The Pathless Trail Part 29

The street behind now was filled with the ma.s.s of Red Bone warriors who had trooped after the column. All exit in that direction was blockaded.

But the ex-officers noted that between the houses were s.p.a.ces each wide enough to hold a couple of men, and in an undertone McKay gave defensive instructions to Lourenco.

"If fighting starts, have the Mayorunas take cover along these houses on each side. We who have guns will use the chief's house. We can sweep the whole street from there. You two fellows capture the chief alive if possible. He'll be more useful as a hostage than as a corpse."

Pedro beamed approval of this swiftly formed plan. Lourenco muttered to Tucu, who in turn pa.s.sed the word down the line. Then all stood waiting.

Presently the Red Bone man came out. He shouted a name. From the doorway near at hand, where he had been standing and peering at the small but formidable body of newcomers, an old man now stepped forth and advanced, limping a little, to the hatchet-face. The latter talked briefly to him, then to Tucu. The Mayoruna leader pointed to Lourenco. The old man spoke to the Brazilian, who answered at once. Thereupon the wizened old fellow entered the chief's house.

"That old man speaks the Mayoruna tongue quite well, Capitao," said Lourenco. "He says you and I shall enter and talk through his mouth with the chief. All others remain outside, and we must leave our rifles here."

"All right. Glad we can leave Tucu out here to control these fellows.

Here, Merry." He pa.s.sed his rifle to Knowlton. Pedro took Lourenco's gun. With packs still on their backs the chosen men proceeded to the doorway and entered the house where waited the ruler of the Red Bone tribe.

Behind them the line settled into easier postures of waiting. The Red Bones, though so compactly ranged as to cut off any chance of escape, held their distance, obviously neither inclined to fraternize nor ready to precipitate conflict by crowding. Thus, while keeping their ears open for any sound of a concerted movement from behind, the visitors could use their eyes to inspect the huts nearest them.

In some of these, women stood near the doorways, staring with unwinking absorption at the light-skinned, athletic men outside who were so much better to look upon than their own mates. The Mayorunas returned the stares with the brief glances of men accustomed to noticing everything but totally uninterested--as well they might be, for these poorly shaped, heavy-mouthed, mud-skinned females were not to be compared with their own women. Knowlton and Pedro, too, looked them over, but with the same expression as if inspecting a family of lizards. Then they glanced into other huts now empty of life, and in a couple of these they saw rigid red-hued objects hanging from the roofs.

"The red bones of the dead, senhor," Pedro muttered, and his blond companion, peering again at the sinister decorations, nodded without reply.

Voices came to them from the chief's house, talking with droning deliberation. Evidently no cause for friction had yet arisen. They let their eyes rove on beyond the guarded doorway, to pause at a house a short distance away at the right. There stood a clubman, who leaned idly on his weapon, but showed no intention of moving from his place. The door of that house was closed. Not only closed, but barred on the outside.

"Hm! Looks like a jail," said Knowlton. Pedro smiled, but an intent look came into his face and he studied the closed house.

Suddenly both started. At one corner of the house, unseen by the clubman, a head had cautiously slipped forth. For only an instant it hung there before dodging back out of sight. But both the watching men had seen that the face, though half masked by long dark hair and a thick beard, was much lighter than that of any Red Bone savage. And in the hair above one ear was a white streak.

CHAPTER XX.

THE RAPOSA

McKay and Lourenco, in a broad, low, musty-smelling room, faced a man who stood and a man who sat. The man who stood was the old savage who could talk in the Mayoruna language. The man who sat was the chief of the Red Bones.

In his first words to the visitors the old interpreter revealed that the name of the Red Bone ruler was Umanuh. Later on Lourenco informed McKay that in the Tupi _lengoa geral_ of the Amazonian Indians (which, however, was not spoken by this tribe) the word "umanuh" meant "corpse."

And whatever the name may have signified in the language of the Red Bones, its Tupi definition fitted with disagreeable precision. For Umanuh was a living cadaver.

