The Inca Emerald Part 15

"Probably the same hunting-party that we met before," returned the professor, indifferently. "They won't--" He broke off his sentence at the sound of a little sick, wailing cry, which seemed to come from the thick jungle close at hand.

"What's that?" said Hen, sharply, raising his heavy machete.

Without answering, the scientist turned off the trail and, raising the bushes, exposed the emaciated body of a little Indian girl about four years old. A tiny slit in the side of each nostril showed her to be a member of the Araras, a friendly tribe of forest Indians akin to the Mundurucus, to whom Pinto belonged. As she looked up at Professor Ditson, her sunken face broke into a smile.

"White man!" she whispered, in the Arara dialect which both Professor Ditson and Pinto understood. Then, pointing to herself with fingers so wasted that they looked like birds' claws, she whispered her own name, "Ala," the Indian name for those gentle, beautiful little birds which Europeans have christened "wood-stars."

The stern face of the scientist softened to an expression that even Hen had never seen there before. In spite of his injured arm, it was Professor Ditson who lifted up the little girl and carried her back to the camp. There the rest of the party found them when they returned with one of the plump cura.s.sows which Pinto generally managed to bring back from every hunt. From this, Hen Pine hurriedly made hot, nourishing broth, with which the professor slowly fed the starved child until she dropped off to sleep, holding tightly to one of his long gaunt fingers.

Several hours later the little girl woke up, seeming at first much stronger, and at once began to talk in a little voice faint as the chirp of a distant cricket. From her half-whispered sentences the professor learned that her father and mother had both been killed in a foray of the Muras. Not many months after their death, Ala herself had fallen sick of one of the forest fevers so fatal to Indian children, and had been abandoned by the tribe.

In spite of her starved condition, Ala was an attractive child. Instead of the usual shallow, shiny black eyes of Indian children, hers were big and brown and fringed with long lashes, and when she smiled it was as if an inner light shone through her wan, pinched little face.

At once she became the pet of the whole party, and although she, in turn, liked them all, it was Professor Ditson who always held first place in her heart. If he were long away from her, she would call plaintively, "_Cariwa! Cariwa!_" the Arara word for white man. Sometimes she would sing, in her tiny voice, folk-songs which she had learned from her mother, all about the wonderful deeds and doings of armadillos, agoutis, and other South American animals.

Before long, however, in spite of careful nursing, she began to sink rapidly. Then came days when she sang no more, but lay too weak even to taste the fruits which the boys were always bringing in to her from the forest. At last one night Professor Ditson, who always slept close beside her, heard a little far-away voice whisper in his ear, "White man, dear, dear white man!" and felt the touch of her hand against his cheek. A moment later, under the light of the setting moon, he saw that Ala had gone where there is no more sickness nor pain and where little children are safe forever.

Later on, when the rest of the party roused themselves before sunrise for another day, they found the scientist sitting grim and impa.s.sive in the star-shine, still holding the tiny cold hand of the little Indian girl in his. When old Jud found that clenched tightly in Ala's other hand was the sh.e.l.l of a tree-snail, all white and pink and gold, which he had given her days before, the old man broke down and sobbed as he looked at the peaceful little figure.

Under the light of Achenar, Canopus, and the other eternal stars which flared through the blackness of the tropical night, they buried her deep at the foot of a vast paradise tree which had towered above the forest hundreds of years before the first white man ever came to South America and whose mighty girth will be standing when the last Indian of that continent has pa.s.sed to his forgotten fathers. As Professor Ditson repeated over the little grave what part he could remember of the Service for the Dead, from the heart of the jungle sounded the deep, coughing roar of a jaguar as it wandered restless through the night.

The next day camp was broken and once more the party followed the trail through the forest. At first the gloom and grief of the little Indian girl's death hung over them all. Then, little by little, the healing of the forest began to be felt. The vast waiting trees, the bird-songs, the still beauty of the flowers all seemed to bring to them the joy and hope and faith which is the portion of wanderers among the solitudes and silences of earth.

