marcellus
proudly. “We’ve always called him Rene for short. But what are you going
to do about him, Mr. Hal? You are loyal to your government as well as to
us, eh?”
“I think,” said Hal with a smile at Felice, “that I can dope out a way
to be loyal to both. Just one thing I’d like to find out though—was he
in on that plane plot?”
“I can vouch for him that he wasn’t,” Felice said stoutly. “I don’t
think Rene ever met that José Rodriguez before in his life. There are
many in the _Cause_, you know. They can’t all be acquainted. It was just
a coincidence.”
“I’m inclined to believe it. Well, what do you say we all turn in? We
may not get such a good sleep tomorrow night.”
They all agreed and Hal was about to go when he thought of something.
“How about guns, Mr. Pemberton?” he asked the old man. “Have you
anything like that around here?”
The old man said he had. Enough to protect themselves for a little
while. And Goncalves, he was certain, was acting upon his own
initiative. Ceara, he declared, would have no part in such a scheme.
“I hope so,” Hal said aloud when he got into his hammock a moment later.
“It would pain me to know that Ceara did anything like that after all
the puffs he’s been given!” He chuckled, then looked grave the next
minute.
He was thinking about Renan—_Rene_, and did not know which name he
preferred. He did know, however, that he thought the Pembertons a queer
lot. Somehow their connection with the _Cause_ amused him, and he
wondered if they, too, could not see the humorous side of it. Renan must
certainly see it. Laughter and smuggled munitions!
Hal realized after a while, however, that there was not so much to laugh
at with Goncalves. He presented a problem grave enough to make one
frown. Meanwhile the time was fleeing and before they knew it, the Señor
would be paying them a visit.
His mind was so full of this worry that he slept but little and got up
at dawn. After dressing he hurried down to the river bank to think it
over, and in his nervous deliberation he pulled out of his pocket the
handkerchief which he had had with him the night before.
It felt gritty to the touch, and when he went to put it up to his face a
light-colored substance fell from it to the ground. It interested him
greatly.
Hal examined it curiously, particularly the few particles that clung to
the handkerchief. Then he bethought himself of how, the night before, he
had slid down the sloping embankment and into the bushes to avoid the
canoeists. That was where he had wiped the wet clay from his hands.
He shook his head uncertainly and slid down the embankment again. There
he delved about, poking into the embankment and eagerly scrutinizing
every bit of clay that came out in his hand. In several places he did
this until he espied his footsteps in the wet earth. Almost covering
them was some more clay which he had loosened in his fall.
He searched through it carefully and finally brought up a handful of the
yellow dust which he scooped up immediately. Then he scrambled up the
bank and across the clearing, almost running into Old Marcellus as he
came out of his door.
“G’d mornin’, young sir. You seem to have been as restless as myself,”
said the old man.
“Looks that way all right,” Hal said, hardly able to contain himself.
“But it’s a good thing I was restless. I think, Mr. Pemberton, that I’ve
discovered something.”
“What is that, young man?”
“Gold,” Hal answered, smiling. “A whole handkerchief full!”
“_Great Scott!_” exclaimed the astonished old man.
“Mr. Pemberton,” Hal said whimsically, opening the handkerchief for his
delighted inspection, “that expression you just used—_Great Scott!_—is
uttered by Americans only. Do you know that? What’s more it’s a purely
Yankee term and yet you use it!”
“I wouldn’t stand for that insult, young man,” said Old Marcellus with a
faint gleam of mirth in his weak blue eyes, “if it wasn’t that you’ve
discovered my gold.”
“Then you admit that you’ve given praise to a Yankee by using his name?”
Hal teased. “You’ve committed the unpardonable sin, Mr. Pemberton.”
“Then I have,” said the old man, biting back the smile that wanted to
shine on his thin, haggard face. “And I’m not denying now that it took a
snooping Yankee to find our gold—the gold that will mean so much to my
grandchildren.”
“Well,” Hal laughed, “I’d rather be a snooping Yankee than....”
“Than what?” the old man promptly asked.
“Than Señor Carlo Goncalves,” Hal answered with a chuckle.
CHAPTER XXX
PALE DEATH
It rained terrifically that night, lashing this way and that through the
clearing. Truly, it was a night to deter the most venturesome, but as
Hal had high regard for Señor Goncalves as a moving force, he did not
keep to his hut and hammock. Instead, with Joaquim’s invaluable aid and
two Colt revolvers, they kept vigil under a tree at the river.
“You heard Señor Goncalves say he come tonight, Señor Hal?” Joaquim
asked.
“Exactly,” Hal answered. “I think he meant to do it last night, but he
didn’t have the nerve. He said something about making it look as if the
Indians had done it—the _Pallidas_! Do you think it was they who killed
Mr. Pemberton’s son?”
Joaquim shrugged his broad shoulders.
“_Pallidas_ think evil spirits get out when white man digs deep in the
ground, Señor. They would kill him for that maybe. _Pallidas_ hate Señor
Pemberton for chasing them from settlement. Maybe they kill—we do not
know.”
“And what do you think about Señor Rene, Joaquim?”
“I think, like master, that maybe Señor Rene is being punished for angry
talk about you falling in plane. I think Ceara he hold him there a time
so he will not talk.”
