Tupahn--the Thunderstorm/Chapter 12

E THREE looked at one another, and Pedro and I shrugged our shoulders. Senhor Tom reddened again; but this time he did not look confused. He resented her puzzling attitude. Considering what he had endured on her account, it was hardly to be wondered at.

“If it's not too much trouble, Miss Marshall,” he said coldly, “we should like to know just what has happened since that sneak got me from behind. Naturally we're a bit curious.”

She sank into an empty hammock near the chief, looking suddenly weary. For the first time I noticed the little hollows under the dark eyes and the tired droop of her lips. If we had passed through much since last we saw her, so had she. In fact, she must be near the end of her strength.

“Never mind about it now, though,” the blond man added after observing her a minute. “Better lie down a while first.”

But she shook her head.

“I'm not too tired to talk, and you may as well hear it all now,” she said. “There isn't so very much to tell.

“You were collecting wood, you remember, and I was unlacing one of these boots to see if I could make it set more comfortably. There was a shot. I looked up and saw you on the ground. We had heard Lourenço and Pedro shooting once before, and my first thought was that one of them had fired again and accidentally hit you. I started to run toward you, but then I heard something spring from the trees, and when I turned I found that man running at me.

“He was one of those two who carried me to the Hawk after I was caught at Viciado. He grinned horribly, and when I tried to run to the hut where your gun stood he got in my way and threw me down hard. It dazed me a little, but I rolled over and got up again, and then we struggled around until he hit me with his gun. After that I didn't know much for a few minutes.

“About the next thing I did know was that I was being thrown into a boat, and then I saw him paddling like mad and the treetops sliding past. When my head was clear again I tried to get up and jump overboard—I can swim well—but he knocked me down again and tied me so tightly that I couldn't get up any more.

“He stopped once and went ashore a minute, and I managed to see he was hiding our other canoe. I hadn't noticed before that he had taken both of them, and when I found he had left you men without any boat I just shivered—I thought that now none of you could follow him. But then I thought if I could only get his gun away from him I would drive him off. And so I began trying to loosen my hands. But I couldn't. They only became numb.

“It grew dark, and he kept on going. He worked all night, growling every time the boat hit anything—it bumped every now and then, and sometimes it stuck. It was long after sunrise when he finally stopped paddling and went ashore to eat and rest.

“By that time my arms were so dead I couldn't use them, and my feet were like lumps of lead—I couldn't get out of the boat when he untied me. He dragged me ashore and made a little breakfast, grinning that terrible grin at me while he worked, and keeping his rifle behind him. And then the Indians jumped out.

“They speared him and shot him—oh, it was horrible!”

She glanced around as if seeking the men who had done the killing.

“But after he was dead you were glad,” I said.

“Well, I—I was relieved, and glad to be free of him. I wasn't half as much afraid of the Indians. They didn't look mean, though they were awfully savage for a few seconds. When they took everything out of the canoe and pointed for me to go into the woods I went right along. I had to, anyway.

“I've told you how the leader tried to talk to me, and why I kept still after reaching here. The Indians hadn't been talking long when some excitement started at the door. I couldn't see what it was, for the Indians were all around me. Then several of them grabbed me and ran me over there to the rear of the place, where they made me lie down among some big clay jars and things.

“I heard loud talk, and one voice roaring so that I thought it must be you, Tom—Mr. Mack—though the words sounded like Indian language. I started to jump up and call, but one of the Indians put a hand over my mouth and the others forced me down; and then I remembered you were dead and thought Lourenço and Pedro couldn't possibly have come without a boat. After a while the talking stopped and men went out, but I was kept there among the jars for a long time after that.

“Then at last the Indians took me back, and there was a great deal of slow talk that dragged on and on. Finally they put a horrid-looking hollow head over my shoulders and led me out. We all went out back to another house, much smaller, and then all went away except the one who seemed to be friendly. He took the hollow head off me and began trying to talk again.

“I began trying to talk back, by making signs—trying to tell him if he would take me to the Amazon he would be well rewarded. Some kind of a cry sounded outside, and he looked out. I looked too, but couldn't see any one. When he came back I started making signs again. But then he began to threaten me. I don't know what he said, but his face and voice were so ugly ”

“He said you must do as he willed, or you would die,” I told her. “We were outside listening.”

“You were! Oh, if I had only known! Then it was you who made such a loud rustling noise at the door?”

“Just so, senhorita.”

“I didn't know. I was afraid this old man had decided to kill me and sent his men to get me. Somehow when I'm scared I seldom scream, like some girls: I usually keep very still. So I kept still then, watching the door. The stout Indian—you say he was a medicine man?—he grabbed a big jar and rolled it aside, then seized me and threw me into a hole in the ground. I struggled, but down I went. Then everything turned black.

“I heard some sounds overhead, but couldn't tell what they were. After a while I must have gone to sleep down there in the blackness; or perhaps I fainted; I was dead tired. But finally I felt as if I were suffocating, and I began trying to get out.