Gaunt, gray skinned, lank haired, hollow of cheek and eye, with thin, cruel lips so tight drawn that the teeth behind seemed to show through, ribs projecting, clawlike hands resting on bony knees, his whole frame motionless as that of a man long dead, the head man of the bone-dyeing tribe was the ant.i.thesis of both the piggish Suba and the herculean Monitaya. Only his eyes lived; and those eyes were cold and merciless as those of a snake or a vulture. A man who ruled by ruthless cunning, who would gaze unmoved on the most ghastly tortures, who would devour human flesh with ghoulish relish--such was the creature who sat in a red-dyed hammock and contemplated the impa.s.sive face of McKay.

"Umanuh, great chief, eater of his enemies, with fangs of the jaguar and wisdom of the great snake, awaits the greeting of the one-whose-hair grows-from-his-mouth," droned the old mouthpiece of the chief.

"Makkay, leader of the fighting men of the Blackbeards, whose voice is the thunder and whose hand spits lightning and death, gives greeting to Umanuh," responded Lourenco in a like droning tone.

A pause. Umanuh gave no sign of life. McKay, straight and cold, met the unwinking stare of the chief with his own chill gray gaze. Between the two who spoke not was a testing of wills.

"Makkay brings with him none of the Blackbeard warriors," pointed out the interpreter, who seemed to know his master's thought. "He comes with only the jungle men of light skins."

"Makkay needs none of his own warriors when he comes in peace. If he came in war the terrible Blackbeards with him would cause the whole forest to fly apart in smoke and flame. Since he walks in peace to visit his friend Umanuh, of whose wisdom he has heard, he brings only his friends the Mayorunas, who are friends also to the men of the Red Bones."

Another pause. The old man now seemed somewhat uncertain of himself. The silent duel between McKay and Umanuh went on. At length the chief's eyes flickered a trifle. In a hissing whisper he said something.

"The men of the Mayorunas never come to this country unless seeking something," the interpreter promptly spoke up. "What do they seek?"

"Only that which Makkay seeks."

Then, turning to the captain, the Brazilian added: "Capitao, we now have reached the point to talk business. Have you any presents? And is it your wish to give them now or later?"

"I have a few things. But I'll give them later--if at all. This chief is hostile. Tell him what we're here for and see how he acts."

"It has come to the ears of Makkay," Lourenco informed the man of Umanuh, "that a man of the Blackbeards lives among the men of the Red Bones. Makkay would see that man."

Again the interpreter awaited his master's voice before answering.

"No man of the Blackbeards is among the men of Umanuh," he then denied.

"If he is not among them he is near them," was Lourenco's certain reply.

"He has been seen both by other Blackbeards and by the Mayorunas. I, too, have seen him. He bears on his bones the sign that his mind is out of his skull. His eyes are green and his hair touched with white. Umanuh and his men know well that I speak true."

The pause this time was longer than before.

"There was such a man, but he is gone."

"Then Makkay asks his friend Umanuh to find that one. A chief so wise can easily find him where others would see only water and mud."

"If he could be found what would the great Blackbeard leader do with him?"

Lourenco thought swiftly. To say the Raposa was McKay's friend would do little good. Friendship meant nothing to this unfeeling brute. Therefore the bushman insinuated something which his cruel mind could comprehend.

"If a Red Bone man abandoned his people and went to another tribe, what would Umanuh do to him when he was found?"

A cold glimmer in the chief's eyes showed that he thought he understood.

Moreover, he would much like to see what sort of torture this hard-faced Blackbeard would use on a fugitive. It might be something even more fiendish than his own pastimes. So the next reply came promptly.

"If that man is found the blackbeard will pay for him?"

"There are gifts of friendship for Umanuh," Lourenco nodded.

"The Blackbeard leader will pay more than the other Blackbeard?"

Lourenco almost blinked. What other Blackbeard? The Raposa himself? But the Brazilian repressed his bewilderment.

"Makkay will first see the man to make sure he is the Blackbeard whom Makkay wants," he dodged. "Then he will pay well."

"Umanuh will see the gifts now."

"The gifts cannot be shown now. They are packed away. When Makkay has looked on the man Umanuh shall look on the gifts."