“So you and Mr. Pemberton think Señor Renan didn’t like the treatment I
got, huh? Well, maybe it’s so. At least I like to think that that’s the
sort of a bird he is.”
Joaquim nodded as if to say that Renan Pemberton was exactly that kind.
Be that as it may, thinking was often convincing to Hal and he had no
further qualms in that direction. His present anxiety was on the river
and from time to time he wondered just what Goncalves had in his mind.
He did not have very long to wonder, however, for, just before midnight,
Joaquim prodded Hal gently in the ribs.
“Canoe she come,” he muttered between his teeth. “We keep back in dark.”
“I’ll say we will,” Hal whispered in return.
The canoe swished through the water and presently appeared just below
the settlement. There seemed to be no other boats with them, and Hal and
the Indian exchanged glances of satisfaction. Goncalves, sitting smug
and content while Pizella slaved at the paddle, seemed to sense nothing
unusual.
Hal noticed immediately that Pizella was carrying a bow, and arrows were
lying at his feet. When he pushed the boat into the embankment and got
out with his bare feet to make it fast he reached for them. Goncalves
smiled.
“_Pallidas_—si?” he murmured.
“Si,” responded Pizella.
“Not so fast, Goncalves!” Hal roared in a voice that sounded almost
sepulchral, coming as it did from under the rain-dripping trees.
“_We’ve_ got you covered!” He said _we’ve_ as if it constituted a
tremendous armed force.
Goncalves moved like lightning. Without a word, he shoved the boat back
into the stream with the tremendous energy of his excitement. For some
reason he seemed to have completely forgotten the wading half-caste who
stumbled and tripped through the water in his haste to clamber back into
the canoe.
Hal fired the gun then over the Brazilian’s head. But the fellow had
taken up the paddle and began to stroke vigorously off in the dark.
Pizella meanwhile had neither been able to gain the canoe or even keep
up with him. Also, it was apparent that the water was too high for him
to wade any longer.
He called frantically to Goncalves, called to him to wait, Joaquim said.
But as Hal had already aimed another bullet at the Brazilian’s sleek
head, there was no apparent slowing up of the canoe for anything or
anybody. Consequently, Pizella dove into the high water, clothes and
all.
Hal tried another shot but the darkness and the swiftly moving canoe
made a sure aim impossible. He thought he heard Goncalves scream after a
fourth shot had been fired, but as Pizella was screaming also, they
could not be certain. Be that as it may, the Brazilian kept right on
paddling and was soon out of sight.
Pizella was in a dilemma, to be sure. He could not hope to reach his
master’s canoe and he was afraid to return toward shore, where goodness
knows what horrible fate awaited him. Hal felt almost sorry for him in
that moment, for Goncalves’ desertion of the half-caste at such a time
and in such a place seemed heartless.
But Pizella seemed to have chosen the lesser of two evils and turning
his back upon the raging current began to swim toward shore. Hal and
Joaquim watched him, interested, each thinking that the man was braver
than his master ever dared to be.
In the midst of these reflections, they heard him suddenly shriek, a
blood-curdling yelp. He was by that time, too, near enough in to stand
on his feet, which he did. But even as they watched him they saw him
raise his arms and sort of stiffen from head to foot. The next second he
had plunged headfirst back into the stream.
“Electric fish, Señor—he bite Pizella!” Joaquim shouted.
Hal got to his feet ready to jump in after the half-caste, but the
Indian put out a detaining arm and pointed to the dark waters.
“Already he sink,” said Joaquim. “Señor no can find now.”
Hal looked, feeling not a little dazed by the episode and saw that it
was true. The water rushing along on its heedless course had carried the
half-caste completely out of sight. There was not a sign of him.
“Joaquim say right—no?” said the Indian.
“Too right,” Hal answered thoughtfully. “I can’t seem to gather my wits
together and remember how it all happened.”
“That is because the _Pallida Mors_ she is swift, Señor Hal. Like that
she grabs and then we look—_no more_! The Indian he say she wants all
the time death. So many drown in her, Señor. She look like death—no? She
pale for rushing river.”
“She is pale,” Hal agreed. Even in the darkness her pallid yellowish
waters gleamed eerily. He shuddered and turned his broad back upon the
stream. “This pale death business is getting on my nerves, anyway.”
CHAPTER XXXI
A DECISION
After a long, solemn conference in the Pemberton hut next morning, it
was decided that Goncalves had been effectually squelched by the ruse
which Hal had so cleverly executed. None of them anticipated a return
visit from the Brazilian with such a purpose in mind. Old Marcellus felt
confident that they were safe from like marauders.
“But it’s time we heard from Rene,” said the old man. “Besides, somebody
ought to put word in General Ceara’s ear about Señor Goncalves.”
“How about me going?” Hal asked more in fun than anything. “I’m sure
Ceara would receive me as a representative of the Pemberton family,
wouldn’t he?”
“I don’t know why he wouldn’t,” Felice said, pursing her full red lips
thoughtfully. “Grandfather couldn’t stand the journey, even if it is
only a five-hour paddle, and Joaquim couldn’t satisfactorily interpret a
message. I’m out of the question in a revolutionary camp, so you are the
only solution. Joaquim can go with you, Mr. Hal. If you start now you’ll
be back tonight before midnight.”
