Chapter XIV: A Duel With Death

Rain came and went.

The first night’s camp of the strangely assorted company was a wet one, for well on in the day the skies poured down the watery weight which had been troubling them once morning. Yet even in such miserable weather the four tribesmen of the Mayorunas declined to sleep in the same camp with the whites. They accepted the food tendered them, but when it was eaten they withdrew to some covert of their own to spend the night. Whereby the whites knew that, though their guides now could no longer suspect them of killing the lone hunter, they still were not accepted as friends.

“Did ye say them guys had a trick of jabbin’ men in their hammicks at night, Renzo?” was Tim’s significant question after the Indians had departed.

“Have no fear,” Lourenço assured him. “They have promised to take us safely to their chief.”

“How much is the word of a cannibal worth?” asked Knowlton.

“Worth everything, so long as you do nothing to make them forget it, senhor. Being uncivilized, they are not liars.”

The lieutenant eyed him sharply, half minded to regard the answer as insolent. But there was no insolence in the Brazilian’s straightforward gaze, and McKay laughed approvingly.

“Well spoken!” was the captain’s comment.

“Among those people there are but two great crimes,” Lourenço added. “They are, to speak falsely or to be a coward.”

“Wherein a goodly portion of the so-called civilized world would fail to measure up to the standards of these cannibals,” McKay said. “By the way, have you asked them about the Raposa?”

“No, Capitao. It is as well not to put into their heads the idea that we are hunting anyone here. I shall say nothing of that matter until we reach the chief who knows me.”

“Good idea.”

With that the talk ended and all sought their hammocks, dog tired from the day’s travel. No watch was kept, for, as Pedro quaintly phrased it, “We now are in the hands of God and the cannibals.” Nor was any watch needed.

Daybreak brought sunlight. While the breakfast coffee was being boiled the four wild men appeared silently and simultaneously, one bringing a red howling monkey and another a large green parrot as their contributions to the morning meal. Neither bird nor animal showed any wound except a slightly discolored spot surrounding a skin puncture no larger than if made by a woman’s hatpin--the marks left by poisoned darts from the ten-foot blowguns. When the meat was cooked they offered portions to the whites, of whom Tim alone refused.

“I’d as quick eat a rat killed with Paris green,” he growled. “No poisoned meat gits into my stummick if I know it.”

“Bosh!” scoffed McKay. “It’s perfectly wholesome--though it’s tough as a rubber boot.”

“And I might tell you, senhores, that among these people it is an insult to refuse any food offered you,” added Lourenço. “I advise you to forget about the poison hereafter and eat what is put before you, even if it stinks.”

His advice was emphasized by the evident displeasure of the tribesmen, who, though saying nothing, looked rather grimly at the man who had despised their provisions. But Lourenço then smoothed over the matter by telling them that the red-haired man was sick at the stomach that morning--which, at that particular moment, was not far from the truth.

Soon the triglot column was once more on its way across the hill country, which hourly grew higher and rougher--a constant succession of ridges and ravines. Lourenço, pointing out the absence of water marks on the trees of the uplands, said that now the land of the great annual floods had been left behind; for even the sixty-foot rise of waters in the rainy season could not reach to these hilltops. With the entry into this terra firma the travelers had also found the sun again, the dank mist of yesterday having vanished. Nevertheless, the going was fully as hard as on the previous day, because of the density of the bush and of the labor of crossing the narrow but deep streams flowing at the bottom of nearly every clove. Few words were exchanged, every man needing his breath for the work of walking.

As before, the keen machetes of the Brazilians opened a direct route through all opposing undergrowth. When a brief halt was called at noon the Mayorunas, who seemed to know exactly where they were despite the fact that they had never before followed this straight course, informed Lourenço that much circuitous traveling had already been saved, and that by tramping hard until sundown they might succeed in reaching the tribal maloca that night. But McKay vetoed the idea of a forced march.

“This gait is fast enough and hard enough,” he declared. “No sense in exhausting ourselves to save a few hours’ time. Also, we don’t want to go staggering into the Mayoruna village with our tongues hanging out and our knees wabbling. First impressions are lasting with such people, and they might get an idea we were weaklings.”

To which all except the savages, who did not understand the language of the white man, assented approvingly.

Yet it was the Mayorunas themselves who delayed arrival at their maloca--the Mayorunas and a monkey. When the sinking sun was still two hours high, and while the leader was forcing the pace as if determined to reach home that night whether the rest liked it or not, the monkey upset any such plan.

He was a big gray monkey, and he was high up in the branches of a tall matamata tree, where he deemed himself safe from the many creatures laboring along the ground below. Wherefore he chattered impudently down at them and, as the tall Indian guide halted, showed his teeth derisively. The savage grunted. The man behind him also grunted and lifted his blowgun. But the leader growled at him and the blowgun sank.

With a swift sweep of the hand the guide drew from his quiver one of those long, poisoned arrows and fitted it to the bow cord, which he had laid on the ground. With two toes of each foot he held the cord firmly on the soil. His right hand lightly grasped the arrow and aimed it up at the insolent primate. His left drew the bow up, up, into an arc.

Twang! the cord thrummed as his lifted toes released it. The arrow whirred aloft. Then a snarl of chagrin from the marksman blended with the grunts of his mates. The arrow had failed to reach the quarry.

It had missed, however, by a mere hand’s breadth--missed only because it struck the limb directly under the monkey, where it hung by the tip from the bark. Muttering something which may have been a Mayoruna malediction, the savage moved aside a step or two, drew another arrow, and set it to the cord with more care than before. But while he did this the monkey was not idle.

Chattering in rage, the animal leaned down, worked the arrow loose from the bark, and threw it aside. The deadly shaft turned in air, then plunged aimlessly earthward. At that instant all below were watching the guide, who in turn was looking at his toes and placing the new arrow in position. Unseen, the other missile hurtled down--and ripped across the back of the marksman’s left hand.

For an instant the tall cannibal stood as if petrified, staring at his cut hand and the shaft now sticking upright in the ground beside him. Then, in simple symbolism, he reversed the new arrow and stabbed it also into the dirt. Dropping his bow, he lay down on his back.

“Yuara will draw bow no more. Yuara goes to join the spirits of the dead,” he said, calmly.

Mechanically Lourenço translated the words. McKay sprang forward.

“No!” he disputed. “Not without a try for life, anyhow! Merry, sling a tourniquet! Quick!”

Knowlton jumped to the side of Yuara, tied a handkerchief above the elbow, twisted it tight. McKay whipped from a pocket a keen-bladed knife. In one swift ruthless slash he laid open the arm from elbow to knuckles.

“Keep that tourniquet tight!” he snapped. “If the blood once gets past it he’s gone. Tim, get out the salt bag! Lourenço, tell this fellow to breathe deep and keep it up!”

While Tim burrowed into his pack for the salt, Lourenço spoke, as much for the benefit of the other tribesmen as for that of Yuara; for the three Mayorunas stood in ominous silence, watching the outrush of blood caused by the knife of the white man.

“The white man of the black beard, who is very wise, will save Yuara to draw many a good bow if Yuara will do as he says. Let Yuara breathe deeply, that the spirit of life remain in him to fight against the demon of death. Even now the poison rushes out of the arm of Yuara.”