Part 10

They chose a spot well hidden in the jungle and the tent flies were spread on poles. A monumental feed was cooked, between Nicky’s alcohol burner and a small fire well hidden in the rocks under the tents, while the rain came down in its usual torrential downpour. Then they all turned in for some much-needed sleep. By nine o’clock the rain had stopped and a faint light over the jungle promised moonlight through the thinning clouds. The party was roused out and they broke camp, Nicky and Sadok, who were stiff and sore, being rubbed down with arnica by the curator before setting out. With the tent flies wrapped around them, the three whites set out through the wet jungle, with Sadok and Baderoon, whose naked skins seemed to revel in the raindrops, leading on ahead.

In an hour they had reached the banks of a small, swift stream, the headwaters of some river that emptied into the sea fifty miles away. Alligators, water snakes, and giant frogs plopped into its eddying depths as they came up. The splash and gurgle of waterfalls came from up the slope. Pushing along carefully, on the lookout for pythons and snakes of lesser degree, they climbed up along its banks. Steeper and more rocky became the gorge through which it defiled. Then rocky ledges of black basalt hemmed them in on both sides, and out of the gap cascaded a foaming waterfall.

In the weird moonlight, with the black shadows almost solid to the touch, it seemed to Nicky and Dwight that that was the most perilous climb they had ever ventured upon. Baderoon was quaking with fear and hanging back reluctantly, for he was no hill man, but the curator and the intrepid Sadok led on upward, pioneering out the way and hauling them up the steeper ledges by a tent fly let down for a rope. Higher and higher they climbed, the jungle falling away below almost vertically, while towering above them rose the walls of the gorge for thousands of feet. It seemed good to be at last buried deep in the cleft, with visions of the awful fate that would befall them below, if any slipped, hid mercifully from sight.

The stream came down in a series of cascades, varied by steep stretches where it sluiced along through deep channels in the rock. At one place they came to a veritable waterwheel where the whole torrent raced down a slope into a shallow basin scooped out of the solid basalt, and it shot up in a roaring pinwheel of water through which not even Sadok’s sumpitan could be driven.

Above it the walls of the gorge closed in to a narrow cleft, with high, vertical sides. There was no getting past, on either side!

“Case of swim!” ejaculated the curator, as they all stopped and looked in at the deep pool filling the cleft from wall to wall like a black ribbon. “Get out your flashers, boys. There’s one grain of comfort in it, anyway--no one would ever dream that we’d come up this way!”

They undressed and did up the bundles in the tent flies.

“Glory be to Mike, there are no anacondas in New Guinea!” shivered Nicky, looking at the black pool and thinking of former Guiana jungle days.

Still, it took courage to negotiate that pool! They scanned every inch of the wall for snakes and then plunged in, close together for mutual protection, the flashlights tied atop the boys’ heads with their bandannas, and the packs strapped on their shoulders. It seemed that that pool would never end! Its narrow ribbon of still water wound on and on through the cleft, with here and there a ledge or a rock shelf over which the water tumbled in a silent spillway, and where they could get out and rest. From ahead came, louder and louder, the roar of a waterfall. The curator listened uneasily. Such a cascade would be a catastrophe, for, if there was no way around it, by no possibility could they get up farther.

They hurried on eagerly, now, anxious to learn their fate, fear of some unknown thing seizing them from under water forgotten. A final pool showed up in the glare of the flashlights. The curator heaved a huge sigh of relief, for the head of the pool was a foaming suds of eddying water into which the stream of the cascade tumbled from above, and--blessed sight!--sticking up out of it was a huge tree, jammed in there by some freshet, its upper end jutting out into the stars which shone through the opening of the cleft!

“Praise be!” ejaculated the curator, plunging in. “Come here, tree--I love you!”

They all swam over, and one by one crept up the log. A low hail from the curator, and the hissed caution, “Lights out!” told them that he had arrived safely in the ravine above. They found him already dressing. They were in a steep, rocky ravine, filled with jungle growth, and out of the bare rocks at last. Hastily the boys dressed and made up their packs again. Sadok and Baderoon had merely to shake themselves and they were ready for further adventures.