“Suits me,” Hal said gaily. “I’ll be tickled pink to pike a
revolutionary camp. Only you’re sure they won’t nab me in, huh?”
“General Ceara’s a very just man, Hal,” Old Marcellus assured him. “I
shall give you a letter of introduction to him, telling him that I can
vouch for your secrecy.”
“How about Goncalves—he might be so sore at me that he’ll try and whoop
up things a bit, huh?”
“General Ceara’s long been provoked with him, Hal,” said Felice,
unconsciously using the young man’s Christian name too. “He’ll give your
complaints just consideration.”
“As you say, _Felice_,” Hal countered, smiling. “I’m to tell him then
what greedy eyes the Brazil-nut has cast on your gold hills, huh? And it
goes without saying, that I’ll tell him word for word about last night.”
“Of course—don’t forget that important part. General Ceara is too much
of a patriot not to see that Goncalves is not a man for the _Cause_.”
“I agree with you, Felice,” Hal said whimsically. “He’d be the cause of
any _Cause_ busting up.”
They talked over the question of food to be taken on the trip, and while
Old Marcellus was writing his letters, they summoned Joaquim and made
known to him what was required. Then just before noon Felice came down
to the river and helped push them off.
“Don’t get nervous, Hal,” she called.
“Your letter to Ceara will explain everything.”
“Even that it’s not my fault that my uncle’s a secret service man,
hunting for your brother?” Hal laughed.
“Of course,” she said, giggling merrily. “Your uncle’s not going to hunt
for Rene after you get back to _Manaos_, is he?”
“Not if I can see Rene first and Unk next. Those two will compromise and
I don’t mean maybe.”
“Indeed they will.” She waved a dainty handkerchief toward the departing
canoe and smiled sweetly. “Be sure that Rene gets the other letter, Hal!
I do hope he’s there all right. He’s got to know we’ve struck gold at
last. And because of you.”
“Don’t thank me, Lady Felice. It was a mere accident. Really, Goncalves
ought to get the credit for that.”
She shook her head, trying to look severe at Hal’s raillery, but in the
end she smiled and called a warning to the Indian to be careful of the
river. Then when the canoe glided swiftly out of sight of the
settlement, she called, “Adios, Hal! I’ll see you tonight.”
“Adios, yourself, Felice!” Hal called back. “And as for tonight, that
remains to be seen.”
The girl laughed in answer, and Hal listened to its sad, sweet echo
until the noise of the rapids deafened him.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE CORONEL GONCALVES
They turned off the _Pallida Mors_ and into a narrower stream. Small
cataracts sprayed down over rocky cliffs, sending a continuous foam over
the surface of the water. On the whole, it seemed to be not so rough,
and they glided along hour after hour under the beaming sun until Hal
began to tire.
Joaquim’s knowledge of the region was uncanny and Hal perceived, before
very long, that the Indian must have made many such trips back and forth
to Ceara’s camp. Also, he seemed to know just to the minute when they
would arrive at the lonely jungle spot.
It was middle afternoon when Hal helped Joaquim push the canoe well up
into the foliage overhanging the river bank. Then they clambered up, up
and, with the Indian in the lead, came to a narrow trail over which they
marched for a half hour.
“Do we walk as far as we ride?” Hal asked wearily.
Joaquim shook his head.
“Soon now,” he muttered. “Listen, Señor!”
A man’s voice cried out sharply and Joaquim answered him quickly. Hal
could see no one, but presently a rather wretched-looking young man in
tattered khaki emerged from between the trees. He glanced at the
newcomers suspiciously.
“He want know who come here,” the Indian interpreted. “He want know what
we have to show we come. I say letter from Señor Pemb.”
“Righto,” Hal said briskly, and took out his letters. The one addressed
to General Ceara he gave to the sentry and the other he returned to his
pocket.
The fellow looked at the address on the envelope, turned it every which
way, then glanced at Hal suspiciously again. Finally he spoke to the
Indian, talking for an interminable time. When he had finished Joaquim
passed on the news.
“The General Ceara he is not here, but the sentry say come, it will be
all right.”
“All right by me, Joaquim old boy. Where is Ceara—out to lunch?”
The Indian shrugged his shoulders and at a gesture from the sentry they
fell into a march. Hal, for some reason, felt not so comfortable about
having the fellow tramping at his back with a bayonet in position. But
as Joaquim seemed not to mind this military formality, he made the best
of it too.
After a five-minute tramp they came suddenly out on a broad plain.
Dotted about its outskirts were hundreds of small thatched huts. Men
roamed about, shaggy and unkempt in their wrinkled and tattered khaki.
Others lounged about on the ground before their huts and stared
curiously at the newcomers.
They passed at least a half-dozen sentries before their guard commanded
them to stop before a hut, much larger and more sumptuous looking than
the rest. Hal decided that this must be the headquarters of the famous
Ceara.
At a gesture from the guard, they were surrounded by reinforcements
while he stepped inside the hut, manifestly to announce their arrival.
Hours seemed to pass while they waited and Hal exchanged several
calamitous glances with Joaquim.
“Miss Felice is expecting us back before midnight,” he said to the
Indian once. “From the looks of things, we can’t be certain which
midnight.”
