“I see,” Nicky said. “They let the snake strike till the old meat is full of poison and then they leave it in these jars for awhile till the poison gets all through the meat and it gets pretty terrible. But then what?”
He saw very quickly. The youth brought some of the arrows and dipped the thorn points, repeatedly, then set them aside to dry.
“He didn’t want you to shoot with a poisoned arrow,” Tom explained. “The least nick in your skin with one of them might end in fearful agony.”
“You’re right,” said Nicky soberly, and nodded with a smile of real gratitude to his Indian friend. The youth nodded briefly and walked away. The tribe was pleasant and fed the youths plentifully with such food as they had, all cooked in the one big pot, and renewed by dropping in whatever the day’s hunting brought home. But friendliness was absent.
Nicky wondered why they were kept there, and finally he learned.
The guide who had brought them to the village came to their hut with another, a taller, very old and very stern looking fellow. He made signs to Tom, pointing to his pocket and then toward the small fire in a little ovenlike place in a corner.
“Know what he’s trying to tell you?” Cliff said. “He wants you to show that lighter of Bill’s. He must have seen us use it in the woods, when we lit the fire the first night.”
That, clearly, was what he wanted for when Tom drew out the lighter and made it work, the old Indian looked on with amazement. Tom made a half gesture to hand it to him but he drew back and Cliff whispered hurriedly:
“Don’t let them get your ‘magic’—that must be what they think it is. Keep it in your pocket and use it as seldom as you can. The gasoline may be dried out or the flint worn, and then it won’t work.”
“That’s so. I’ll save it all I can.” Tom agreed and put back the small mechanical apparatus with which man has improved on the old custom of making fire by use of flint and steel: now the steel is a wheel and by whisking it sharply against a prepared bit of flint, a spark is made to fall on a wick soaked with gasoline, which ignites.
Soon after the lighter was demonstrated, the Indians beckoned to the youths, and by signs bade them follow. Half a dozen young men had packs slung on their backs. Led by the aged Indian, and with the three white youths in the line, they started off into a different jungle trail that wound upward steadily, and got more difficult and hotter and more unpleasant every hour.
“Where do you suppose they are taking us?” Nicky wondered.
Tom caught up to their guide and in pantomime tried to make him see that they wanted to know where they were going. He pointed forward, then to himself, then to the trail, and then forward again. The man seemed to understand.
With a great sweep of his arm he described a circle in the air. Then the same circle was made but pointing toward the ground, part of the imaginary line being drawn across the trail.
Then he pointed forward and nodded: he pointed backward and shook his head.
“Do you remember what my father said about the charmed circle—the circle the Chucunaque Indians have established?” Cliff asked.
“Yes,” Tom agreed. “Where few white men go.”
“More than that,” Nicky added. “According to the gestures of our brother, who ought to be initiated into the Mystery Boys order and taught some signs that can be understood—according to him, the way leads in but the way doesn’t lead out again!”
CHAPTER XXII
IN THE CLOSED CIRCLE
Three days were spent on that trail: at times the chums felt as though the humid, close air would overcome them, the exertion would overwhelm their endurance.
Nevertheless they kept on stubbornly. The Indians seemed not to mind any amount of exertion, and it was agreed by the white comrades that they would not show themselves weaker. Truly they were not trained to such a life, yet they were determined to stand up—and they did. Grit carried them along when weary muscles rebelled.
At last they came into a cleared spot in the foothills. In it was a sizeable village, the capital city, as one might say, of the tribe.
“I’ll be mighty grateful for a hut and a long rest,” Nicky panted, walking resolutely, with shoulders back, into the clearing.
“And so will I,” agreed Tom.
“Here too,” Cliff echoed the sentiment.
They were led across the cleared space. Around it, without any particular order, huts were erected. They were built of an open fashion, with stakes at the corners, and at intervals, to support the roofs of thatch, woven together quite tightly and sloped to shed water.
Toward one of these the chums were ushered.
“Do you see what I see?” whispered Cliff, his observant eyes taking in a squatted figure in the shade of a hut across the quadrangle.