“All aboard--and no talking!” whispered the curator, as they pushed on up the ravine. For a mile it climbed steeply, and then Sadok halted and pointed silently into the jungle. A well-defined path came down to the brook here; and there were empty gourds and crude pottery jars on the bank.

“We are opposite the second village,” whispered the curator. “Step lightly, fellows, and be careful not to break a stick. We’ll bear off to the left, to high ground.”

They went on noiselessly, following the general windings of the creek in the bright moonlight. After another mile of it the curator halted.

“I’ve a hunch that Red Mountain is somewhere near us by now,” he muttered, cautiously. “Nicky, you’re the best climber. Swarm up that pandanus, as high as you can get, and take a look-see.”

Nicky went over to the tree and was soon up in its branches. Below him fell away the lesser growth of the jungle. Other tall trees still surrounded him, but as he shinnied up a high branch, at last a vista to the east opened up. For a long time he gazed, with all the exultation of the civilized white man, on an object of immense value to his race, even though surrounded and protected by a ring of savagery. Before him, shimmering in the clear moonlight, lay the irregular truncated cone of Red Mountain, the enormous vein of cinnabar parting its upper half like pink layer cake! Black seams of coal measures streaking the mountain face told of the geological period when the mountain was born. Behind it piled up the stratified peaks and table-lands of similar mountain formations. The whole story lay clear in the educated, scientific mind of the boy, and he thrilled with its significance. Here lay the true geological formation of the interior of Dutch New Guinea, with Red Mountain as a last outpost. Behind him lay the tremendous fault of the Great Precipice, with its chain of volcanoes resulting from that mighty crack in the earth’s surface. But before him lay all the mineral wealth of New Guinea--coal measures, iron ore, what not--that would make this vast island, the largest in the world--almost a continent--a land of the utmost value to the white race!

Coming back to earth from these explorer’s dreams, Nicky got out his compass and took the mountain bearing. It was not over two miles from where they were to the slopes of Red Mountain. Between them lay a low, jungle-clad ridge; beyond it a swale or hollow of some kind, and then the slopes themselves. He swarmed down the tree to report, and then they all set out eagerly, in a straight line through the dry, arid thickets.

In half an hour they reached the top of the little ridge, and the curator found a leaning dead tree and climbed out on it for a long, soul-satisfying look for himself. Returning, they pitched down into the swale, crossed it, and began to climb. Their watches said four o’clock in the morning, so it was necessary to hasten, as they would be in plain sight on that bald spot.

Up and up the steep hillside they struggled, bidding the jungle good-by, negotiating shelves and rocky escarpments that turned out to be ledges ten feet high when they came to them. Far overhead towered the flat side of the mountain, almost a precipice, and the depths dropping below warned them that it would be mountaineering of the most dangerous kind.

A few more ledges; soul-harrowing crawls up rocky faces to which they clung with feet digging into tiny crevices and fingers clawing desperately at crumbly holds, and they had reached the bottom edge of the vein!

Dwight’s pick dug into the rich, red ore, and a lump of translucent scarlet crystals, hard as adamant and surrounded with a matrix of crumbling red ore, fell out into his hand. He passed it to the curator.

“We’ve sure gone through hell for it, sir!” he exclaimed. “I guess we’ve done our bit for New Guinea, eh?”

“We sure have!” exclaimed the curator, feelingly. “You and Nicky each get a specimen like this and stow it in your packs. And now, fellows, an air line for our camp on the lagoon. We can make it in two days!”

XI

THE FLIGHT TO THE COAST

Dawn was paling in the east as they crept slowly down the ledges of Red Mountain. The going down was far worse than the climb up, and the tent flies had to be called in play again to get over vertical drops of ten feet or more where one’s eyes could not see below how to climb down. Even then the haunting fear that some old pygmy watcher from the village might have spied them on the mountain side lent haste to their descent. It was with relief that they all gathered in the depths of the jungle again.