“By straining as hard as I could I managed to lift the big jar away enough to get some air. And after a long time, moving that heavy thing inch by inch and resting often, I worked it over far enough to pull myself out. Then—I guess I really did faint then. I hadn't eaten anything for more than twenty-four hours. For that matter, I haven't eaten yet.”

“What!” exclaimed Senhor Tom. “Good Lord! We'll get you something”

She raised a hand, smiling faintly.

“Just a moment. Let me finish. When I came to myself it was so black that I had to feel my way around to find the door. While I was groping about I felt that horrible hollow head, and I put it on again, thinking that if I met any Indian outside he would believe I was some demon of the night and would run from me. Then I went out and started for the woods, but I heard a jaguar somewhere ahead and thought I'd better go the other way. So I did, and found a path, and came out in the big opening around this house.

“It was all dark and quiet, and I went by and tried to find the way I had come from the creek, so that I could get back to the canoe. I dreaded to go back there where that dead man was, but it seemed the only thing to do. But I couldn't find any path. Then suddenly something hissed near me—a snake of some kind. And by that time I was so nervous that I turned and ran toward the house, and I must have cried out, though I don't remember it.

“Men came out with lights, and when they saw me they—began to yell and shout—and—they”

Her voice died away. She went limp and dropped sidewise in the hammock.

We sprang to her side, lifted her, and worked again with water and rum to revive her.

“Plucky little kid!” muttered Senhor Tom. “Starved and plumb worn out, but never a whine. Dog-gone it, I'm a bum and a brute to get snappish the way I did.”

Then, as the long lashes fluttered a little against her pale face, he turned to the chief.

“Andirah, my woman has had no food since the sun twice has stood in the middle of the sky,” he said. “She dies from hunger and lack of sleep.”

The girl was not dying, but the response of the Bat could not have been quicker if she had been. He snapped at women who seemed to be his wives and daughters. They hastened away.

“Food shall be brought to the woman of Tupahn, and to the men of Tupahn, and to Tupahn himself,” the old man promised. “And much rum shall be brought also. Once today Andirah has offered a feast to his friends, but they would not stay while the woman was unfound. Now she is here, and my brother sees again, and the serpent who would have worked evil has been cast out. So let the friends of the Bat and the people of the Bat rejoice together.”

A hum of approval went among the Tucunas, and their eyes glowed at the prospect of an all-night revel. But Senhor Tom shook his head.

“Tomorrow let it be, my brother, but not tonight,” he said. “We are worn from toil and travel, and we would sleep.”

With that he turned back to the girl, who now was looking up at us but lying quiet. The hum among the Indians ended, and all looked sour. But Andirah, after a minute's thought, nodded.

“It is well,” he agreed. “So shall we have more meat. At dawn the hunters shall go out and kill many birds and beasts, and the feast shall be the greater. Until then all shall rest in the maloca, safe from the things that prowl in darkness.”

ND so it was. Among the Indians who had met us men with spears and had handed the senhorita over to their priest without a word to save her, we ate at the chief's fire and slept in the hammocks nearest the ruler of the tribe. There was little talk. Our Lady Marion ate heartily, yet daintily, of the food brought by the chief's women, and then fell asleep without a “good night” to any of us. Senhor Tom lay down next and relaxed with a long sigh. Pedro and I, after a look into the rum-jar, took a stiff drink apiece, coughed, grinned at the men of the Bat, and soon were sleeping like dead men.

Yet, in the little time between lying down and falling asleep, I looked at the dark-haired girl and the blond-bearded man and wondered. I marveled over the queer course of things since they had met, and wondered what might be the end of it all.

The two beast-men who had carried the lovely little lady as a victim to Black Hawk had never lived to return to Viciado. One, murdered by his partner in fear or fury, had gone out in his sleep. The other—how had he come to be caught in the bush with no canoe? His boat might have floated away during a sudden night rain, or he might have been discovered while ashore and chased through the bush by vengeful Indians until he succeeded in dodging them. But he had lived only to commit two more crimes and then to be killed by the enemies he had made through earlier evil.

The vile priest, who would have held the girl captive until he tired of her and would have driven us three out or killed us, had only wrecked his own power, restored the sight of his bitterest foe in a final grapple, and found death for himself. It was a good joke on that medicine-man, and one that made me chuckle.

And we three, seeking the girl—how we had blundered about! Four times we had been almost within reach of her, yet never seen her: once in this maloca, again at the edge of the clearing, a third time when we stood above her head in the priest-house, and last when we came again to that house by darkness. If that jaguar had not turned her back tonight she might have met us. Yet, if she had, we should have turned back at once; and so Senhor Tom still would be blind and the pajé would be alive to lead killers against us at dawn.

An odd set of twists and turns, indeed. And now what lay ahead? We had not yet reached Viciado. Before we arrived there, what more might happen to our senhor and senhorita?

If I had stayed awake. long enough I could have thought of many possibilities. But even if I had thought all night I should never have imagined the thing that really did come about.