The Boy Aviators in Africa Part 7

"But Harry--" gasped Frank, "I can't leave him. Let him go first."

"I'll bring him up. He can't look after himself in the shape he's in and you are too weak to attempt to help him. Now no talking back. I'm boss now. Up aloft with you. Haul away there!"

The next minute Frank, clinging to the rope, was being hauled cautiously up the side of the sheer cliff by careful hands and shortly he was in the arms of his friends.

Ben Stubbs--to whom the rope with a weight at the end of it had been swung pendulum wise--next appeared at the summit with Harry in his strong grip. But it was a white faced inanimate burden he carried.

The boy had swooned.

"He'll be all right in a few minutes," said Ben Stubbs as M.

Desplaines and the others all tried to explain at once to Frank how Sikaso had guessed what had happened when the boys did not return.

The Krooman had led the party by secret native trails to the cliff top. Frank clasped the huge black's hand with real grat.i.tude and tears of thankfulness brimmed in his eyes.

"How can I ever thank you," he said.

"Um--white boys keep away Pool of Death, Sikaso much pleased,"

replied the Krooman turning slowly away with a sad expression on his face.

"His own son was drowned in it several years ago," said M.

Desplaines briefly.

CHAPTER VI

A SNAP-SHOT FIEND IN TROUBLE

The morning after the events recorded in the last chapter was one of these sparkling ones that are occasionally to be met with on the West African coast and was the forerunner of a day of great bustle and activity for the boys. With the vitality of healthy youth Harry had completely recovered and was indeed surprised to find himself feeling so good after what he had been through. Privately he inspected his hair in the mirror to see if it had turned white and was secretly much astonished to find it the same color as before.

"I wish mine would turn white or potato color or something," said Lathrop, to whom Harry confided his expectation, "this red thatch of mine is a nuisance. At school I was always Brick-top or Red-Head and out here the natives all look at my carrot-colored top-knot as if they'd like to scalp me and keep it for a fetish."

Both boys laughed heartily over Lathrop's half-a.s.sumed vexation. As a matter of fact he had been the b.u.t.t of many jokes in school on account of his blazing red hair and in Africa the natives with their love for any gaudy color had already christened him Rwome Mogo or Red-Top. Of this, however, he was fortunately ignorant, as he might have been tempted to go out and dispatch half a dozen of them if he knew of their term for him.

Down at the river bank, cross the evil-smelling lagoon at the back of the town, Frank and Harry had their hands full directing shouting, laughing Kroomen how to load up the canoes. From the canopied steam launch that lay alongside the rickety wharf the black engineer--an American Negro--watched with great contempt their labors, which they enlivened with songs from time to time.

"Them's de mos' good fur nuffingest n.i.g.g.ahs I ever did see,"

remarked Mr. Rastus Johnson--that was his name--with undisguised contempt.

Nevertheless by noon the canoes had all been leaded and the farewells to the kind M. Desplaines and his family said. After a swift final inspection Frank p.r.o.nounced everything ship-shape and even Doctor Wiseman who had been fussing about as Billy said "like a hen with one chicken--and that a lame duck," over his tin cases and poisonous looking bottles, announced that he was ready to start.

The twelve chattering Kroomen who were to go as far as the Bambara country with the expedition were seated two in each canoe. They were along simply as camp attendants and packers and would by no means go any further than the borders of the Bambara country which they said was the dwelling-place of "bery bad man sah."

Just as the little launch, flying the stars and stripes out of compliment to the boys, was drawing out into the stream with a long blast of her whistle, a tall, black form came racing along the bank and with one bound cleared the five feet or so between the launch and the sh.o.r.e. It was Sikaso.

"So you came after all," said Frank, turning to him, after a bend in the, river had hidden the waving Mr. Desplaines from sight and they were settling down in the launch.

"Sikaso see in the smoke I come--I come. If I see in smoke I no come--I no come," remarked the Krooman.