His friends looked that way. “It’s a white man,” Nicky admitted. “But what makes you so excited about him?”
“Well,” said Cliff, “we know that Henry and that Mort Beecher got started ahead of us. I wouldn’t be surprised——”
At the instant that he paused the white man looked up. He turned his head and called to another figure resting in a hammock.
“Wake up, Henry!” he cried, in a fat, hoarse voice. “Wake up. Seems like we got visitors, seems like!”
He stood up and the chums saw a portly, very short body on two brief pillars of legs, with a round, bullet head, twinkling eyes and a smiling mouth, over which an extremely red nose spoke of the many nights he had spent with Jack in Porto Bello, for there was no doubt that the man was Mort Beecher.
While the chums paused, astonished to a degree, and hardly knowing what action to take, with this sudden discovery, Henry Morgan rolled out of the hammock and came to the side of the hut. He screened his sleepy eyes from the sun and then uttered a word under his breath.
“Henry Morgan, and no mistake!” Nicky exclaimed. In sudden anger, recalling the trick that had been played on them, he started forward; but Tom restrained him with a hand on his arm. Nicky stopped, and after an instant to collect himself he felt that Tom’s decision for silence was wise.
“As I live and breathe!” cried Henry Morgan. “Who’d ever expect to see you lads here? Hello!”
“Hello, yourself!” answered Tom, advancing. He met the outstretched hand. He grasped its perspiring breadth and gave it a good grip.
Tom saw at once that Henry Morgan, after his first surprise, had decided on some course of action: Tom proposed to hold himself alert, but not to show anger or aversion until he learned the other fellow’s plans.
“How in the world did you ever get here?” demanded Henry. “Here—meet the man I used to talk about so much—Mort Beecher. A finer pal never lived. Shake, Mort. Shake hands with Tom, and Nicky, and Cliff. Now, we’re all pals together! But how did you get here!”
“The Indians brought us, as you saw, just now,” Tom answered. “How did you get here so much ahead of us?”
He put a good deal of meaning into his look and Henry looked away for a moment: then he faced them again, grinning and speaking in the husky voice they remembered all too well.
“When I left you and Bill—but the other lads have told you how I came down the river from the village——”
“Yes,” Tom responded, “and they told us what you said—that we were sick and couldn’t get away and there was no use for them to try to follow us or to rescue us.”
“I did tell them that. Yes, I did,” Henry said, affably. Nicky thought, “what a villain he is!” but he kept still.
“I told them that. ’Cause why? ’Cause I was anxious to get them to help me find Mort Beecher and not to waste any time. That was good sense. ’Cause why? There wasn’t any time to be lost. If Toosa knew anything about the Golden Sun—and that was the little girl you was looking for!——”
“Wasn’t it a mine, instead?” interrupted Nicky.
“Mine nothing! Where did you get that fol-de-rol? No. ’Twas the little girl, and if what he said was right—that the man I wanted was in Porto Bello—the cruiser could go and find him and hurry down and rescue the girl without wasting time to wait. I knew Toosa would see that you got out all right. I had told him to. I had given him money to look out for you!”
“Oh, yes, thought the chums, Henry Morgan did that sort of thing!”
“And then, when you boys wouldn’t come on, what was I to do? I knew there was no time to waste. ’Cause why? ’Cause Mort might be took out of Porto Bello and not ever be found again—or not for a good while. And there was a innocent little golden-haired girl and her life at stake amongst the Indians.”
His face was so earnest and his tones were so sincere that if they had not seen his duplicity already the chums might have believed him. But, with all he had done, they simply stood still and listened.
Henry, however—and Mort, too—seemed to think that the story was very convincing.
“And good it was that he didn’t waste a minute,” Mort broke in. “He has your interests at heart, has Henry. Seems like no fellow ever was as fine as Henry, seems like. You can kick me for a football if that ain’t so. He knew I was likely to be took from Porto Bello, so he hurried there with a sloop and got me and we hurried here.”
“’Cause why? ’Cause we knowed the little girl’s life was in danger. So we got it fixed up that we was doctors, so we could get into the country. That’s so that the Indians would trust us.”
