Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 05.djvu/27

Rh later I had clambered aboard the wreckage and was examining my find.

It required some time before I succeeded in dragging her on to the wreckage. To my surprise the boat proved quite sound, and a moment later floated upright in the water. By this time the sun had risen to show another welcome discovery. In the east a light blue sky rose from a dark blue sea, and far away at the point where they met lay the faint marks of a long black line—the African coast!

It was the sight of this that renewed my confidence. The boat had no oars, to be sure, but among the wreckage were several pieces that might answer as paddles. I selected two of the stoutest of these, and presently was making headway toward the distant shore.

All that long day I plowed my craft through the waves. It was just dusk when the prow of the boat touched the beach, and I sprang to the shore of a wild and desolate land. As far as the eye could see there was nought but a waste of sand that stretched away to the sky. No light shone in the gathering darkness, nor was there anything to denote any near-by habitation. A mile or so down the beach a cluster of palm trees towered above the water's edge.

I was hopelessly lost. Of course I knew the location to be somewhere north of Dakar, but as to my exact whereabouts—within the radius of a hundred miles—I could only guess. Were I to take up a journey southward I knew that in time I would reach my port, but what of the miles that lay between? Weeks it might take, during which Manuel de Costa could easily find and claim the treasures of the tomb.

For two days I continued along the beach that led to the south, living off the occasional fruits and coconuts, and twice finding water at a tiny brook.

sundown on the third day when, hungry and tired, I came to a little cabin on the beach. Here I found a savage old Negress I could neither understand nor pacify. My ragged, unshaven appearance must have added to her suspicion. An ancient musket had been pointed at my head even as I approached the doorway, while the shouting and gesticulating, together with a wild flow of words, told that the curses of a hundred pagan gods were being called down upon me. In a corner a small black boy of ten or so looked at me wonderingly.

The bare walls within the hut fairly shouted filth and poverty, but before the small fireplace a simmering pot wafted its grand aroma. Yet it might have been on the moon for all the good it did me. Even my few pieces of silver were unable to impress the old crone or obtain the food I sought. Her voice rose higher. So loud was our united jabber, we both failed to notice the rapid advance of a score of white-robed horsemen, riding silently over the sands toward us.

The first warning that danger was within a hundred miles of me was the terror that sprang to the face of the old woman, whose gaze suddenly raised beyond where I stood in the doorway. At the same instant a wave of swarthy Arabs swept over me, and I was thrown backward to the sand.

No words were spoken, nor was there any sound other than the heavy breathing of the Arabs and the noise of the struggle. Their very number held me helpless. In a moment I was bound, my hands behind my back and my feet trussed up to meet them, and in another they had carried and tied me to the