Biggles"s face appeared among the rocks on the opposite side of the abyss. "Brazil," he jeered savagely, "Brazil-where the mutts come to."
"If we"d been five minutes earlier we should have all been across," observed Algy miserably.
"And if we"d been five minutes later we should all have been up salt creek without a paddle," returned Biggles philosophically. "Throw me over a can of corned d.i.c.key, Smyth; you"ve got the grub. I"m going to fetch the Condor-if I can. I don"t know where I am, or where it is, and I wouldn"t know how to get to it if I did. I"m no mountain goat. I like to see a pair of wings on either side of me before I do the high trapeze act. You ought to see what I"ve got to face. I"m going off right away while there are still a few minutes of daylight left. Go back to the temple; you can see the Condor from there, so you"ll be able to see me take off. So long." With a parting wave he was gone.
CHAPTER XV.
A PERILOUS Pa.s.sAGE.
WHEN Biggles had said, "You ought to see what I"ve got to face," he had already taken a shuddering glance at the scene on the opposite side of the rock on which he was isolated.
Behind was the chasm only thirty feet wide, yet cutting him off as effectually from the others as if it had been three hundred feet. On the other side he was confronted by such a stupendous array of peaks that even his iron nerve was shaken to no small extent. He realised, of course, that the pathway across the plateau and the bridge led across the rock on which he stood, and that there should be a continuation of it somewhere, and if there was such a path it would, sooner or later, lead down to more normal terrain. Hunting around, he presently found it in the form of a row of steps, cut like a narrow shelf into the sheer face of the cliff. Where they led he was unable to see, for they wound around a b.u.t.tress of rock and disappeared. He did not waste time in idle speculation, for he knew that the descent of the awful pa.s.sage had to be undertaken unless they were all to perish miserably, and delay and contemplation would only make the task more to be dreaded.
He tackled it as he tackled most jobs that were to be "feared. He set straight off down the frightful causeway, his right shoulder brushing the face of the cliff and his left in s.p.a.ce.
He reached the bend, and steadied himself with an effort when he saw that the path continued for at least another fifty yards and again disappeared round a bend.
"Bah! Scores of those Inca fellows must have made this trip regularly, and with loads on their backs, I dare say," he muttered through his teeth, and, braced with this thought, he continued his way. Curiously enough, the horror of it was already beginning to wear off by the time he reached the next bend, and he realised that it was in the first few awful steps that lay the real danger. He rounded the bend, which brought him facing the direction of the country through which flowed the stream where they had left the Condor, but it was now an indistinct world of deep blue and purple shadows falling away in long undulations to the misty horizon. Then, to his unutterable relief, the path widened suddenly and opened out into a small sheltered platform on which, under a overhanging ledge of rock, stood a stone seat. The place had evidently been used in the dim past as a rest-house, for the walls of the cliff were literally covered with carvings, mostly of crude design, representing all sorts of weird creatures that meant nothing to him, but would probably have been familiar to d.i.c.kpa could he have seen them. It was now nearly dark. He could see the narrow path winding on again, but he decided it was too risky to attempt in such a light, and settled himself to pa.s.s the night as well as he could in the primitive shelter.
Taking everything into consideration, he was fairly successful. He was awakened once by a brief thunderstorm of such violence, and accompanied by such torrential rain, that at one moment he trembled lest the whole side of the cliff, including his precarious perch, be washed away. Fortunately, the overhanging rock protected him; and, remembering that the ledge must have weathered hundreds of similar storms, he crouched a little lower and was soon asleep again.
When he awoke, the sun was shining brightly. He was rather stiff and sore from the hardness of his couch, " and he gazed for a moment uncomprehendingly at the forbidding panorama of towering peaks and frowning precipices before the full significance of his position came back to him with a rush. After a couple of brisk exercises to restore circulation, he looked out at the continuation of the path. As before, it consisted of a flight of steps cut into the rock like a spiral staircase, vanishing round a bend about a hundred yards away and some distance below. Picking up his Inca tomahawk, he set off without further ado.