“Yes,” said Nicky. “And of course you told the San Blas Indians——”
He saw Tom touching his ear, in a Mystery Boys sign of warning, and he changed the statement. “You told the San Blas Indians the same thing!”
“I did.” Henry grinned at them. “And I told them more, as you may have heard. I told them that when our friends came along, to pass them right along and help them to follow us.”
Nicky could not contain his disgust any longer. All this was a tissue of falsehood and he hated such talk.
“You told them that they must forbid us to stay near them—said we were evil doctors and if we came we would do harm. And what’s more, you said that if the people you doctored didn’t get well, it was because we were working harm on them!——”
Nicky stopped for breath and Henry, after a little start, turned to Mort Beecher and held out his hands, palms up.
“Ain’t that Indians for you?” he pleaded for agreement. “Ain’t that Indians? They’ll twist and alter anything you say. ’Cause why? ’Cause they want to keep everybody out of this country. They don’t want the dear little golden-haired girl rescued. Not they. They want her to stay here and be a priestess and cure them and dance in their festivals and bring them good luck. And we——”
“And we want to save her—and here we are, risking life and limb and trying to help, and you go and get mad.” Mort Beecher drew his fat jowls into a somber, dejected appearance. “Seems like there ain’t any gratitude in the world, seems like.”
“Oh, all right—the Indians might have mixed up and twisted what you said,” Tom agreed. “Nicky isn’t really mad at you—he only felt that you ought to have brought us all along.”
“And for what?” demanded Mort Beecher. “For all of you to be killed? Wasn’t it bad enough for us to be done that to? Wasn’t two lives enough to risk—but where is the rest of your party?”
Then Cliff did demand silence. He fell back into an easy position with one leg made shorter than the other, as though he were “at ease,” and clasped both hands hanging loosely before him. That was the Mystery Boys’ signal, “Do not speak!” Nicky saw it and Tom nodded.
“Oh,” answered Cliff, with assumed lack of interest, “they’re where they can do more good than here——”
“I hope so. Seems like I never hoped anything so much, seems like,” Mort declared. “That’s so.”
“’Cause why?” Henry declaimed. “’Cause we’re in the sacred circle of the Chucunaque Indians—and who-so gets in may never get out. And yet we do all that for you. Now, tell us how you got here?”
“The Indians brought us, I tell you,” Tom answered.
“But, for why?”
“To see their chief.”
“Well, that’s something. It’s more than we are able to do.” Henry turned to Mort for sanction and Mort nodded.
“Seems like he won’t see us, seems like,” he acknowledged.
“Have you seen anything of my sister—had any clues?” demanded Tom.
“No,” said Mort.
“Nor can’t get any,” said Henry. “’Cause the chief won’t see us.”
“We don’t understand his language, what little he uses,” Mort added.
“And neither will you!” Henry stated flatly.
The Indian who was conducting them beckoned curtly. “Well, we haven’t gotten anywhere,” Mort said. “So, go ahead to your hut and rest. We can talk later.”
The Indian conducted the chums to another hut. At the time they wondered why the five white people were not put together. However, the reason was soon to be discovered.
They made the best of things. Their movements were not restricted any more than in the smaller village. The same sort of general food-pots were in evidence, into which everything that was to be cooked was dropped, the resulting stew being dished out with calabashes as it was required.
There were a number of Albinos, or light-faced, light-haired, pale-eyed people, among the Indians, and no one seemed to have much use for them. They kept a good deal to themselves.
Hammocks were provided for sleeping and rest, and several women brought food at intervals. For the balance of that day the chums were left alone. But when they tried to go over to talk further with Henry and later, when Mort came to see them, Indians firmly intervened and refused to let the two parties communicate.
“Now why is that, do you suppose?” Cliff asked.
But his chums could not furnish a reason.
That night, well after dark, great activity was to be observed in the village; mostly it centered about the chief’s large hut, a sort of place of assembly for the people. Heavy skins were hung around part of it and, from where their hut was situated, the chums could not see what was going on; but people were running about with torches, and some were carrying bundles of torch material into the enclosure.