Hal had reached the stage when he was resting first on one foot and then
on the other, and neither one resting at all. The sentry at that
juncture came out and once more addressed the Indian who in turn
addressed his tall young charge.
“We go in,” he said. “We see Coronel Goncalves, not General Ceara. Ceara
he not here.”
“What?” Hal asked.
But it was too late. The sentry and a rear flank fairly carried them in
with occasional light proddings of their bayonets. A large,
low-ceilinged room loomed up before Hal’s bright blue eyes, as did the
many broken-down chairs circled around a rickety table.
Behind the table Goncalves was purring and twisting his little
moustache.
He smiled sardonically up to Hal’s vast height and straightening his
dapper little self in the chair placed his elbows upon the table.
“Ah, such a pleasure, Señor Hal!” he purred softly. “To whom do I owe it
on this my first audience as Coronel of the revolutionary forces?”
Hal sent down his most brilliant smile in return.
“You don’t owe it to me, Goncalves,” he said with an uproarious laugh.
“You owe it to Mr. Pemberton. I came to save him and his daughter the
fatigue of a journey.”
“I remember you were kind, Señor Hal.”
“Never mind all the apple-sauce, fellow. Joaquim and I are in a hurry.
My letter is for General Ceara.”
“Por Deus!” said Goncalves with a mournful face. “You are but too late,
Señor Hal. General Ceara has died with the fever.”
Hal looked straight down into the little man’s snapping eyes, and they
wavered before his own steady gaze. Goncalves was lying, he knew.
“I don’t believe anything of the kind, Goncalves,” Hal said with
startling frankness. “But, nevertheless, I can tell you what we want.
_Renan!_ His grandfather and sister are worried sick about him. Now
don’t lie about that, fellow—you can’t put anything over on me like
lies—I can read them in those soul reflectors of yours. And, man, they
don’t add to your charms any, believe me.” He laughed mockingly. “Now do
I hear where Renan is or not?”
“You shall see him, Señor. _Si._ In a moment, eh? Just I want to ask you
how is the fine old Señor Marcellus, eh? And the what-you-call stuck up
Felice—no? Ah, she hate me. But the Coronel Goncalves does not care,
Señor Hal. I get back. Si. While you and the Señor Renan are safe under
guard, some _Pallidas_ shall steal down upon the Pemberton granddaughter
and her grandfather—no? I shall make it so. Si. The _Pallidas_ they hate
the Pemberton for taking their settlement from them. They think the
family have evil spirits because the señorita’s father dig a mine, eh?
They want ver’ much to rid their tribe of evil spirits, these
_Pallidas_, and to kill the Pembertons they think will bring them luck.”
“You’re an idiot to even say such things,” Hal shouted. “Your mind must
be all cut up, isn’t it? Who ever gave you charge of a lot of normal men
anyway? An idiot bossing sane men. Well, let me tell you, Goncalves—you
lay a finger on that girl or her grandfather and your days are numbered.
They’re numbered anyway, as a matter of fact. Unk must be on your trail
good and plenty by now ... when you think you’re fooling a Yank like
Unk, you’ve got to go some!”
“Ah, Señor Hal. Such talk! But how will you know what the Coronel
Goncalves is doing when you are no more, eh? You won’t, Señor!” Suddenly
the little man’s face twisted in a maniacal smile. “I want that gold at
Pembertons’, _si_? I shall get it and no one shall be alive to know!
_Cada qual por si e Deus por todos!_” he added.
Joaquim touched Hal’s hand affectionately as the guards pushed him past
with their bayonets.
“He say ‘each for himself and God for us all,’ Señor. I thought you like
to know.”
“Sure, thanks, Joaquim,” Hal muttered breathlessly. “Looks as if we’re
going to be separated, huh. Well, over the river and so long, old top!”
“_Adios_, Señor Hal! _Adios!_”
Whatever became of Joaquim, Hal never knew. Suffice to say, he never
again saw the kind-hearted and faithful Indian.
CHAPTER XXXIII
RENAN!
The guards marched Hal to a hut not far from the river trail and with a
push thrust him into the gloomy interior. Suddenly he felt a hand reach
out and touch his shoulder.
“Keen, as I live!” cried a familiar voice.
Hal looked down, his eyes becoming accustomed to the dimness, and saw
the smiling face of Rene Carmichael.
“_Renan Carmichael Pemberton!_” he laughed and proffering his hand
gripped the other’s with a hearty pressure.
“Well, I hear you’ve got the dope all firsthand, eh, Keen?”
“And how!” Hal laughed. “But I don’t know which I like better—Rene or
Renan! I’ll change off to vary the monotony, huh? Just the same I’m darn
glad to see you—boy, how glad!”
“And you’re well and safe, eh, chappie? Heavens, but I was worried about
you. I suppose you thought that I didn’t care what happened to you, eh?”
“Never. I just didn’t know, that’s all.”
Renan pointed to two rickety stools. They sat down.