“Now, then, fellows, there’s only one way we can do this march to the coast. We three will have to keep together while Sadok scouts on ahead. Baderoon I’m going to turn loose, and let him run for it for Cassowary Camp and then down that trail to the Outanata village, where he can get a war party started back to rescue us.

“Baderoon, you-fellah run catch’m Outanata man?” he asked.

The negro grinned. He looked fresh and fit, and his long legs could take him like a moose through the jungle.

“_Orang-kaya_ give me-fellah sign take ’long black boy?” he suggested.

“Sure! They might murder you for your mirror, in all your youth and innocence!” laughed the curator. “Here, Nicky, get out a couple of your empty alcohol tins. The chief’d love them, to put in his ears.”

Baderoon eyed them longingly as Nicky got out the cans from his rucksack. He’d have dearly loved to put them in his own ears, only the important detail of stretching the lobe enough for such ornaments had been neglected in his youth. Such does contact with civilized whites debase the poor savage! He handled the cans reverently, and finally stowed them somehow in his loin cloth.

“Tell’m the Thunderer make war on litty black men--plenty heads!” grinned the curator. “Run--plenty--too much!”

Baderoon laughed merrily and set off into the jungle without a word. By some way known only to himself he would cover those thirty miles that day, threading alone through the trackless jungle. By noon next day a war party of the Outanatas would be halfway back to them, thirsting for a foray on their ancient enemies, the pygmies--with the powerful aid of the man who called down the lightnings--or the curator was no judge of human nature!

After Baderoon had gone, they studied the mountains and valleys to the south for some time, planning a route.

“That big sugar loaf to the northeast looks familiar to me, Nick,” said the curator. “Don’t you remember it, from our banyan tree outlook?”

They got out the map, and presently located it from bearings taken on the map from their position on Red Mountain. Once on that sugar loaf, it would be easy to locate the bald knob above Cassowary Camp.

He pointed out the shoulder to Sadok. “We go there,” he explained. “You stop ’long front. You see black man, make’m call like red lory, two time, and come back.”

Sadok comprehended quickly, and with a white flash of his teeth led on, his sumpitan balanced in his hands for instant use, and so they set out. In two hours they had reached the shoulder, some six miles through the jungle, and were cautiously reconnoitering for a lookout. After some climbing, a ledge was found that rose over the summits of the trees below. They wormed up it and lay flat in the grass on its edge, spying out the country with their glasses. Over to the east rose the cone of the old volcano, with the pygmy village on it, the girls’ tree huts visible like white specks in the sunlit clearing. Beyond that was the mountain with the great banyan tree on its north shoulder, and beyond that again in the blue distance, about twelve miles off, the bald knob above Cassowary Camp.

But it was the green jungle below them that they searched most carefully. The view below was not reassuring. The haze of at least three fires rose above the trees at widely different points. Allowing forty men to each war party, there would be over a hundred of the pygmy warriors outlying between them and their home base.

“We’ll stay right here, boys, until the rain--and then, by George! we’ll try to push through them during the storm!” declared the curator, with sudden resolution. “It’ll be pitch black for at least two hours after that. How’s the ammunition, fellows?”

“I’ve only got twelve cartridges left, sir,” said Nicky, lugubriously, “and Dwight has two clips, and then he’s through.”

“Well, I’ve only got four shells, myself,” said the curator, cheerfully. “Two of them are thirty-yard close-ups. We’ll have to husband ammunition for a possible rush, and depend on Sadok. You got’m plenty dart, Sadok?” he asked.

The Dyak shook his head and opened the cover of his bamboo quiver. “Poison him all gone, too!” he announced.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us, then! We’ll camp and get something to eat, and then wait until the clouds come before setting out. Meanwhile we’ll have to find a upas vine, or something like it. Either of you boys know strychnine when you see it?”

They shook their heads. Botany was out of their line.

“Got to know ’most everything if you’re a scientist,” grinned the curator, deprecatingly. “Well, the species we want is _S. tieute_, native of all this archipelago, the upas vine. It’s a climbing shrub, five-leaved, with little bunches of berries in a leathery rind like a small dried orange.”