Finally an Indian, carrying a torch, appeared and beckoned for the boys to follow.
“Now we’re in for something,” Nicky observed. “I’m glad of it. I get tired of waiting. Action for mine!”
They approached the large hut.
Suddenly Tom stopped as though shot, and gripped Nicky’s arm with a pressure that made the other wince.
Cliff, also, stopped as though an electric shock made him jump.
High and clear, from the hut, came a shrill voice, crying, in English:
“Hurry up, then! I’ll be so glad to hear somebody talk English I won’t know what to do!”
CHAPTER XXIII
MAGIC AGAINST MAGIC
“Go slow!” Cliff urged, detaining Tom before the latter could make an impetuous rush toward the large hut. “If your sister is in there, be sure you won’t spoil everything by telling her—before you do tell her.”
Tom loitered. For once Nicky saw eye to eye with Cliff, and realized that hasty action might endanger them all. He added his plea to Cliff’s and Tom, finally, agreed.
“Yes,” he said, “we are in the Chucunaque circle. We don’t know what they may be planning to do to us. We don’t trust Henry or Mort and we can’t count on them. The main thing is to rescue Margery, for I am sure she is in that hut; but we can do more, maybe, by going slow.”
They took up their pace again, following the Indian. Just ahead of them Henry Morgan and Mort Beecher were being led in.
When the chums entered the hut they saw that an Indian somewhat more powerful and stalwart than the others, for the Chucunaque’s were not a large type, sat in a hammock in the center of the hut. Close to him, squatting on the ground, were a dozen men, elderly, solemn, dignified: the youths judged them to be councillors, as they were. Off at one side sat two other men, surrounded by the now familiar implements of the doctors, or medicine men, who both worked spells and tried, by their witcheries, to cure disease: their small success was attested by the prevalence of sickness and diseased skins among their tribesmen.
But the point to which the youths’ eyes focused, and on which every bit of their attention concentrated was that where a girl sat—the only female figure in the hut; she was fairly tall, a little less than five feet and five inches, they guessed as she sat. Her clothing was of the same sort as that of the Indian women outside; a ragged, but clean waist of European or American style was the only feature of difference, and that was so faded and worn that it hardly looked like anything. Beside that a short petticoat of dull colored cloth completed the visible clothing: her head was bare, and so were her brown, dusky limbs, and her feet.
But she was an American, not an Indian! And the crown of long, bright golden hair, glittering and glistening in the wavering torch-light was all the proof that the three comrades needed to identify her.
Tom could hardly repress a cry. He held his lips tight shut. Nicky, clutching his arm, felt the muscles stiffen, and gave his biceps a reassuring, excited squeeze. Cliff, noting everything, saw that Tom had regained his control and would be careful not to do anything that could endanger their plans.
Tom saw Henry and Mort draw closer together and whisper: they, too, realized who the girl was, in spite of her dark skin and her expressionless face. She had been long enough among the impassive Indians to acquire their facial stillness. When she spoke, her voice was high and excited, like that of a girl of ten, and she talked in the same way that a child would, using simple words, instead of using the manners and conversation of a miss of sixteen. When the Indians took her, Tom mused, she stopped growing up with no one to talk to in her native language.
Henry and Mort, still whispering, were led to a point to the right of the hammock, a little in front of the medicine men. Tom, Cliff and Nicky were stationed at the other side, before the councillors. It was easy to see that they were considered as separate and not friendly, for some reason.
The girl could hardly wait until the ceremony of placing the white people was finished: then she said, eagerly:
“Hello, white men—and you, too, boys. I didn’t know you were here. My! It’s good to see so many people. I’m tired of Indians. They brought me from another village. I have to listen to you and tell them what you say. Then I will tell you what they say. How did you come here? Will you take me away? Don’t tell them. Don’t let them know. But will you take me away?”
“You bet!” cried Tom, forgetting himself for an instant: then he became silent again. But the girl, without changing her expression, nodded.
“I like you,” she said. “I didn’t know boys could get in here—or men either.”
“We’re not boys,” challenged Nicky. “We’re young fellows!”