“Not knowing that it was a put-up job by that skunk Goncalves, I came
straight here to get Ceara to help me. That’s where I made my mistake,
for Goncalves was here and when he heard me mention your name to the
general, all was off. He accused me of being an informer to the Federals
and all that sort of thing. Ceara understood that I didn’t know
Rodriguez from Adam and he thought it was pretty rotten work for
Goncalves to do, but he couldn’t say too much. He was afraid of
Goncalves, that’s the long and short of it. That’s why he had to put me
in here—he _had_ to, or that little trouble maker would have gone all
over this camp saying the _General_ played me for a favorite—which he
did.”
“And here you’ve been ever since, huh?”
“Here I’ve been. But tell me about yourself?”
Hal told him briefly, yet missing no important detail, and summed it up
with his singular interview with the Coronel Goncalves.
“And here I am, Rene, too. By special permission of Col. Calves Liver
out there. You can be certain there are rats in his garret. He talked
like a madman.”
“Great Heavens, Keen! You don’t think he really intends to play the
_Pallidas_ onto my sister and grandfather, do you? Not that!”
“Rene, I wouldn’t tell you only that I think he means to do just that. I
tell you the bird isn’t right! He means to make short work of us, too.”
Renan clenched his hands together.
“I’ve got friends in this outfit—all these men trust me and like me.
They liked Ceara, too, but, like everyone else, they fear Goncalves like
poison. But maybe I can work something, Keen. Don’t get discouraged.”
“I’m not, only Calves Liver told me the glad news that Ceara died of
fever.”
“He lied,” Renan muttered darkly. “He’s had the poor man shot. He was
jealous of everybody. Now that he’s got Ceara out of the way, and
myself—he can rule. _Maybe._ We’ll see, Keen—we’ll see!”
“And what a mess for a couple of Americans to get into, huh? Excuse me
though, Rene, I forgot.”
“Don’t, Keen! I rather like being taken for an American. If I had to do
it all over again....”
“Yes?”
“Oh, I went into this more because I liked Ceara. It was fascinating and
Grandfather talked radically to me. I got to think we were abused, but
now I see differently—I have ever since I met you on the field that day.
I got to realize that we Civil War refugees are nothing but a lot of
soreheads and anything but a sporting lot. Our grandparents and
great-grandparents who are responsible for bringing us down to this
desolate corner of the world weren’t big enough to stay on in the South
and come up smiling like the rest. Oh, how I see it! We’ve been brought
up on bitterness and prejudice and our terrible poverty’s made us think
even worse things about this land of our adoption. But no more. If I
ever get out of here I’m going to the Brazilian Government and get down
on my knees for forgiveness. Goncalves has made me see what a pack of
fools we are. What does he care about political freedom or a square deal
for the jungle plantation owner? Not a darn thing. Goncalves is rooting
for Goncalves!”
“Rene, you’re simply great! My uncle would be tickled pink to hear that
kind of talk. I do believe you’d be given a full pardon by both
governments if you’d only tell who the munitions manufacturers are from
whom Ceara got his stuff.”
“I couldn’t tell you from Adam, Keen. That’s the work Goncalves did. He
used my name, that’s all. So I got the credit for it, eh? No, what I did
was to run up and down the jungle for recruits, that’s all. Now you’ve
heard it all.”
“Well, my story is that, if we get out of here, the most sensible thing
for you to do is to get that mine working and see that your kid sister
lives in a country where she’s going to be healthy. I never saw anybody
so sad—honest!”
“I know it—I know it, Hal. And I will! I’ll see that I do! Tonight!
We’ll get out of here somehow!”
And somehow they did!
CHAPTER XXXIV
A FEAR
Hal was witness to a miracle that midnight. It was one of those rare
occasions when a vast body of men are all inspired with one thought, one
motive at one time. And Renan, that friend of all men, achieved it.
It began in the early evening with the sentry guarding their hut. Renan
whispered to him what horrors the self-styled Coronel was planning for
the Pemberton family that evening and what extreme measures would have
to be taken to prevent death and destruction.
Toward mid-evening, after Coronel Goncalves left the camp with a picked
guard, word had gone around to every man. By midnight they were all
assembled to carry out a common purpose, Hal and Renan in the lead.
A half hour later a line of dark canoes glided silently and swiftly
through the water. Overhead, the stars gleamed and from the surrounding
jungle strange noises came and went. Now and again the men muttered
softly, but on the whole there was a deep silence.
After an interminable time they reached the _Pallida Mors_ and Hal heard
Renan sigh with relief.
“Not so long now,” he said gravely. “If only....”
“Hope for the best, Rene,” Hal said comfortingly.
But the best was not pleasant, for when they sailed through the dawn and
into the settlement, there was naught but charred bits of thatched huts
to tell the tale. Overhead, the sky was black with vultures.
Renan sickened at the sight, but Hal kept up and searched every inch of
the place. The Indian servants had expired, each with a fancy poisoned
arrow in his heart. But of Felice and her grandfather there was not a
sign.
“We’re going up to pay the _Pallidas_ a visit, Rene,” Hal said darkly.
“And unless they cut short their ceremonies we ought to be on time.”
“You may be right about it, Hal,” Renan said anxiously. “I know they’re
hours sometimes with those ceremonies for driving out the evil spirits.
Perhaps poor Felice and Grandfather....”
“Might be the cause of future happiness,” Hal said, trying to be as
cheerful as he could. “Sometimes things _do_ happen for the best, even
when they look to be their worst.”