He was about half-way to the bend when a shadow swept across the face of the cliff just in front of him, and, looking round without any particular alarm to ascertain the cause, he saw the largest bird he had ever seen in his life. It was snow-white from beak to tail, and he judged it to measure a full twenty feet from wing tip to wing tip. Its cruel curved beak and formidable talons betrayed it to be a bird of prey, and he watched its stately flight in admiration. "I didn"t know there were such things as white eagles," he mused as he continued his way. Although he did not know it, he was looking at what is probably the rarest bird in the world, the magnificent king condor of the Andes, the existence of which travellers in the Cordillera have reported from time to time. It was named the king condor because ordinary condors seemed subservient to it.
He had taken only a few steps when a noise of rushing air made him turn quickly with an unpleasant consciousness of danger. The bird was swooping down on him, and he dropped to his knees just as it swept over him, the long curving talons that would have torn his face to ribbons pa.s.sing within a foot of his head. He was on his feet the instant it had pa.s.sed, hurrying towards the bend, for the narrow shelf to which he clung was no place for an encounter with either bird or beast.
But before he had taken six steps it was clear that the bird had no intention of abandoning its presumed prey, for it soared up in a steep climbing turn and then dropped like a stone towards him, pinions raised, talons projecting viciously below. Biggles grabbed in his pocket for the automatic which he had carried ever since the affair of the Indians, but before he could use it the bird was on him. Instinctively he flung himself down at full length as the bird swept past in a vertical bank at the end of its dive, and the rush of air that followed it nearly blew him from the ledge. He jerked up the automatic, and three fingers of flame leapt from the muzzle. Crackcrack-crack! it spat viciously.
He knew instantly that the bird was hard hit. It faltered in its flight, actually dropping a few feet, and then, recovering itself with an effort, flew to a neighbouring crag, where it settled and then collapsed with outstretched wings. Twice it made a stupendous effort to rise, but failed, and finally, after a convulsive flap of its great wings, it lay still.
"Sorry, old bird, but you asked for it," muttered Biggles in a tone of sincere regret as he dropped the automatic back into his pocket, for he was genuinely sorry that he had been forced to destroy such a n.o.ble-looking creature.
He had nearly reached the bend when a great noise of rushing wings caused him to look up with a start. The air was full of huge, dark-brown birds falling towards him from out of the sky. He saw them land, one after the other, with effortless ease on the rock where the white bird lay; then they rose in a cloud and swept towards him with a directness that left no doubt as to their intention. He waited for no more. As swiftly as he dared he sped along a pathway where, the day before, he would have hesitated to take a single step. He reached the bend with the revengeful winged subjects of the dead king close behind him, knowing that unless some shelter quickly revealed itself he was lost. A single bird he might, and had indeed, vanquished, but a whole flight was beyond his ability to cope with.
He slowed down as he reached the bend lest his impetus should carry him over the brink, and, turning the corner, saw that the path still continued. As he started forward again the sound of gushing water came to his ears from somewhere near at hand, and then he pulled up dead with an involuntary cry of dismay. The path ended abruptly-in mid-air, so to speak. At his feet lay a broad ravine about twenty feet wide; it looked as if the side of the mountain had been split by some mighty convulsion of nature, for he could see the path continuing on its way over the other side. At the bottom of the ravine, forty feet below, a boiling rapid, swollen by the recent rain, raced with headlong, pent-up fury between its narrow rocky confines.
Biggles knew that he was at the end of his tether, for the birds were already swooping to the attack. There was only one thing to do, and he made up his mind quickly. Backing a few yards up the path for the take-off, he sped down the slope and launched himself into s.p.a.ce. He knew before he jumped that it was too wide for him, but nevertheless he actually reached the opposite bank; for one awful moment he struggled to maintain his balance, but a rock gave way under his weight and he plunged down into the whirling torrent below.
The icy coldness of the water struck him like a physical blow as he disappeared beneath the surface, but he was up again in a moment, amazed to find he was unhurt. He kept his head and concentrated his efforts on remaining afloat, keeping a watchful eye open for rocks, knowing that it was out of the question for him to attempt to scale the precipitous wall of the canyon. Of the birds he could now see no sign.