Evidently the chief was impatient, for he could not understand what was being said. He spoke gruffly, one word. The girl turned and made some gestures, also speaking several strange words. Then she turned back toward Tom, and from then on she seemed, for some odd reason, to ignore Henry and Mort, almost—her whole mind seemed to be centered on Tom, and she studied him and appeared to be wondering about him and he, in turn, could not take his eyes off her face.
“The chief doesn’t like us to talk,” she explained. “But I’m glad you came. Will you take me away? Honest—cross-your-heart?”
Tom made the gesture, Nicky and Cliff following suit. Henry and Mort bent glowering looks on them and shook their heads at them vigorously.
For once, forgetting his manners, Nicky grinned back impudently.
“Listen,” said the girl. “The chief thinks the older men are big doctors and he thinks you boys—young fellows!——” and she laughed at them and clapped her hands like a teasing child of ten, “are bad doctors. He is going to make you show him which is strongest—magic, you know. So if you b—young men can do big magic, don’t waste any time. These Indians are cruel. Don’t joke with them.”
Tom nodded, keeping from his face the qualms of unease that clutched at his heart. What would the test be? How could they meet it? When they were so close to recovering the sister he loved, must strange customs interfere? Nicky and Cliff were perturbed, too, but they kept their faces as impassive as they could. The Indians were not going to win! Cliff regretted that he had left the rifle in the hut across the clearing but he hoped they would not need it. However, he made a secret plan to get out and secure it if things began to look black.
One of the councillors stood up and spoke briefly: the girl listened and then turned to the white parties and translated.
“They say word has come to them that great doctors wished to come into their country to heal their people,” she began.
“How could word come—there isn’t any newspaper or telegraph or telephone,” cried Nicky, incredulously. The girl merely nodded toward the medicine men as though they had secured the message in some way, and continued her translation.
“They say they wish to see the great doctors heal their tribe and so they let them come.”
She turned again to listen, and once more she translated.
“They say that you bo—young men—may be evil doctors. They say the first doctors told the San Blas Indians evil doctors would follow——” Nicky glared at Henry and Henry looked uncomfortable.
“Now they await your answers,” she said, turning first to Henry.
Henry gave out a string of pleading to establish the fact that he and Mort were the good doctors but that if their medicines had no power it was because of some evil influence. He did not quite dare to denounce the boys. Margery, as Tom already called her in his thoughts, did her duty in translating, and then she turned toward Tom, and waited.
Tom glanced swiftly toward Nicky and Cliff. He wanted to be sure they had no message to guide him. They looked anxious and earnest, but they had not thought out any answer. Tom, bending his head on his hands, tried to think what reply would show that they were not evil doctors, for it would not help much to declare it and stop: the Indians would ask proof, and he could not think of any way to prove his claim. The chief, his councillors and the medicine men waited without movement. They were used to tedious conferences. The girl watched without expression.
Think as hard as he would, Tom could find nothing to say.
“We are only three young fellows who got lost in the jungle,” he said, finally, a pleading look in his face as he confronted the sister he dared not name. “The Indians brought us here. We don’t know why!”
She translated by gestures and a few words. The chief looked at the councillors and they in turn consulted the medicine men. Finally one of the medicine men stood up and addressed the chief. After he had finished the chief spoke to the girl and she, in her turn, translated.
“The first man says the doctors told the San Blas Indians they healed by magic and the chief wishes to see some of their magic. But he says that the medicine men say the younger ones are magic doctors too and he had them brought here because one of them showed his magic in the woods.”
Henry stared toward the three chums and then, putting back his head, he laughed: Mort, in his puffy, chuckly voice, joined him.
“That’s a good one!” Henry said. “Tell the chief he can hit me for a punchin’ bag if they know any magic. They’re just kids.”
Margery frowned but as the chief questioned she had to translate. But it was easy to see that her sympathy was with the younger fellows.
“The chief says,” she told them all finally, “he will see which one has magic, and if you both have magic he will see whose magic is the most powerful.”
Suddenly Tom elevated his hand to caress his ear and Nicky and Cliff saw the sign and folded their arms. It was a call for the Mystery Boys’ council. Tom wanted to say something he did not wish to have the other two white men hear: he proposed to ask by their signs and they were ready.