The trail still ran, a dividing line between the steaming jungle on one side and the plateaus and foot-hills on the other. Behind the latter towered range after range of mighty mountains, among whose chill heights were hidden forgotten Inca cities and the lost treasure-lake of Eldorado. On the mountain side of the trail the trees were set farther apart and belonged to families from the temperate zone, while here and there were small parks covered with short gra.s.s, with bare, treeless slopes beyond.

It was in such a country, after several days to travel, that Pinto, Jud, and the two boys started on a hunt, while the others made camp.

They had been out less than an hour when the sharp eyes of the old trapper spied two strange animals feeding in an open s.p.a.ce hedged in by thickets. They had long, banded tails, which clanked and rattled as they moved. Moreover, they wore armored hides, set with square plates of bone and ringed around the middle with nine h.o.r.n.y bands, while big p.r.i.c.ked-up ears, like those of the rabbit, and long sheep eyes made them appear to the old trapper as among the strangest animals he had ever met.

"Armadillos," whispered Pinto, delightedly, as he too caught sight of them. "Spread out and we'll catch 'em both. Better 'n roast pig to eat."

In a minute the four hunters had made a wide circle around the unwary animals. It was not until they were close to them that the pair took alarm. Stopping their feeding, they suddenly squatted with their fore legs off the ground, much as a woodchuck might do. Instead of curling up like porcupines and trusting to their armor for protection, as Jud had expected them to do, they suddenly dropped on all fours and rushed and rattled down the slope toward the old trapper, like two small armored tanks, almost as fast as a rabbit would run. Jud was as much surprised as if he had seen a tortoise start to sprint. Going like race-horses, they bore down upon the old man.

"Hi! hi! stop! shoo!" bellowed Jud, waving both his arms over his head.

"What'll I do to stop 'em?"

"Trip 'em up," volunteered Will, from where he stood.

"Catch 'em by the tail!" yelled Joe. "Don't let 'em scare you."

In another minute they were upon him. Dodging his outstreched hands, their wedge-shaped heads plunged between his legs. Jud's feet flew up, and he sat down with a startling b.u.mp, while, rushing and clanking through the bushes, both of the armadillos disappeared in the depths of the thicket. The old man rose slowly and felt himself all over.

"I'd just as soon try to stop a racing automobile with my two hands as to head off a scared armadillo," he observed indignantly. "They got no right to run that way. Their business is to curl up an' be caught."

"Never mind, Jud," said Will, comfortingly; "you had the right idea, but you tackled 'em a mite too high."

That day, as they rested after lunch, Will wandered up toward the mountains, as usual studying his beloved birds. Along the pampas-like stretches of the plateaus and up among the hills, he found the bird life very different from what it was in the jungle. It was Pinto who taught him the ba.s.soon notes of the crested screamer, changing at times to the long roll of a drum, and pointed out to him "John o' the mud-puddles,"

the South American oven-bird, which, unlike the northern bird of the same name, builds a mud nest a foot or more in diameter, strengthened with hair and weighing several pounds. The birds mate for life, and have a quaint habit of singing duets while standing facing each other. Then there was another bird which Pinto called the "fire-wood gatherer,"

which built great nests of sticks in trees, dropping a wheelbarrow load of twigs under each nest. Of all the new birds, the boy liked the one called the "little c.o.c.k" the best. These were ground-birds some nine inches long, with little tails that stuck straight upward, and bristling crests on their heads. Looking like small bantam roosters, they scurried around through the brush, following the travelers inquisitively and giving every now and then a loud, deep chirp. Whenever Will would chase one, it would scurry off, chirping with alarm, but always returned and followed him through the gra.s.s and brush.

As the days went by, Professor Ditson became more and more uneasy, and, when camp was pitched, overtaxed his unrestored strength by hunting through dark nooks in the jungle and peering and prying among tangles of fallen trees or the rare ledges of rock which showed now and then among the waves of green. At last he told the rest of the party the cause of his anxiety.