“These _Pallida_ Indians are the worst of their kind, Hal,” Renan
reminded him. “Their superstitions are limitless.”
“I know. I’ve given quite a lot of thought to this so-called _Phantom of
Death River_.”
“The jaguar in whom my father’s supposed to have been reincarnated?”
“Yes,” Hal answered thoughtfully. “They were pretty tricky thinking that
up. But do you know what, Rene? I think that they made it up to keep
people from getting too snoopy about that poor wretch in the hut.”
“The demented native?”
“Native?” Hal returned. “Listen, Rene—I heard that supposed native cry
right near me and it didn’t sound any more native than you do. That
wretch had the cry of a white man, not a native.”
“_Hal!_”
“Yes. Believe it or not. They even tried to make me believe those cries
were from the jaguar, but I know what I heard. It was a white man’s
cry.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?”
“Because I couldn’t quite bring myself to thinking that such a horrible
thought could be true. Besides, Felice assured me that it was a native
and consequently none of the white man’s concern. But somehow yesterday
and today—especially after I talked with Calves Liver this afternoon, I
figured it out. It’s been going on for ten years, hasn’t it, Rene?”
“Yes, as far as we know. That’s about the time we got wind of the
story.”
“And, Rene, I hope it’s just an hallucination, but your father ... he’s
been gone ten years....”
“Great Heavens, Hal! Why ... it couldn’t be ... yet ... it’s just ten
years!”
CHAPTER XXXV
A PHANTOM OF HOPE
The massacre of the _Pallidas_ will come down in history, for a massacre
it was. Renan and Hal leading the rebel volunteers were met that morning
with a rain of poisoned arrows issuing from every conceivable bit of
foliage on the banks of the settlement. War cries trembled in the air,
shrieks of women and children.
Hal was stunned by it for a moment, but an arrow skimming off his tanned
arm brought him to action. He leaped out of the canoe with Renan,
pulling back the trigger of his gun with every step they took up the
bank. Behind them came the rebels, shouting as they ran forward.
It was the work of minutes, but Hal lived a lifetime and he could see by
Renan’s haggard face that he did also. And when the smoke cleared away
they ran for the deserted _maloka_, deserted, save for Felice and her
grandfather, who had been tied to the pillars, preparatory to making the
supreme sacrifice for their companionship with the evil spirits.
The white men had come none too soon, she told them when she had
regained her composure. And in a few words she explained how the
_Pallidas_ had descended upon her and her grandfather and carried them
off to their settlement. Goncalves had been with them, but what became
of him she did not know.
Hal led the men on the next inspection, an inspection which he
instinctively feared the results of. But Renan urged him on, asking him
to go first and see if their worst fears were well-founded.
Unfortunately, they were.
No sound greeted Hal as he walked ahead of the men. Not even a whisper
greeted him as he stepped into the gloom of the hut. All was still as
the tomb and a tomb it was indeed! For the withered remnants of a white
man lay silent in death.
Hal brought out with him a notebook, yellowed with age and soiled. Every
page of it was written on, some of the writing rational and legible, and
other pages scribbled on in moments of frenzy and despair. Taken as a
whole, it depicted a man tortured by constant confinement and lost hope.
“For me, Hal?” Renan asked as Hal handed it to him. He took it, with
white face and trembling hands.
“It’s addressed to you, Rene. Good heavens, I’d rather spare you....”
Renan bent his head and read with misty eyes. Hal had glanced over the
first few heartbreaking pages when he picked it up in the hut. He could
even memorize a few of the lines, so vividly had they stood out before
his eyes.
“They captured me that morning,” it read, “and I guess it was because
they were superstitious about the lode. Also because it was on their
former settlement.... They were getting ready to offer me as a sacrifice
to clear out the evil spirits, when I happened to think that they were
superstitious about killing a demented man.... I saved myself but
condemned myself to eternal death and suffering. They locked me up and
here I’ve been except for occasional nights when I managed to get as far
as the door and cry for help ... but no one came, except for that
red-headed young man. They had bound and gagged me while he was here.
That is why he didn’t understand me when I cried ... hope went then ...
my son Rene, my girl Felice, my father ... oh, that we had never come to
this wretched country.... I’ve feigned madness so long, I’m going mad
now.... I’m gone....”
The pathos of that last line dwelt in Hal’s memory. He knew he’d never
forget it. And worse, he could never banish from his mind the picture of
despair and lost hope which Marcellus Pemberton, Junior, bore even unto
death.
CHAPTER XXXVI
ADIOS!
Two weeks later, Hal was sitting with his uncle, under the cooling shade
of a palm tree. It was early afternoon and most of _Manaos_ was under
cover for the siesta period. A light breeze blew and though it was a
warm day they felt not uncomfortable.
Hal had just come in on one of the up-river boats that morning. He had
shaved, gotten a hair cut, and blossomed forth with his relative in an
immaculate suit of flannels. A pair of sport shoes covered his sturdy
feet and for the first time in a month he felt clean and utterly at
peace with all the world.
“This has been the first chance we’ve had to talk, Hal, do you realize
that?” Denis Keen reminded him.
“I’ve been too busy taking off my jungle coat,” Hal laughed. “But what
do you want to know that I didn’t write you?”
