Part 25 (1/2)

They were not a second too soon.

Even as they took their places in the canoe and Billy prepared to slash the gra.s.s-rope that held it, the clamor drew close to the mouth of the tunnel.

From the foot of the cliff the chums and their aged companion saw torches glowing and could perceive Aga and the other pointing at them and evidently explaining to the tribesmen that they had tried to stop their flight. Billy was glad to see that apparently their explanations were accepted and they were not suspected of having aided the escaping prisoners.

With a quick slash of his flint knife, the young reporter severed the rope at which the canoe was straining till it was taut as a piano wire. There were several other canoes lying alongside and before he cast loose Billy cut the detaining ropes of these also.

”Now they'll have to swim if they want to get us!” he exclaimed as the canoe, released from its bondage, shot forward on the boiling current at a dizzy rate.

But he had reckoned without the flying men. Dozens of them had dropped from their holes and having gained the opposite bank started in pursuit of the boys and the old explorer, who lay as if overcome at the bottom of the canoe. Many of the strange beings carried bows and arrows and they sent their shafts whizzing in a shower at the canoe. One pierced its side and Billy had to stop the hole with a strip torn from his already ripped-up s.h.i.+rt.

But fortunately, except for a slight scratch on Billy's forearm, none of the arrows did much harm to the voyagers themselves, and borne on the swift current the canoe soon outdistanced her pursuers.

As the sound of their shouting grew faint behind them, Billy and Lathrop grasped the paddle with which they strove to keep the boat on a straight course--there was no need to propel her.

The young reporter realized that three lives--his own, Lathrop's and that of the long missing explorer depended alone now on their skill and grit.

CHAPTER XX

THE SMOKE READER

And now we must leave the floating canoe with its occupants and turn to the River Camp, where we left the Boy Aviators overcome with anxiety as to the fate of their young comrades. The situation was indeed one calculated to try the stoutest heart. There was only one drop of sweet in their cup of bitter.

Harry, poking about among the ruins of the deserted camp, had discovered several cans of gasoline that the raiders had overlooked.

They formed sufficient fuel with the picric cakes that Frank still had a supply of, to drive the big aeroplane for several hundred miles if the wind conditions were favorable.

But leave the river camp the boys dare not, for they realized that if Billy and Lathrop did manage to make their escape, they would, if possible, come back there. True, it was a chance so remote as to appear almost impossible, but under the circ.u.mstances even the shadow of a hope seemed to a.s.sume substance. And so they waited, and had been waiting, while the stirring events we have related had been happening to their missing chums.

As if to add to their oppression, old Sikaso mooned about the camp, his eyes rooted to the ground in moody absorption and muttering to himself, ”five go--three come back,” till Frank angrily ordered him to stop. The realization that his gloomy prophecy seemed only too likely to be fulfilled, however, did not tend to relieve the situation.

”If we do not hear from them to-morrow, we shall be compelled to take to the air and fly to the coast,” said Frank as they sat that evening round a camp-fire which had been lighted to keep away marauding lions, whose roars ever and anon shook the forest. At such times old Sikaso's eyes wandered longingly to his great war-axe. There is little doubt that he would have liked to work off his gloomy feelings by tackling a lion single-handed with his weapon.

”You think, then, it isn't worth while waiting if we have heard no news by then?” asked Harry.

”It isn't that,” said Frank in reply, ”but we have not provisions left to more than tide us over another day. What the Arabs didn't destroy they spoiled.”

Harry nodded his head silently.

Cruel necessity, it seemed, was to compel them to evacuate the camp, to which they still clung in the hope the lost adventurers might return.

It was in vain Ben Stubbs cracked his jokes that night and related all sorts of droll sea yarns in the hope of cheering up his young companions. For the first time since he had known them it looked as if the Boy Aviators had really lost all hope, and truly the facts seemed to warrant the stoutest-heart in the world being downcast--to say the least.

Suddenly without a word old Sikaso left the fire and strode off into the forest. He was gone for more than an hour and when he came back his look of gloom had vanished. For him he was almost cheerful.

He swung his terrible axe in all sorts of fantastic evolutions and hummed to himself his grim chant with a fierce sort of joy.

”White boys, the smoke is going to tell me things to-night,” he exclaimed suddenly. ”When the moon reaches to the top of the sky I shall tell you news of the four-eyed one and of the red-headed.”

Impatiently they waited till the moon reached her zenith and then watched wonderingly while the old savage built a small fire of sticks, over each one of which he mumbled something in African.