CHAPTER XXIV
A TIGHT CORNER
In the silence that followed the final words of the girl, the Mystery Boys signified their readiness to enter a council. And as they folded their arms they saw the girl stare at them amazedly and then her face became intent, but she did not look at them. Instead, she looked up at the roof of the hut. Anyone would think she was trying to remember something.
But Tom was not paying any attention to her. He realized that he and his chums were in a tight corner. The Indians were cruel and callous: when they demanded magic, they expected magic. Failure to produce it meant certain doom, perhaps—and Tom shuddered!—with one of those terrible arrows he had seen the youth preparing.
And the chums knew nothing about magic! They had seen stage people produce rabbits from supposedly empty silk hats and make coins disappear. Of course, with the proper apparatus and lots of experience these things could be done. Out in the jungle, among hostile people, with no apparatus and no experience, there was no hope!
So Tom planned to communicate to his chums his idea of what they must do. There was little time to spare. As yet the Indians were not openly hostile. They were intent on seeing something marvelous and while that was in their minds—and until they were disappointed—they would be quiet.
But, after that!——
Tom determined to help his sister and, if possible, to enable his chums to escape. To accomplish that without having Henry and Mort interfere and perhaps warn the Indians—they were capable of anything to secure Margery’s secret of the Golden Sun for themselves—Tom made up his mind to make one desperate effort to escape.
Tom concentrated every effort of his mind. He had convened the Mystery Boys but he must convey his message. He knew how he proposed to do it, and in such a way that Henry and Mort would not comprehend, while the chums would. But it took some hard thinking to make up the sentences.
As Cliff had done, back in Mexico, Tom proposed to use the special code in which he would say short sentences. The final word of each sentence would have a meaning. Taken all together the last words of all the sentences would make a sentence themselves.
He had done this when he called the chums to see what news Henry had. Now Tom must give them a plan and do it briefly and so clearly that they could not mistake his meaning.
Therefore he paid no attention to Margery for the moment, but held his eyes on the floor, making up and going over his plan.
While he did this the chief spoke and Margery turned from her study of the roof and said in English to Henry Morgan:
“The chief says you show your magic first.”
Then she studied the youths intently and appeared to be trying to recall something. Her eyes went to the roof again and as far as she was concerned, Henry and his magic did not exist.
Henry looked baffled for a moment.
“You see—tell him——” he cleared his husky throat, “—tell him we got to get our magic prepared. It takes time. Ask him to let us wait till tomorrow.”
The girl did not bother to translate. There was a wicked little gleam of malice in her eyes, and she simply said: “Do your magic now.”
Henry consulted with Mort, while the medicine men whispered together and one of them chuckled hoarsely. Henry sent Mort away, evidently to get some materials for his trick, whatever it might be.
Then Tom divulged his plan.
First he picked up a small bit of loose dirt from the hut floor, and with a slinging, underhand motion he shied it to one side. That was the signal which meant, “I will say short sentences. The last word of each one will have a meaning and all together they will give a message.” If he had spoken his meaning could not have been plainer to his comrades.
They concentrated their whole attention on Tom.
Though they were too busy to notice, so did Margery. There was a growing eagerness, a sudden wondering expression, on her face.
Had they noted Margery’s face as did the Indians, they would have seen it light up suddenly with a great amazement. That tiny bit of earth, shied in that way, awakened the memories she had been trying to recall.
She knew who that youth was, over across the weirdly lighted Indian hut!
He was Tom—her brother!
But she did not speak, nor did she cry out. The Indians, watching her with their steady, black eyes, saw the first show of surprise and then she settled back into her position, and her face became expressionless. She was a child in her use of English because she had no one to grow up with; but in her common sense she had all the wise patience of the Indians. She waited quietly. This was no time for a dramatic reunion!
Tom, his sentences ready, spoke.
“Did you fellows notice the sun set? Wasn’t it like fire? I saw it over the hut. It was a picture I’d like to take. Who is this girl? Out here in the jungle?”