From the rate he was travelling he judged the torrent was losing height quickly, and he abandoned himself to it, conserving his strength for a supreme effort in case a break should occur in the side of the canyon sufficient to give him a foothold. He became conscious of a dull booming sound not far away, but from his position at water-level he could see nothing. The noise reminded him of something he had heard before, and even as the word "Falls" rose to his lips he was hurled outwards and downwards.
Now, Biggles, in describing his adventures afterwards to the others, was convinced that he fell a distance of at least a hundred feet, a computation that brought a smile to Algy"s face. But this was quite possible. In! Samoa and other islands in the South Seas in which high waterfalls occur, the Polynesians think nothing of allowing themselves to be carried over certain falls even higher than this. It is indulged in as a kind of sport rather than as a feat demanding nerve and endurance. Be that as it may, Biggles had a fleeting impression of being pounded to pulp by a tremendous force that surged around him in a world of darkness; a roar like thunder in his ears, and just as he thought his lungs must surely burst he found himself blinking at the sun with his arms resting on something solid. Dazed, gasping like a stranded fish, he wiped his dripping hair from his eyes and saw that he was lying on a shelving sandbank in the middle of a wide, rippling stream.
He could see the falls some little distance away churning the water into boiling foam.
At first he was unable to believe that he was still alive, so certain had he been that the cold hand of death had already settled upon him, but he rose gingerly to his feet, and, seeing that the water was fairly shallow, reaching not much higher than his waist, he waded wearily to the nearest bank, where he flung himself down out of sheer exhaustion.
In a few minutes his numbed faculties were restored and his frozen limbs beginning to thaw in the sun. A slow smile spread over his face. "The next time anybody talks to me about going off at the deep end I shall know what they mean," he mused. "Well, I suppose I"m still in Brazil." He rose to his feet and looked around. On his left, and seemingly quite close, towered the perpendicular wall of the plateau. To the right of it were the giant peaks that fell away into a series of foothills, between two of which he now stood. Being in a valley, his field of vision was very restricted, so he set off up the side of the nearest hill to get a better view. When he reached the top and looked down, he could scarcely believe his, eyes.
Straight in front of him, and not more than a quarter of a mile away at the foot of the gently sloping hill, was another stream at a lower level, and this he recognised at once as the one up which they had walked to the cave. His eyes swept along it, and came to rest on the Condor, standing just as he had left it except that its exposed wings were now shining brightly in the sun.
Delighted with his good fortune, he set off down the hill without delay. "d.i.c.kpa was certainly right about Brazil," he thought as he pushed his way through creeper-clad bushes and high gra.s.s. "This is the place where you can always reckon on the unexpected happening. Still, this bit of luck wasn"t out of turn." He struck the stream a trifle below the Condor, and he made his way quickly towards it, anxious to learn if any damage had been done by the monkeys. "I"ll get myself a tin of beans before I do anything else," he thought, suddenly realising that he was famished.
Casually, he opened the door of the cabin. Almost as if to prove what he had just been thinking, the sight that met his eyes was so completely and utterly unexpected that he could only stand and stare in stupefied astonishment.
Upon a cushion, engaged in the prosaic occupation of ladling out the contents of a tin of pork and beans with a spoon, sat a man.
"What"s the big idea?" said Biggles coldly, reaching for his automatic and looking the stranger up and down, for he was the most amazing apparition he had ever seen. He was a negro, with curly white hair and a straggling wisp of beard. The tatters of- a vest hung over his shoulders, revealing a tattooed battleship on his skinny chest, while in lieu of trousers he wore a strip of old blanket wound about his middle, and this, secured with a liana, served as a sort of kilt. But it was not these things that caught Biggles"s eyes and held them fascinated in spite of danger which might threaten. On his feet and legs were a pair of new, beautifully cut officer"s field-boots, and the whole effect was so incon-gruous that Biggles could only gape in comical amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Doan shoot, boss," answered the man quickly, in English, in answer to his question, nearly choking in his haste to speak with his mouth full of beans. "I ain"t one of dem good-fer-nuthin" fellers what"s after you-no, sah, dat"s truf, sure as I"s me. I doan mean no harm, boss "Hold hard a minute," cried Biggles, recovering from his astonishment. "Are you here alone?"
