Chapter XV: The Cannibals

Through the long, dim shadows of early morning the little column passed on the last leg of its journey to the maloca of Suba, chief of this outlying tribe of the Mayorunas. At its head marched Yuara, his left arm incased in bandages, his face drawn and pallid, his stride stiff and springless, but still carrying his weapons and stoically setting the pace as befitted the son of a subchief. He had had no sleep; he had lain in the gates of death; his arm ached cruelly; yet a warm glow shone in his hollow eyes as he reflected on the fact that in all the unwritten history of his people he was the first man to survive the inexorable power of the wurali. As long as he lived this fact would lift him above the level of all his fellows. Even the chief could not boast of such a superhuman feat.

The undergrowth this morning was not so thick as it had been, and the machetes of Lourenço and Pedro stayed in their sheaths. The ground, too, was more level and the footing more firm. After some three hours of walking the Americans found that they had come into a faint path.

Somewhat to the bewilderment of the white men, who expected the Indians to increase their speed now that the way home lay under their feet, the leading pair slowed their gait. Moreover, they scanned the trail with intent care and watched the trees along the way. At length, with a warning grunt, Yuara stepped out of the path and began a detour. His comrade and the Brazilians followed. The Americans stopped.

“What’s the idea?” demanded McKay, looking along the innocent-appearing path.

“Probably a man trap, Capitao,” answered Pedro. “Follow us.”

“Let’s see the trap first.”

Lourenço called to Yuara, who stopped and grunted two words.

“Si, it is a trap. A pit, Yuara says.”

Yuara spoke again, and Lourenço added: “He says we must not touch it. It is there just before you, covered so cunningly that it looks exactly like the rest of the ground. The cover is a framework of sticks balanced on a pole, and the instant a man steps on it it gives way. He falls into a nine-foot hole whose sides are dug inward, so that they overhang above him. There the cannibals find him and kill him. I fell into one of those holes when I first came into this Mayoruna country, so I know just how they are made.”

“So? How did you get out?”

“There were two of us, and I stood on the other man’s shoulders while he lifted me high enough to jump out. Then I tied bush rope to a tree and he climbed up the rope. Come. Yuara waits.”

After a short circuit around the danger point the party returned to the path, and as they went on Lourenço explained further concerning the pit:

“Every approach to the malocas has this kind of trap hidden in it, and others also. The Indians recognize the places by some secret signal known only to themselves--a certain kind of stick or vine or something of the kind, placed where it can be seen by those who understand. The traps are made to stop any enemies who try to sneak up on the malocas and catch these people unawares. Another kind of trap is a spring bow or a blowgun shot by a vine stretched across the path. Still another is a piece of ground studded with poisoned araya bones which pierce the bare feet of anyone walking on them. It is well for us that we now have friendly guides.”

“Quite so,” McKay agreed, dryly.

Some distance farther on the leader again left the path, and this time all filed after him without comment. Pedro pointed significantly at a thin, tight-drawn bush cord stretched across the path at the height of a man’s ankle--the trigger which would discharge hidden death at anything touching it. At another point, perhaps a hundred feet farther along, a third and last detour was made, and this time the nature of the trap was not revealed by anything on the ground. No questions were asked.

With the passing of these three menaces Yuara resumed his former pace and abandoned his circumspection. Before long came sounds of communal life--the barking of a dog and shouts of children. Then suddenly the forest thinned, and after a few more strides the marchers found themselves in a clearing.

Before them rose a big round house, about forty feet high and a hundred feet in diameter, its sides composed of palm logs, and its roof a thick thatch of palm leaves, whence smoke oozed lazily through an opening at the peak. A single low door, not more than four feet high, opened toward a creek a few rods away at the right. Near this doorway a couple of naked children, boy and girl, were playing with the dog, while beyond them a number of women, also nude, were busy at some kind of work.

As Yuara and his fellow-tribesmen entered the open space the boy shouted a greeting and started running toward them. Then, seeing the white men filing from the bush behind the warriors, the youngster stood as if shocked motionless. After one long stare he screamed and bolted for the shelter of the maloca. Other screams echoed his as the women also saw the bearded outlanders. They, too, dived through the doorway.

Out from behind the house leaped three warriors, two of whom already had fitted arrows to their bows, while the third--a powerful fellow--clutched a four-foot war club. Weapons raised, faces contracted into fighting masks, they stared speechless at the spectacle of the subchief’s son calmly leading gun-bearing whites among them.

Knowlton, though his attention was riveted on the astonished warriors, caught the quiet snick of Tim’s safe-lock being turned off.

“None of that, Tim!” he warned. “Put that safety on again. And don’t hold your gun as if you intended to use it.”

“Aw, I was jest tryin’ her to make sure she was all right.”

“Put it on!” snapped the lieutenant. Another tiny click told him the order was obeyed.

Out from the doorway darted another warrior, stooping low to avoid hitting his head. Others followed instantly, all armed and ready for action. The opening was still vomiting tribesmen when Yuara and the rest reached it. But none made a hostile move when it was seen that the son of the subchief was in command and that the strangers seemed friendly. Yuara spoke, briefly but authoritatively, and the weapons sank. Then, with a word to his three companions, he ducked through the doorway. The other three remained where they were.

“We shall have to wait now, comrades, until Yuara tells his father and the chief about us,” Lourenço said. “So let us take off our packs and rest.”

He set the example by laying his rifle on the ground, unslinging his pack, squatting beside it, and coolly rolling a cigarette. Apparently he was paying no attention whatever to the savages, who watched his every move. But McKay, glancing at him as he followed suit, saw that, for all his seeming unconcern, the Brazilian bush rover was keenly watchful and that his gun lay within reach of his hand.

From within the tribal house sounded the monotonous voice of Yuara. After listening a moment Lourenço quietly addressed the nearest warrior. A slightly surprised looked passed over the cannibal’s face. He replied, and a slow conversation ensued.

Meanwhile the others looked over the array of savage fighting men. Except for difference of stature, build, and expression, they were as like as brothers. All were light skinned--hardly darker than the river-tanned whites themselves; all had straight-set eyes, with no hint of the slant often found among the Indians of the Amazon headwaters; and the cheek bones of all were fairly low. Their average stature was a little under six feet, and most of them had an athletic symmetry of physique. Their feet, McKay noticed, were small and shapely.

All wore tall feather headdresses of parrot and mutum plumes. All had the scarlet and black rings around the eyes, the streaks from temple to chin, the wavy design on their bodies. And each wore in the cartilage of his nose a pair of small feathers slanting outward. At another time and under other circumstances the white men might have smiled at those nose feathers, which resembled odd mustaches; but as they studied the austere faces around them they found no occasion for merriment. Nor was the tension lessened by the sight of the weapons grasped in the strong hands of the warriors.

Great bows and arrows, such as the hunters had borne, were supplemented here by the long clubs of heavy wood and by ugly spears. The clubs terminated in balls studded with jaguar teeth. The spears were triple pronged, each prong ending in a saw-toothed araya bone and each bone darkened by the fatal wurali. Frightful weapons they were--the one designed to smash skulls and tear out brains, the other to stab and poison at the same thrust.

Lourenço stopped talking, and the others observed that now the wild men stood more easily, their holds on their weapons loosened.

“I have shown them, Capitao, that I can speak their tongue, and told them we go to visit the chief Monitaya as friend,” he explained. “They tell me Monitaya has grown great since last I saw him. Another tribe which lost its chief and subchiefs by a swift sickness has joined his own, and he now rules two big malocas together. He is a powerful fighter, and if he is friendly to us we have a good chance of success. Ah! here is Yuara.”