Part 7 (1/2)
”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 s.h.i.+p-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.