“I think I’ve noticed one or two like that, sir, myself, going through the jungle,” said Dwight, reminiscently. “Climbs all over larger trees, doesn’t it?” He sketched a leaf on a bit of rock as he spoke.

“Yep. That’s him. You and Sadok scout around for one while Nick and I get ready some eats,” said the curator. “You may also find the upas _tree_, which is of the bread-fruit family, but I doubt it. Never heard of it south of Java. Look for a tall tree a hundred feet high, with lanceolate leaves and berries in a drooping cluster. Both are used for poisoning arrows and darts, from the Philippines south.”

Dwight arranged a lory call for Sadok, in case either of them should need the other, and they separated, each vanishing into the lower jungle.

Dwight walked along, searching the jungle growth with keen eyes. Gradually his course led him around the flank to the south and into a deep ravine, with great trees dropping down the slopes below him into the depths. It was impossible to see far, in here, so he climbed up a small tree and looked out. The ravine led up the mountain side, with all the jungle spread out like a map on its flanks. Searching carefully each giant trunk, he at length spied one overgrown with a profusion of some vine that looked promising, and, marking it, he set out. In ten minutes he was close enough to the vine to examine it more carefully. The reddish bark, the five-fingered leaf, looked as if it might be one of that famous family of strychnine trees that extends all around the tropics, from India through the archipelago, to South America and across Africa. Dwight thrilled with a primal, almost superstitious fear as he looked at this sinister representative of its race. It was more deadly than a cobra, if it could bite you! All the stories he had ever heard of the poisonous air that surrounds the strychnine trees came to him; and that fabled Valley of Death in Java, grown thick with upas trees in which nothing can live, came to mind. He kept his distance from the dreaded vine, respectfully, and was about to try to reach Sadok with a call, when voices coming through the jungle arrested him. He sank into the undergrowth and watched through its green depths.

The voices came nearer, guttural tones that set him shivering with excitement. They were coming down the ravine on his side and would pass quite near him, he judged. He drew his automatic and waited.

Then three diminutive black-bearded warriors came into view, passing down what must have been a trail through the jungle, although he had not noticed any in crossing. They passed silently through the green glade, and then two more came into view. Before them they drove a prisoner, a tall Papuan.

Dwight gasped as he looked to make sure--it was Baderoon--captured by the pygmies!

All the generous instincts of youth rose up in him at the sight, and without thinking further he raised his pistol and fired at the nearest pygmy. With grunts of surprise they all bolted into the forest, while Baderoon leaped into the jungle and came running toward him, his arms bound behind his back. Dwight raised his helmet out of the underbrush an instant so Baderoon could find him, and then sank out of sight. An arrow came singing and tanging through the twigs, and then Baderoon stumbled into his lair and fell at his feet.

“_Orang-kichil!_ Cut!” he gasped, turning over on his face. Dwight drew his hunting knife and severed the fibers that bound him. Baderoon wriggled over, his face alight with its happy, care-free Papuan smile. Then came the grim lines of pain as he bore stoically the throes of returning circulation in his arms. Dwight kept up a cautious vigil, expecting momentarily an arrow from some unseen source in the jungle. And the presence of the deadly upas vine behind him did not leave any illusions as to how that arrow would be armed!

Still the stealthy silence! It was his first taste of real jungle fighting, and the boy would gladly have exchanged it for any amount of odds in the open, where one could see and think. Not a bush moved, not a stick cracked; the pygmies might have utterly vanished from the earth, for any sign that the jungle gave to the contrary.

Then came the call of the Papuan lory, twice repeated. It was not far off, and it roused Dwight to a frenzy of hard thinking. The curator and Nicky, with perhaps Sadok, also, were coming, having heard his pistol shot. They must be warned at any hazards. To move from his place of concealment was death. He cudgeled his brains for an answer, turning over one plan after another rapidly and rejecting them all.

Three of anything means “Danger!” in the wilderness, all over the world; such a signal they would at once comprehend, and act accordingly. Three pistol shots would give his location away by their smoke. Dwight raised his voice and gave the lory call three times in answer.

