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!”