“Well, for one thing, I’m interested to know what that poor devil
Pemberton died of. You just wrote that he was dead when you found him.”
“And that’s all I can tell you, Unk,” Hal said earnestly. “We couldn’t
find a mark or scratch on him anywhere, so I guess a doctor would say it
was from natural causes. I’d call it a broken heart.”
“No doubt, poor fellow. It’s the saddest thing I ever heard of. Still,
those benighted _Pallidas_ didn’t know any better. You say they were
almost wiped out?”
“Sure, we had to. They rained poisoned arrows on us like as if it was
snowing. Some of the older warriors and the women and the children
escaped into the jungle. They won’t be seen for many a year, believe me.
But didn’t those rebel boys work! Gosh, they were aces high, Renan
included.”
“I’m glad for their sakes. Your friend Rene’s, too. Today’s paper said
they were all to be fully pardoned by the government.”
“And by that same token your case is knocked in the head, huh, Unk?”
“Of course. The _Cause_ just simply isn’t any more. Thanks to Renan.
He’s quite a hero to Brazil, I guess.”
“He’d be an asset to any country, Unk. The U. S. will be proud to have
him back. Felice, also.”
“You mean especially Felice, eh?”
“Aw now, Unk, don’t rub it in. Old Marcellus isn’t to be left out
either. He’s like a kid going away to the country for the first time.”
Denis Keen puffed leisurely on his cigarette.
“We’ll have quite a full house on the boat then, eh?”
“I’ll say we will.”
“And despite the tragedies, there’ll be a lot living happily ever
after.”
“You tell ’em, Unk.”
“The mists have cleared away and even the worst of your experiences will
be softened by the time you get home. Time is something to be thankful
for, Hal. At least you have found out everything you wanted to find out,
eh? All except Goncalves. It is a mystery where he ever disappeared to.”
Hal shook back a lock of hair and smiled.
“Not a mystery to me, Unk. I wouldn’t be the least surprised to find out
that Señor Goncalves turns out to be the Phantom of Death River!”
THE END
HAL KEEN MYSTERY STORIES
By HUGH LLOYD
Boys! Meet Hal Keen, that lanky, nonchalant, red-headed youth whose
guiding star is the star that points to adventure, excitement and
mystery. Follow him in his hunts for clues and criminals. There are
plenty of thrills and shivers in these stories to keep you on your toes.
THE SMUGGLER’S SECRET
Hal Keen sets out to get to the bottom of a mystery that threatens the
safety of a whole community.
THE MYSTERIOUS ARAB
Mystery, excitement, murder in a scientist’s camp in the jungles of
Africa, where hate, revenge, and suspicion lead to tragedy.
THE HERMIT OF GORDON’S CREEK
The disappearance of two airmail pilots leads to a mystery that centers
about an abandoned mine and a strange old man.
KIDNAPPED IN THE JUNGLE
A hint of buried treasure in the ruins of an old French mission leads
Hal deep into the Central American jungle.
THE COPPERHEAD TRAIL MYSTERY
Baffling and blood-curdling events center about the ranch where Hal Keen
and his friends had gone in search of gold.
THE LONESOME SWAMP MYSTERY
The lonely and mysterious swamp gave up its secret only after a series
of terrifying events taxed Hal’s courage and ability.
THE CLUE AT SKELETON ROCKS
In this new thriller Hal Keen finds mystery and adventure in and about a
lonely lighthouse on Skeleton Rocks, off the Maine coast.
THE DOOM OF STARK HOUSE
Mystery and terror in an old house in the wilderness above Quebec where
Hal Keen is the guest of a strange family.
_The_ AIR COMBAT STORIES _for_ BOYS
By THOMSON BURTIS
_Author of_
The Rex Lee Stories
Zooming into the war scene comes this new hero of the air, Lieutenant
Rudford Riley, who leads The Phantom Five, a group of airmen detailed
for special duty in the Royal Flying Corps during the early days of the
war when every take-off was an impudent challenge to death. The record
of their mad exploits over the front makes breathless reading, and their
adventures have the ring of truth in them for the author-flyer takes
them from his own rich experience as a war-time aviator.
DAREDEVILS OF THE AIR
Recounts Lieutenant Riley’s adventures as leader of The Phantom Five
against the enemy in the air.
FOUR ACES
As commanding officer of Special Flight A, Rud Riley and Jerry Lacey,
the Manhattan Madman, are thrown into the thickest and hottest of the
air fighting.
WING FOR WING
Continues the record of the daredevil young airman’s adventures as one
of the leading aces in the war.
FLYING BLACK BIRDS
Stormy Lake leads a squadron of picked daredevils called the Black Birds
against the famous German Red Devils led by Von Baer.
ADVENTURES _in the_ UNKNOWN
By CARL H. CLAUDY
Weird! Mysterious! Incredible! Astounding!
Leap back a million years into the dark prehistoric ages. Speed through
the dangers of outer space beyond the stratosphere at a thousand miles a
minute. Meet the grotesque machine men of Mars. Break into the bounds of
the Fourth Dimension. You will meet in these thrilling, fascinating
stories many incredible beings and astounding sights that will stagger
your imagination.
