THE WITCH-DOCTOR
Bright and early the next day Frank and Harry were up and stirring, and the other members of the party were not long in joining them.
The almost innumerable packing cases and chests containing the duffle, ammunition, armament and the sections of the Golden Eagle were scattered about the little "compound" or garden of M.
Desplaines" residence, having been brought ash.o.r.e overnight by a crew of Kroomen. M. Desplaines appeared while the boys were still contemplating their outfit and wondering if it would be possible to accommodate it all in the little flotilla which, it had been arranged previously, was to take them up the river to the camping place from which they were to strike out for the Ivory Mountain.
"I really almost envy your trip," he said, "although it will be fraught with danger. Still you go well armed and provisioned, and from what I have heard of you, you are not the sort of boys to let a few obstacles upset you."
While they were still talking and waiting for breakfast to be announced they were joined by a singular figure. It was that of a white man in rather shabby ducks and crowned, as was M. Desplaines, with a huge, white pith helmet. Over one shoulder he carried a green b.u.t.terfly net and under one arm he had tucked a tin box.
Round his waist was a leather belt from which hung, in addition to a revolver and cartridges, a gla.s.s bottle with a wide stopper with a chloroformed sponge reposing in the bottom. It did not need the introduction of the newcomer by M. Desplaines as Professor Ajax Wiseman, to tell the boys that Dr. Wiseman was a naturalist.
"My dear professor, what are you doing here?" exclaimed M.
Desplaines as soon as the introductions were over.
"I arrived this morning from Grand Ba.s.sam on a coasting schooner,"
replied the professor, carefully setting down his tin box. "I have a remarkable specimen of the Gladiolus Gorgeosi in there," he remarked importantly. "I am contemplating a trip into the interior via the Bia River and came to you to see if you could arrange transportation."
M. Desplaines looked at the boys.
"These young men have engaged the steam launch, to tow their expedition up the river," he said hesitatingly; "they are going on a hunting trip, into the interior, and have, I venture to say, one of the most complete outfits I have ever seen."
The naturalist looked wistfully at Frank.
"I suppose there would not be the least objection to my availing myself of your a.s.sistance in getting up the river," he said, blinking behind his spectacles like an old bat who has unexpectedly emerged into the sunlight. "I have only two canoes and as I carry my own attendant I shall be no trouble."
"We shall be delighted to accommodate you," rejoined Frank heartily, "but I shall have to place one restriction on you. When we reach our destination we must part company as we have work to do of a confidential nature. Our employer, Mr. Barr--"
"Old Luther Barr," burst out Professor Wiseman suddenly.
"Why, yes," rejoined Frank, rather taken aback, "you know him then?"
"I--I have heard of him," replied the other with a slight hesitancy which was, however, so faint as to be hardly noticeable. The voice of Madame Desplaines summoning them to breakfast broke off any opportunity for further questions on a matter that plainly, for some strange reason or other, seemed to have heartily interested--even disturbed--the naturalist. Frank felt troubled for a moment at the idea of having let Professor Wiseman form a portion of their party even for a short distance. But he dismissed the idea almost instantly. The queer expression that pa.s.sed over Professor Wiseman"s face at the mention of the ivory trader"s name might have simply been due to astonishment at hearing it again. Still Frank decided to keep an eye on Professor Wiseman.
The conversation at breakfast naturally enough dealt with the little known country the boys were to penetrate. Then it was for the first time that they heard mention of the mysterious tribe of the Flying Men who were reported to be equipped with rudimentary wings--like those of an undeveloped bat with which they managed to flit from tree top to tree top like true flyers.
"Oh, come," laughed Billy, "I"ve heard of tailed men and white Africans with red top-knots like Lathrop, but a race of winged men is coming it too strong."
"Laugh if you like," declared Professor Wiseman who had brought up the subject, "but some time ago I articulated a skeleton brought me by an Arab slave trader and found extending from the shoulder blade two distinct bony frames which had in life apparently been covered with a thin fleshy substance of leathery like tenacity stretching thence to the wrists. I asked the slave trader where he had found the skeleton," went on the savant, "and he told me he had come across it at the foot of a giant silk cotton tree in the Bambara country."
The boys exchanged glances. It was to the Bambara country--the country of the legendary Flying Men--that they were bound.
"Is any more known of this tribe?" inquired Frank.
"Very little except what you can pick up from the natives, which is little enough," replied Professor Wiseman, "they seem to have a dislike to speaking of the Flying Men--to whites at any rate. I think, too, they fear them. Report has it that they live in cave-like holes in the side of a giant, black basalt cliff reached by a subterranean river. They reach the ground by taking short flights from the holes they live in and regain the cliff dwellings by means of rope ladders formed of twisted creepers."