"Sure, boss."
"What"s your name?"
"Aaron Speakdetruf."
"What?"
"Dat"s honest, sah; if my old mudder was here she tell you dat"s truf, sah."
"Where have you come from?"
"Fust place, way back in Trinidad, sah; second place, way down de ribber."
"Trinidad. Is that where you learnt to speak English?"
"That"s right, sah."
"What river are you talking about?"
"Why, dis ribber, sah."
"What are you doing up here?"
The old negro clasped and unclasped his hands convulsively and his lips twitched. "
Doan take me back, sah," he begged. "I "
"So you"re a rubber collector-run away, eh?"
"Dat"s truf, sah. Dey told me if I come here and pick rubber pretty soon dey take me back home, sah; but I"ve been here more"n twenty years now, sah, and I ain"t had nuthin", doan see nuthin"
"And ain"t got nuthin"," continued Biggles. "I see. Well, don"t make a song about it. How long have you been in this machine?"
"Just come, sah; found all dem ole monkeys-" "Did you know we were here?"
"No, sah, dat"s truf."
"But you knew we were about somewhere?" suggested Biggles suspiciously.
"Why, yaas, sah; I heard dem fellers talking." "Talking! What about?"
"Well, "twas dis way, sah. I was going down de ribber in de ole canoe and I met dem coming up on de water on der big flying-bird. Dey say, "Have you seen another flying-bird?" And I say, "No, dat"s truf." I "
"Go on, cut out the rough stuff. What did they do?" "Why, dey beat me, sah, and say dey take me back to da Silva."
"Da Silva?" cried Biggles, staring aghast at the terrible weals on the old man"s shoulders, which he had exposed to prove his words.
"Yaas, he"s my ma.s.sa, sah. I owe him tree hundred pounds, he sez."
Biggles, who had heard how the rubber kings controlled their unfortunate labourers by getting them to incur an imaginary debt and then holding them to their jobs without pay, during which the debt invariably grew larger instead of smaller, nodded sympathetically.
"But how did you get here?" he asked.
"I broke away from dat camp in de dark night, sah, and I set off anywhere."
"And you borrowed a pair of boots, I see?"
"Why, yaas, sah; I hadn"t no shoes of no account. I got back in my ole canoe and went anywhere to get out o" dem fellers" way, sah. A bad, good-fer-nuthin" lot dey are, and low-down n.i.g.g.e.r wid urn, too, de black trash! I heard dem larfin" "bout you, sah. Dey say, police all down de ribber by Manaos and Para all wanna hang you fer killin" a low-down good-fer-nuthin" n.i.g.g.e.r in de jail at Manaos."
"Killing, did you say?" cried Biggles, remembering the black gendarme in the jail at Manaos.
"Why, yaas, sah. He ain"t dead, sah, but dey say he is so as dey can hang you."
"I see," said Biggles slowly, realising that it was going to be even more difficult to get out of the country than they expected. "Where are you going now?" he asked.
"I dunno, sah. "Pears all de same to me. If I keep goin" maybe I"ll come to Trinidad sometime."
"I"m afraid you"ve got a tidy step in front of you," observed Biggles. "Well, I"m afraid I can"t take you with me."
"No, sah, de good Lord ain"t gibben me no wings, sah. I ain"t no feddered fowl, sah."
"You"re right there," grinned Biggles. "Well, give me a hand to haul the machine up on the bank and I"ll give you some grub to see you on your way. Come on."
A quick examination revealed that no damage had been done by the monkeys, who had evidently merely contented themselves with throwing the loose branches off the machine. It proved to be no easy job to move the machine, and Biggles had to start the engines, much to the old negro"s horror, before the Condor finally stood on terra firma.