THE MYSTERY MEN OF MARS
Seventy million miles from home! Three men—a daring scientist and two
adventurous boys—take off from the earth in a steel and aluminum sphere
that sails through space at 20 miles a second. On the planet Mars they
face destruction at the hands of beings who resemble mechanical bugs
more than men!
A THOUSAND YEARS A MINUTE
In the world of a million years ago—whence they have been propelled by
an old professor’s invention—Alan and Ted find themselves pitted against
the dinosaurs, mammoths and savage ape men of a lost world.
THE LAND OF NO SHADOW
Through a violet coil frame in Professor Arronson’s laboratory Ted and
Alan leap into the gray and terrifying land of the Fourth Dimension.
There they are shadowed by the ghostly forms of menacing, bodiless
shapes!
SKIPPY DARE MYSTERY STORIES
By HUGH LLOYD
_Author of the_
Hal Keen Mystery Stories
Skippy is a young “detective” who keeps his head when trouble starts. He
learns the trickery of crooked men on his father’s river barge. His
experience stands him in good stead when he becomes an office boy in a
detective agency and proves an invaluable aide to Conne, the great
detective.... Fearless, fast thinking Skippy is a hero well worth
knowing!
AMONG THE RIVER PIRATES
Skippy and his best pal—his father—struggle desperately to escape the
evil net of the river pirates who ply their illicit traffic on the river
that is the only home Skippy has ever known.
PRISONERS IN DEVIL’S BOG
Working in a detective agency, Skippy is sent on his first big “case”.
The story of how he brings a criminal to justice, escapes from a house
of horrors and wins the praise of the great Conne, makes breathless
reading.
HELD FOR RANSOM
Kidnapped, and in the hands of a ruthless gang of crooks, Skippy and the
son of a millionaire almost give up hope. A thrilling story with tense
drama in every chapter.
WESTERN STORIES FOR BOYS
By JAMES CODY FERRIS
Each Volume Complete in Itself.
Thrilling tales of the great west, told primarily for boys but which
will be read by all who love mystery, rapid action, and adventures in
the great open spaces.
The Manly boys, Roy and Teddy, are the sons of an old ranchman, the
owner of many thousands of heads of cattle. The lads know how to ride,
how to shoot, and how to take care of themselves under any and all
circumstances.
The cowboys of the X Bar X Ranch are real cowboys, on the job when
required, but full of fun and daring—a bunch any reader will be
delighted to know.
THE X BAR X BOYS ON THE RANCH
THE X BAR X BOYS IN THUNDER CANYON
THE X BAR X BOYS ON WHIRLPOOL RIVER
THE X BAR X BOYS ON BIG BISON TRAIL
THE X BAR X BOYS AT THE ROUND-UP
THE X BAR X BOYS AT NUGGET CAMP
THE X BAR X BOYS AT RUSTLER’S GAP
THE X BAR X BOYS AT GRIZZLY PASS
THE X BAR X BOYS LOST IN THE ROCKIES
THE X BAR X BOYS RIDING FOR LIFE
THE X BAR X BOYS IN SMOKY VALLEY
THE X BAR X BOYS AT COPPERHEAD GULCH
THE X BAR X BOYS BRANDING THE WILD HERD
TED SCOTT FLYING STORIES
By FRANKLIN W. DIXON
Illustrated. Each Volume Complete in Itself.
No subject has so thoroughly caught the imagination of young America as
aviation. This series has been inspired by recent daring feats of the
air, and is dedicated to Lindbergh, Byrd, Chamberlin and other heroes of
the skies.
OVER THE OCEAN TO PARIS;
_or, Ted Scott’s Daring Long Distance Flight_.
RESCUED IN THE CLOUDS;
_or, Ted Scott, Hero of the Air_.
OVER THE ROCKIES WITH THE AIR MAIL;
_or, Ted Scott Lost in the Wilderness_.
FIRST STOP HONOLULU;
_or, Ted Scott Over the Pacific_.
THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST FLYERS;
_or, Ted Scott Over the West Indies_.
SOUTH OF THE RIO GRANDE;
_or, Ted Scott On a Secret Mission_.
ACROSS THE PACIFIC;
_or, Ted Scott’s Hop to Australia_.
THE LONE EAGLE OF THE BORDER;
_or, Ted Scott and the Diamond Smugglers_.
FLYING AGAINST TIME;
_or, Breaking the Ocean to Ocean Record_.
OVER THE JUNGLE TRAILS;
_or, Ted Scott and the Missing Explorers_.
LOST AT THE SOUTH POLE;
_or, Ted Scott in Blizzard Land_.
THROUGH THE AIR TO ALASKA;
_or, Ted Scott’s Search in Nugget Valley_.
FLYING TO THE RESCUE;
_or, Ted Scott and the Big Dirigible_.
DANGER TRAILS OF THE SKY;
_or, Ted Scott’s Great Mountain Climb_.
FOLLOWING THE SUN SHADOW;
_or, Ted Scott and the Great Eclipse_.
BATTLING THE WIND;
_or, Ted Scott Flying Around Cape Horn_.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK
Transcriber’s Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public
domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.
--Relocated the illustrations (printed on unnumbered pages) to the
corresponding paragraph in the text.
--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
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