"In a few days more," he said, "we shall begin to climb the foot-hills of Peru. Under my contract with Mr. Donegan, we were to collect a bushmaster before we began the search for emeralds. So I would suggest that we make our camp here and scatter out through the jungle until one of us is fortunate enough to discover a specimen of this rare and beautiful serpent. Let me beg of you, however," he continued earnestly, "to use the utmost care in catching a bushmaster. They are easily injured."

Jud's face was a study. "I will," he promised. "I'll bet there isn't any one on the continent of South America who will use more care than me."

The next day the first hunt began. Armed with long, forked sticks, the six adventurers poked their way painstakingly through the thickest parts of the jungle, but without any success so far as bushmasters were concerned, although Pinto aroused a fine specimen of a boa-constrictor, one of the smaller boas of South America, which flowed through the forest like a dark shimmering stream, while Jud scared up another hideous iguana, it being a disputed question as to which ran away the faster.

Toward the end of the afternoon Will found himself some distance from the others, following what seemed a little game trail, which zigzagged back and forth through the jungle. At one point it led between two great trees, and there Will caught sight of a blaze on either side of the path. As he stepped forward to examine the marks more carefully, a dreadful thing happened. The ground under his feet suddenly sank away without a sound, and the next moment he found himself at the bottom of a jug-shaped pit some fifteen feet deep, whose sides curved in so sharply that not even a monkey, much less a man, could climb out. The opening had been covered over with the stretched skins of animals, st.i.tched together and cunningly hidden under turf and leaves.

Although shaken and half-stunned by his sudden fall, the soft earth floor of the trap saved him from any serious injury. Far above he could see the light streaming in through the irregular hole which his weight had made in the covering which masked the pit. All too late Will realized that the blazes on the sides of the game path had been warnings for human beings to avoid the pitfall which they marked. The neck of the great earthen bottle was some five feet in width, but at the base it widened into a s.p.a.ce fully double that distance across. As the boy's eyes became accustomed to the half-light below, he found that he could see the sides and the bottom of the pit more and more clearly, and, scrambling to his feet, he started to explore its full circ.u.mference.

At the first step came a sound which no man born of woman has to hear more than once in order to stand stone-still--a fierce, thick hiss.

Stopping dead in his tracks, Will moved slowly back until he was pressing hard against the earthen wall behind him. Even as he stopped, from the half-darkness before him, with a dry clashing of scales, glided into the center of the pit, with sure, deadly swiftness, the pinkish-yellow and black-banded coils of a twelve-foot serpent. From its eyes, with their strange oval pupils, a dark streak stretched to the angles of the mouth from which a long, forked tongue played like a black flame. As the fierce head crested the triple row of many-colored coils, Will saw the curious hole between eye and nostril, the hall-mark of a deadly clan, and knew that before him was the king of all the pit-vipers--the dreaded bushmaster.

He stared into the lidless, fatal eyes of the snake, as they shone evilly through the dusk until it seemed as if his heart would stop beating and icy drops stood on his forehead, for he knew from talks had with Professor Ditson that bushmasters possess a most uncertain temper, and he feared that this one might instantly attack him. Once he tried to move to a point farther along the circ.u.mference of the earthen circle.

At the first stir of his cramped muscles, the great snake hissed again and quivered as if about to strike. Will settled despairingly back, resolved to move no more; yet ever his thoughts kept running forward to the long, dark hours which were to come, when he would be alone through the night with this terrible companion. Then if, overcome by sleep or cramp, he should move, he feared horribly to be stricken down in the dark by the coiled death that watched him.

Suddenly, as he set himself against making the least stir of a muscle, he heard from the jungle through the broken covering of the trap, the same far-reaching whisper of death which had sounded when he was hunting with Pinto. A moment later, with staring eyes, he saw a black stream move sibilantly down the opposite wall of the pit, and realized that the blind black ants of the jungle were upon him--and that there was no escape.