Bows instantly twanged in the jungle, and two arrows swished through the thickets around his position. Dwight took off his helmet and peered furtively through every vista, searching every tree trunk, but not a sign could he discover whence they came.

Then came the cough of Sadok’s sumpitan from somewhere, and a small black-bearded hill man rose suddenly out of the bushes, not thirty feet away, and fell over backward, silently.

“Me go! Me-fellah catch’m bow’n arrow!” whispered Baderoon, from the ground, wringing his wrists vigorously and eying Dwight’s hunting knife longingly.

Dwight nodded approval. Two could play at this bushwhacking game! And none better than their own native bushman. He handed Baderoon the knife and the Papuan melted off into the undergrowth toward the body of the dead pygmy.

A long, sinister silence set in. Dwight watched in every direction, scanning the forest intensely through his leafy screen, but nothing that he could fire at appeared. Then a sudden shock of fright went through him. Surely that bush over there was much nearer now than when he had looked at it last! Surely it was not natural, growing so close to the roots of that giant euphorbia that towered up near it! Nature did not grow bushes in such dense shade! He was about to fire into it, when a long black arm struck out from behind the tree trunk and there was a flash of bright steel, while the bush writhed in convulsions and then lay still.

Baderoon! In spite of his religious taboo against steel, he had broken it for them. Dwight could appreciate that, and he began to have immense confidence in their two wild allies. In the jungle, where he and the curator and Nicky were helpless, these two were masters. They could beat the pygmies at their own game.

“That’s three,” muttered the boy to himself. Then the essential need to prevent the other two getting away to the main war parties of the pygmies and telling them of their presence presented itself. It seemed vital, to the boy’s imagination, and he even thought of sacrificing himself by exposing his position to draw their fire, so that they could be shot by the others and their plans for running the gantlet during the storm could go through.

He was maturing the idea, when a faint rustle in the jungle back of him turned him around, with the hair rising under his helmet with alarm and his pistol ready for instant fire. He saw Sadok’s sumpitan rise up cautiously out of the green and lowered again, and the boy breathed relievedly. Presently he caught a glimpse of the Dyak’s brown body moving serpentlike toward the upas vine. Out of the depths between it and the trunk of the larger tree overhead the leaves moved. Then came a quick, silent jab of Sadok’s kriss into the blood-red bark of the vine. It flashed down again, and Dwight could see the thick, white juice oozing from the wound in the bark. Two brown hands rose out of the foliage and tied on the tiny bamboo poison cup with gingerly care, and then all signs of movement in that direction ceased.

After a long wait, two low calls of the lory came out of the jungle near by. Dwight answered them.

“Come on out, Dwight,” came the curator’s voice. “They’re gone. We’re over this way.”

Dwight rose hesitatingly, inch by inch, half expecting every moment to be pierced by a deadly arrow. Then came the exhilaration of freedom. He felt wonderfully alive, eager and able to perform prodigies. He sought out the party, stepping as if on air, his eyes sparkling with an unearthly brilliance. The curator regarded him curiously as he came up.

“Hel-lo! What’s struck you, old top?” he exclaimed, vivaciously. “You look as if you’d seen an angel! Mostly devils around here. Baderoon tells me there were only five of them. They ambushed him and trussed him up before he could make a kick or a jump. We got two, and two more got away. The third is outlying somewhere, with Sadok and Baderoon looking for him.”

“I got that one, myself,” said Dwight. “That was the pistol shot you heard. He was walking just in front of Baderoon. And I found your upas vine, too!” he cried, excitedly.

“Ah, that accounts for it,” mused the curator. “Been lying near it a long while?”

“Accounts for what? Yes, I was right near it, ever since I fired that shot.”

“Accounts for your looking like a man who has eaten loco weed, son. You’ll be lit up for a while yet; and you need to, for we’ve got to make a dash, now that those two got away. There’s a faint essence of strychnia in the air around the upas vine which acts like medicine on a human being through the pores, Dwight,” he explained. “You’ll think you can move mountains and perform prodigies of valor, for a time. Then will come the reaction, like a man drunk with too much coffee. Well, boys--let’s go.”