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....”
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.