He made a sign that he was finished, but then went on speaking in a mutter, although his friends no longer heeded him; it was done to throw aside suspicion. His message had to be recalled. What had he said.
Margery did not understand at all. She was disappointed. When Tom used to shy a pebble it meant that he wanted to fool his companions of the moment and she and he would talk rapidly in a fashion to confuse his schoolmates. They had made that up together when they played and went to school. And here he was out in this wild place, come to her. Did he recognize her? He had made one of their old signals. But then he went on talking in a different code. It did not seem right and she was puzzled. She knew it was Tom. Did he know her?
Nicky and Cliff had by that time discovered the endings of the sentences and knew Tom’s message.
“Set fire (to) hut. Take Girl (into) Jungle!”
In a more perfect form the message meant that Tom would set fire to the hut with the cigar lighter if he could and then they would all try to escape in the confusion and panic and take Margery into the jungle.
Cliff and Nicky nodded.
But, suddenly, all three were startled.
Margery stamped her foot!
All three stared. They recalled that she was there and looked to see what caused her to stamp. To their amazement she was standing up, her arms folded.
Tom, staring, suddenly saw a great light.
He recalled that he and Margery had “made up” secrets and that some of their old signs and secrecies had been adopted by his chums when the trio formed themselves into their secret order.
But Margery was saying something! What was it, again?
“H. L. Listen! I know you, Tom. Keep still! No time for that. But think, Tom! H. L. Tell me. H. L.”
“H. L.”
Tom saw it. He understood.
The signal of the pebble used to mean that they would have secrets and she would say, “H. L.” for Hog-Latin, the higgledy-piggledy, rapid way so many school boys and girls talk. She wanted him to tell her what he had told his chums, and in “Hog-Latin.”
“We-kitty will-ikky set-akk—set-totty fire-ikky to-pitty hut-ikky.”
“Yes-ippy I-bitty see-kitty.”
“Then-ippy run-itty quick-itty-fast-itty with-itty you-ikky off-itty.”
They exchanged the passages of mixed words and funny endings with such swiftness that Cliff and Nicky, a little surprised and half forgetting their old “stunt,” had difficulty in following it; surely the other two men, not versed in that kind of youthful foolishness, would not understand any better than the Indians.
And so a childish custom that older people thought silly was being turned to good account.
Without expression, shaking her head, Margery said more.
“No-kitty good-ibiddy,” she clipped out. “Get-ibbidy lost-ibbidy in-akkity junge-y-gongle-y bangle-y do!”
That conveyed their meaning clearly to the two if to no others.
Tom had told his sister he proposed to fire the hut and then to help her escape with them; she had said it would not do because they would be lost in the jungles.
“Wait!” she said. “Let me think!”
At the time the attention swung from this strange scene, for the Indians saw Mort returning with some apparatus which he set down gingerly on the floor. Every eye was fixed on him. Forgotten was the scene which had been enacted. Only one, a medicine man, kept his shrewd eyes fixed on Margery as though he would try to see beneath her flesh and bone to the working of her brain and mind.
“You had some magic—I thought the Indians said so!” she told Tom.
“Oh!” Suddenly Tom recollected the lighter. The woods Indian had probably brought news of it.
“Yes,” he said, and explained to his sister, very briefly, that he could make what Indians would consider a magic light.
“Splendid,” she said. “When your turn comes—we will win!”
CHAPTER XXV
WHERE WITS COUNT!
“There’s another reason, and a better one, why we daren’t try to fire the hut and escape with Margery,” said Nicky, jogging Tom’s arm. “Look beyond the torchlight. Shade your eyes.”
Tom and Cliff did so. At once they saw the reason Nick meant.
Waiting just outside the hut at one end were a dozen men armed with bows—and probably with the deadly poisoned arrows.
At another point was another cluster of men, whose arms were not in evidence; yet they seemed to preserve orderly positions and to be awaiting some signal.
“Good grief!” Nicky said. “We are in a tight corner and no mistake!”
“Yes,” said Tom. “But I think we will get out all right. Margery doesn’t seem to be worried.”