Slowly the head of the moving column approached the bottom of the pit, and Will remembered in sick horror how the ants had torn away shred after shred of living flesh from the tortured body of the agouti. As the insatiable, inexorable ma.s.s rolled toward him, the bushmaster seemed either to hear or scent its approach. Instantly its tense coils relaxed, and it hurried around and around three sides of the pit, lashing upward against the perpendicular walls in a vain attempt to escape. In its paroxysm of terror, it came so close to the motionless boy that its rough, sharp scales rippled against his legs. Only when the van of the ant-army actually reached the floor of the pit and began to encircle its whole circ.u.mference did the great serpent seem to remember Will's presence. Then, as if entreating the help of a human being, it forced itself back of him, and, as the ants came nearer, even wound its way around Will's waist in an attempt to escape.

For a moment the fearful head towered level with the boy's face.

Instinctively, Will's hand flashed out and caught the bushmaster by the neck. It made no attempt to strike, nor even struggled under the boy's choking grip; only the coiled body vibrated as if trembling at the approach of the deadly horde. For a moment the advance of the ant-army seemed to stop, but it was only because, in accordance with its tactics, the head of the column began to spread out until the base of the pit was a solid ma.s.s of moving ants and the black tide lapped at Will's very feet. Half-turning, and placing his ankles instead of his heels against the sides of the wall, the boy gained a few inches on the rising pool of death that stretched out before him, while the straining body of the bushmaster vibrated like a tuning-fork.

By this time, the opposite wall of the pit was covered and the whole circle of the base of the cone-shaped pit black and moving, except the little arc where Will stood. The ants were so close that he could see the monster heads of the leaders, and the pit was full of the whisper of their moving bodies flowing forward. Will shut his eyes and every muscle of his tense body quivered as if already feeling their ripping, shearing mandibles in his flesh.

Just as the front line of the fatal legion touched his shoes, something struck him on the head, and he opened his eyes to see a liana dangling in front of him, while the light at the entrance of the pit was blurred by old Jud's head and shoulders. With his free hand, Will reached forward and seized the long vine, to find it ending in a bowline-knot whose noose never gives.

"Slip it under your arms," called down the old trapper, hoa.r.s.ely, "an'

hang on! We'll pull you up."

It was the work of only a second to carry out the old man's instructions. Thrusting the loop over his head and under his arms, the boy gripped the tough vine with his left hand and tightened his clutch around the unresisting body of the great bushmaster.

"I won't leave you behind for those black devils," he murmured, as if the snake understood, and tugged at the liana rope as a signal that he was ready to start. In an instant he was hauled aloft, just as the ants swarmed over the s.p.a.ce where he had stood. Fending himself off from the slanting walls with his feet, Will went up with a rush and through the opening at the top almost as fast as he had entered it. Close to the rope stood old Jud, with face chalky-white as he watched the army of ants pouring down into the pit, while Hen, Joe, and Pinto, and even Professor Ditson, hauled with all their might on the vine.

Jud had become uneasy at Will's long absence and had tracked him to the entrance of the trap just as the army-ants reached it. His shouts had brought the rest, and it was Hen Pine who, with his machete, had cut the supple liana and knotted the noose which had reached Will just in time.

Directed by Jud, his rescuers hauled on the vine so vigorously that the boy shot out of the pit and was dragged several yards along the ground before they knew that he was safe.

Jud hurried to help him up, but promptly did a most creditable performance in the standing-back broad-jump.

"Bring your machete here, quick!" he shouted to Hen; "a bushmaster's got the kid!"

"No," corrected Will, scrambling to his feet with some difficulty and waving off Hen with his unoccupied hand, "the kid's got a bushmaster."

Professor Amandus Ditson was delighted to his heart's core.

"That is the finest specimen of the _Lachesis mutus_," he remarked, as he unwound the rough coils from Will's waist, "that has ever been reported. Whatever happens now," he went on, relieving Will of his burden, "the trip is an unqualified success."

"The man's easily satisfied," murmured Jud, watching from a safe distance the professor grip the snake by the back of its neck and push it foot by foot into a long snake-bag which he always carried for possible specimens. When at last the bag, filled with snake, was tied tightly, it looked much like a long, k.n.o.bby Christmas-stocking. The professor swung it carelessly over his shoulder like a blanket-roll.