He could not help reflecting on the curious chance that had brought the negro his way, for he realised now for the first time that he could never have got the Condor out of the stream singlehanded.
He taxied out on to the runway where they had landed, and, leaving the engines ticking over, climbed out of the c.o.c.kpit to give the old man the promised stores. The negro, who had evidently never seen so much food before, thanked him with tears in his eyes, and, leaving him to pursue his solitary way, Biggles climbed back into the c.o.c.kpit with a grunt of satisfaction and opened the throttles.
The Condor b.u.mped rather alarmingly over the rough ground, but a light breeze helped her, and she was soon in the air, climbing steeply and banking in the direction of the towering cliff upon which Biggles had fixed his eyes. And thus it was that he did not see the tragedy being enacted below, or know how near he had been to disaster as he unhurriedly bade the old n.i.g.g.e.r goodbye. Later, the others told him.
Simultaneously with his wheels leaving the ground, four men, panting as if they had been running, dashed round the corner of the stream where the Condor had stood. The leader, the same pock-marked individual that Biggles had stunned in far-away England, stopped dead with a foul oath.
"Gone," he said. "We"ve missed "em by a minute. That cursed negro must have told "em we"d seen the machine and were on our way. There he is now."
The unfortunate negro, unaware of their approach, was busy putting his newly found wealth in his canoe, crooning an old plantation song as he did so.
"So you found "em, eh?" snarled Blattner, his lips curled back from his yellow teeth in a bitter snarl.
The negro looked into the bloodshot, evil eyes and read death in them. His face turned a horrible greenish hue. "No, sah," he faltered. "I "You didn"t, eh?" snarled Blattner, drawing his revolver.
The miserable negro had dropped to his knees. "Doan shoot, sah," he implored. "It"s truf, sah-"
A stab of flame spurted from the muzzle of the gun as it roared its leaden message of death.
Two big tears rolled down the old man"s cheeks as he slipped forward like a swimmer in deep water.
Again the revolver barked. The negro gave a convulsive shudder and then lay still.
Blattner laughed shortly as he pushed the revolver back into its holster. "That"s the only way to serve those swine," he snarled.
Biggles, three thousand feet above, and some distance away, unaware of the grim fate that had overtaken his recent a.s.sistant, and that four pairs of eyes were watching every turn he made, cut off his engines and glided gently towards the smooth surface of the plateau. He knew that he was about to make the most important landing of his life, a landing where the least mistake would have disastrous consequences, not only to himself; but to those he loved best in the world. Once, over the rim of the cliff; a swirling up-current from the over-heated rock brought his heart into his mouth, but he had the Condor back on an even keel in a flash, and with hands and eyes as steady as the rock on which he was about to land, he flattened out and dropped lightly on the elevated landing-ground.
When he looked up, a little pale from his ordeal, d.i.c.kpa, Algy, and Smyth were running towards him, cheering.
"Easy as A B C," laughed Algy in relief.
"Easy, was it?" replied Biggles. "You go and take a running s.n.a.t.c.h at yourself. What with climbing down crazy staircases built for lunatics, being attacked by mad eagles, falling into rapids, diving over waterfalls"
"And then missing being captured by the skin of your teeth," broke in Algy, "you"ve-"
"What by the skin of my teeth?" interrupted Biggles sharply.
"Being captured. You saw Silas and his crowd tearing up the stream, didn"t you?"
"Great jumping cats! No, I didn"t, and that"s a fact," "confessed Biggles. "What are you talking about?"
"We could see the whole thing from up here, and we nearly went off our heads with excitement. We couldn"t make out why on earth you didn"t hurry you seemed to be deliberately taking your time. We were certain they were going to nab you. Who was the other fellow you were with? They"ve shot him, you know."
Biggles turned as white as death. "Shot-him," he whispered.
"Yes, killed him in cold blood, the devils," broke in d.i.c.kpa.
Biggles sat silent in his c.o.c.kpit for a moment, and, when he looked up, his face wore a strange expression. "One day-soon, I hope-I shall kill them," he said