“Where in the world do you suppose Henry Morgan got hold of a suitcase type moving picture machine?” asked Cliff, nodding toward the apparatus that Henry and Mort were fussing over on the ground.
“Henry,” said Cliff, “where did you get that?”
“On the sloop,” Henry answered, fumbling with the lamp, which was of the calcium carbide, and water, type. He did not seem to know much about it, although Mort, who knew less, was fussing and puffing on his fat knees and giving a multitude of instructions, none of which seemed to help. “We thought the Indians would be puzzled about it,” Henry added. “We borrowed it. Do you fellows know anything about it?”
“Work your own magic!” said Nicky, rather maliciously. He could not resist the impulse to dig back at Henry for all the meanness the latter had shown.
“You’ll be sorry for that!” said Mort shortly.
Margery looked on with much mystification, as did the Indians. When the chief questioned his medicine men, evidently asking what sort of magic this was to be, they seemed baffled.
Margery questioned Tom with her eyes but he smiled across at her and while wondering, in his mind, how he was going to make any showing against such a manifestation, he did not lose his courage or his trust in being led to know what to do and how to do it.
“You’ll need water for that carbide,” suggested Cliff. “We’ll tell you that much.”
“Oh, I know that—knew it all the time!” scoffed Mort. Turning to Margery he demanded. “Have water fetched!”
“I know that sort of thing a little,” Cliff said. “Back in high school we had an outfit of that kind. You see, it all packs in a suitcase to make it portable.”
“Yes,” Nicky agreed. “The film is what they call non-inflamable. It won’t burn.”
“That’s right,” Cliff agreed. “That’s why it can be used with an open flame light. You know, don’t you, that the lamp has to be filled with those crystals of calcium carbide—in the can, there. Then, water is put in the container and when it is all assembled and the screw is opened, water drips onto the crystals and they act to make gas.”
“Yes,” Nicky said. “We had something about that in chemistry class.”
But Mort and Henry were not having such a good time setting the machine in position. They got the “head” or apparatus for jerking the bits of exposed film down, back end foremost, and had to turn it around. That made them fidget and sweat.
To a degree, even in face of the danger, the boys were amused at the “hot time,” as Nicky whispered, that the older men were having to get their magic in readiness.
Evidently the chief sensed something of the sort for he made several impatient exclamations and his councillors stirred restlessly. But he said nothing to Henry and Mort and, finally, they seemed to have everything in readiness.
“Now,” said Henry, “Mort, light her up!”
Mort, with a few matches in a flat paper packet, struck the first and tried to light the lamp. The effort was fruitless. Nervously he struck match after match.
Tom, who sensed what was wrong, half opened his lips, but Cliff shook his head and Tom waited.
Mort turned to Henry and demanded more matches. Curtly and bruskly Henry made an exclamation and shoved Mort aside. Upset, the fat one lost his balance and tumbled in a heap. This brought a grunt of amusement from the watching Indians and Mort reddened with anger and dismay. Their plans were not working out so well.
Henry struck his few matches and when failure met his effort to ignite the lamp he sat back with a look of mingled chagrin and fear on his face.
“I guess we’re whipped,” he grunted to Mort. Mort mopped his wet brow and looked appealingly at the boys.
The chief said something as Henry rose.
“He says ‘your magic seems to fail!’” Margery translated. “Does it?”
“Yep,” said Henry, curtly, looking from side to side.
The chief turned toward Tom and his chums.
Tom had a plan. It was based on something that he knew and which Henry and Mort had failed to recall if they, also, knew of it.
When the crystals of carbide are first exposed to water, it takes a fair space of time for the gas to be liberated in a quantity sufficient to generate pressure enough to force it through the burner tip.
That amount of time had elapsed, but in their haste Henry and Mort had either failed to open the setting screw or had not tightened the base enough to hold the pressure. Tom proposed to take advantage of this guess and to turn the older men’s magic to his own account.
“Tell the chief,” he said to Margery, “the magic of the great doctors has not answered their call. Then ask them if they give up to us.”
Margery spoke and gestured; then she turned to Henry.
Morosely Henry and Mort nodded.