"He's traveling light anyhow," remarked Billy.

Indeed the giant negro's only bit of baggage was a huge axe, the handle of which was dented and scarred as if by many combats. Billy was about to run his thumb along its edge when with a gesture the mighty negro waved him aside. Instead he took Billy's handkerchief from the young reporter's pocket and drew it gently along the axe blade.

It fell in two pieces on each side of his blade, severed by its razor-like edge.

"Sikaso is a good fellow to be friends with when he can make little ones out of big ones like that," remarked Billy, picking up the two fragments of his handkerchief, "that's a fine way to cut up a gentleman's wardrobe."

Bit by bit as the launch drove steadily up the muddy river--from whose jungle-grown banks arose a warm, moist vapor--Frank drew from the grim-faced old Krooman some of his history. He had been a mighty warrior in the old days, he said, and the weapon be carried was his war axe with which he had killed uncounted enemies. A rival tribe, however, had killed his father and mother and driven him to the coast with the few survivors of his village. Here he had shipped on an American trading brig for New York where he had picked up the knowledge of English he possessed. He also worshiped America as "free man's country." But Africa had called to him and some three years before he had returned on another ship and meant to die there, he said.

"Why did you wish to go with us?" asked Frank as the native concluded his story.

"It was written so in the smoke, white boss," replied the veteran simply. "The ju-ju in the smoke strong ju-ju. He knows many things."

"Is that the only reason you have for coming?"

"No, boss, I tell you truth," replied the old warrior, "some day I find the chief who kill my father and my mother and kill my friends." He glanced significantly at his axe.

"In the Moon Mountains maybe I find him--maybe not. But some day I shall and then--"

He said no more, but as Frank remarked to Harry when the former recounted his conversation to his brother later:

"I shouldn't much like to be that man when Sikaso meets him."

The launch and the small flotilla she towed forged steadily up the stream all that day and at nightfall drew alongside the bank at a spot where a clearing planted with bananas clearly indicated the presence thereabouts of a native village. As soon as the launch was moored to the bank the adventurers scrambled out--not sorry of a chance to stretch their legs--and looked about them wonderingly.

They were really in equatorial Africa at last, and even as they looked there was a sound borne to their ears that brought home to them strongly how very far away they were from old New York. It was a pulsing, rhythmic beating something like a drum and yet unlike it.

They looked questioningly at Sikaso.

"Tom-tom," said he briefly.

"Is it a friendly village, Sikaso?" inquired Doctor Wiseman.

"Friendly to some--not to all," replied the Krooman, who for some unaccountable reason had taken a strange dislike to the professor.

"Come," he said, intoning to Frank and Harry, "we go see get chicken, maybe pork."

"Say, can't we come along, Frank?" asked Billy and Lathrop their faces falling.

Frank consulted Sikaso who merely said:

"Little fat white boy, with round, gla.s.s four-eyes talk too much."

"Well," laughed Frank, "I think I can promise for him that he won't do any talking that will cause any harm this evening."

"Talk too much, indeed," grumbled Billy highly offended, "why at home my folks were thinking of having a doctor treat me for bashfulness I'm so retiring in my disposition."

As soon as the laugh that this remark of the disgruntled reporter had caused had subsided--even old Sikaso giving a grim smile as he took in the purport of it--the little party set out down a native trail toward the village.

As the tom-tom beating increased in loudness as the village drew near, the boys' hearts began to beat a little faster. At last they were about to see a real African village--such as they had read about in Stanley's and Livingstone's books--and other less authentic volumes. They almost stumbled on the place as they suddenly emerged into a clearing. It was a strange sight that met their eyes.

Arranged in a circle were fifty huts that resembled nothing so much as a collection of old-fashioned straw covered beehives, enlarged to shelter human bees. All about them women and children were bustling; setting about getting the evening meal. Before one hut sat a woman, pounding something in a stone pestle--"like the drugstore men use at home,"--whispered Lathrop to Billy.