"Then they cannot fly upward?" asked Frank.
"It would seem not," replied the naturalist, "their wings only serve as gliders. Possibly once in the remote ages they could fly as well as great birds but with the course of the ages and disuse their wings have dwindled."
As may, be imagined the idea that within a short time they were to be in the country of the mysterious tribe caused a tremendous stir among the boys and when after breakfast their strange friend of the night before, Sikaso, appeared they at once overwhelmed him with questions. But strangely enough Sikaso made no reply to their eager queries.
He shook his great bead and seemed to be embarra.s.sed, if not by fear at any rate by reticence.
"In Misoto Mountains many strange Ju-jus (fetishes)," he said in an awed tone, "Misoto Mountains no good for white boys--white boys stay away."
"Not much," chimed in Harry, "that"s just where we are going."
"You go Misoto Mountain," said the giant black in an astonished tone.
"That"s what we are," exclaimed Lathrop.
The black gazed at the ground and drew a small circle on the dust with his toe. In the center of it he made a cross.
"That my dukkeri (fate)," he said slowly, "you go, Sikaso he go too.
I see it in the smoke."
"Saw it in the smoke?" repeated the amazed boys.
"In smoke of Ju-ju fire I see it written. I see five go, three come back, in smoke too. I have spoken."
He stalked off as I suddenly as he had the night before and left the boys to gaze in a bewildered way after his huge figure as it swung down the road.
"That fellow"s the best disappearer I ever saw," said Billy Barnes at length.
"I wish he"d stop that stuff about "five go three come back,"" said Lathrop, "it gets on your nerves."
"What could he have meant by seeing it in the smoke?" asked Harry bewilderedly.
"Just this," broke in a quiet voice behind them. It was Professor Wiseman, who had glided up to them as silently as a cat. "It is a common trick among the witch doctors--of whom our friend yonder seems to be one--to divine events by means of the smoke from a fire built to the accompaniment of special incantations."
"Well, that"s cheerful," commented Billy, "but tell us, Professor, how often do they hit it right?"
"Nine times out of ten, young man," said Professor Wiseman impressively fixing Billy with his gaze just as he would have impaled a bug or gra.s.shopper, "and the tenth time they come so near the truth as to be uncomfortable."
"I have heard of such things, but I always put them down as impossibilities," gasped Frank.
"Just travelers" tales," said Billy.
"There are many things for the young to learn in Africa," remarked Professor Wiseman coldly and gazing at Billy with squashing intentness; "the young do not believe many things merely because they are young--and foolish."
"Gee! that was a nailer for fair," said Billy afterward. "I felt as if the Doc was running a big blue pin through me and sticking me on a bit of cork,"
That morning, as the start for the interior was not to be made till the next day, M. Desplaines asked the boys if they would care to try a little fishing at the foot of the famous Jumbari Falls which lay on a branch of the Bari river a short distance from the town. Of course the boys a.s.sented eagerly, but as it was found that only Frank and Harry were expert canoeists, it was agreed that the others should fish from the bank while the two young leaders trolled their lines from a native built craft. This canoe was kept at the falls--to which they tramped the two miles overland by a narrow trail.
The falls were a magnificent sight. From a dark red rock, fully two hundred feet in height, a great volume of water poured its roaring current into a boiling pool below. The cliffs shot up sheer on all sides and were covered at the bottom with luxuriant green growth like seaweed, while higher up, ferns, as big as rose-bushes at home, and trees of a hundred varieties clung wherever they could find a root-hold. As the party arrived at the top of the ravine and gazed down, the uproar of the water was so terrific as to render any speech inaudible. M. Desplaines, who led the party, pointed to a hole in the rocks and a second later vanished into it.
At first, consternation seized on the boys who thought that an accident had happened, but seeing not hearing Professor Wiseman"s rea.s.suring laugh and noticing him plunge after M. Desplaines, the boys rightly concluded that the aperture was a subterranean entrance to the foot of the falls. And so it proved. A steep flight of steps was cut in a deep cleft of the cliff down to the water"s edge.
A few minutes after they had begun the descent, the little party stood on the brink of the whirling pool into which the mighty falls roared their thousands of tons of water. Following M. Desplaines, they advanced down the stream to a point where a bend shut off like a rock curtain the deafening uproar of the cascade. Here a canoe lay moored and Frank and Harry stepped into it and shoved off. Their lines and other equipment they had in their pockets.