Tupahn--the Thunderstorm/Chapter 9

IGHT was almost upon us when we came again into the camp where we had left Senhor Tom. And, for two reasons, we were glad the day was ending.

For one thing, the coming of the dark would lessen the chance that the people of the Bat would discover the absence of their pajé and track us. Until morning, at least, they probably would think their medicine-man was staying in his den. And we wanted plenty of time in which to make our surly captive talk.

The second reason was that gloom would prevent the wizard from detecting the blindness of Senhor Tom. The dimness in the maloca and the bold acting of our stricken comrade had made it possible for him to deceive all the Tucunas; and, since it is always well to conceal any weakness from Indians, we did not want his condition to become known if we could help it. We intended to free the pajé when we were through with him—though that might not be very soon—and the less he could tell about us, the better for us.

But we gave the priest no hint that he was likely to be freed, or even to live. We remembered hearing Senhor Tom say once that “the way to handle Tucunas is to treat 'em rough,” and we could easily see that this sullen Tucuna wizard was not likely to respond to any other kind of treatment. So, though we laid no hand on him while we drove him on through the forest, we snarled at him now and then as if we were ready to chop him to pieces; and we forced him onward at such a pace that when we neared camp he was dripping sweat.

Just out of sight of our little tambo we halted him. Leaving Pedro to guard him, I went ahead and found Senhor Tom sitting up, gun in hand, listening closely to the slight rustle we had made in approaching. As briefly as possible I told him all there was to tell. Then I built the evening fire, not too close to the hammock where the blind man sat. As it blazed up, night came.

After waiting a little longer for the darkness to become thick in the tambo, I whispered to Senhor Tom. At once he barked—

“Bring that dog here!”

His voice was harsh enough to make the pajé shiver. And when that pajé came in and stopped where we told him to halt—across the fire from Senhor Tom—he was not the sneering, insolent priest of a few hours before. He stood stolidly enough, and he was sour and silent; but his pompous air was gone, and the black eyes peering through his sweat-soaked hair glanced this way and that as if he sought a line of escape.

In the shadows of the tambo Senhor Tom sat straight and motionless, his face dimly lighted by the fire and hard as stonewood. Even we, who knew his condition, could see no sign of it from where we stood; and the pajé, with sight weakened by the smoke rising before him, would have been a wizard indeed to guess that the eyes facing him saw nothing. However, he got little chance to stand and look in silence, for Tupahn the Thunderstorm opened on him.

“Dog of a Tucuna,” he boomed, “where is the prisoner you took this morning?”

“In the maloca of”

“Do not lie to me! The maloca of Andirah has been looked into. No prisoner was there. Where is that captive?”

“I know not. Ask Andirah, the chief.”

Senhor Tom growled disgustedly.

“You call yourself pajé? You are the wise man of the Bat people? And yet you do not know a thing that is known to every child of your tribe? Then you are a fool, without eyes or ears or brain.”

The eyes under the greasy black hair glinted angrily. But the priest made no retort. Senhor Tom spoke to us.

“Men, he can not tell truth because his tongue is forked. If the fork were burned off the end of his tongue he then could speak straight. Heat your knives in the fire until they are red. Then slice away that thing that twists the truth in his mouth.”

I held my machete out over the blaze, though not in it. The Indian started, swung partly around, found Pedro's knife-point at his ribs, and turned slowly back. He licked his lips, stared at the gleam of the fire on my blade, and grunted rapidly:

“My tongue is straight. If it burns it can talk no more.”

“Better talk not at all than talk falsely,” was the grim answer. “But if your tongue now has become straight we will spare it—for a time. Why was the prisoner not given to us this morning?”

“Tupahn would have killed.”

“Ah. You did not want killing. Why?”

“Because more killing would follow. The men of Andirah would strike back. Tupahn and his men would kill more. Then they would be killed. Many killings over one worthless prisoner.”

There was a pause. The words sounded true. We remembered the spearmen with red-tipped weapons; remembered the Bat's jealousy of his rule. To slay the captive of Andirah would have been more than likely to anger the chief into ordering his men to attack us. In that case, as the priest said, we should have been killed, taking with us in death as many as we could. Yet—was the reason this man gave us the true one?

“Then this captive is not to be killed,” said Senhor Tom. “What is to be done?”

“I have not said he will not be killed. If he is killed it will be by order of Andirah, who alone has the power to command it.”

I sniffed, recalling how this pajé had given most of the orders that day. The memory aroused again my suspicion that he was steadily lying. Soon this distrust of him became much stronger.

“How does the prisoner look?” the North American demanded.

The reply was so prompt that it seemed as if the Indian had been expecting it.

“A tall man. Yellow of face. A thick mouth, the eyes of a boh—snake—and the nose of a hawk.”

For a moment we were quiet. Into our minds came the thought of the man whose bones we had found on the bank above the rusty rifle; the skull with the bullet-hole, the knife with four nicks, and the words of the senhorita. She had described just such a man as this pajé now told of. And the priest did not know that man was dead.

I expected Senhor Tom to roar out at the liar, but he did not. Instead, he acted pleased.

“So the men of the Bat have caught that one? It is well. A loud-voiced beast who carries a knife with a brown handle and four nicks on the blade? The mate of the dog killed by the men of Andirah? Is it so?”

“It is so, Tupahn,” the priest agreed. “Both have done evil to our people. The short one died quickly. The tall one may not die so fast.”

He talked more easily now, and held himself as if gaining confidence. Senhor Tom's eager tone had fooled him into thinking us deceived. And when the North American smiled as he spoke to us in English the priest began to swell with his usual arrogant look. He would not have felt so easy if he had understood the words.

“I've caught him,” said the explorer. “Caught him in a-cold lie. Now maybe I can jolt him.”

Changing back to Tupi, he roared:

“Snake-tongued priest! That man is dead! His bones lie beside a creek near the lake of Black Hawk. I myself have seen them. Now indeed you shall pay the price of your lies. Heat your knives, men!”

The pajé stood as if frozen. For a long minute he seemed not to breathe. Then he came to life with the suddenness of a bullet leaving a gun.

Straight through the fire he jumped. Straight on he bounded past the tambo. As we sprang after him he vanished among the trees toward the creek.

NTO those trees we plunged in pursuit. Twice we heard him stumble and fall, tripped by something in the dark, but before we could find him he was up and away. We too bumped trees and fell over roots. Then we halted. From the water came a loud splash.

“Gone!” Pedro panted. “Back and get lights!”

Scrambling back to the fire, we snatched blazing sticks and ran to our canoes. Up and down the stream we ranged until our lights went out. We saw nothing but black water, heard nothing but the little wash of ripples along the bank. The pajé of Andirah was gone as if swallowed by some water-monster.

“I am afraid the fool has drowned,” Pedro grumbled. “Not that I care what became of him, but now we can not make him talk.”

“We could not make him talk anything but lies while we had him,” I replied. “So we have lost nothing.”

But I was down-hearted because that Indian had escaped from us before we could scare him into telling what he knew, as well as angry with myself for letting him get away. We knew no more than when we had taken him from his hut—except that we now were certain he was a stubborn liar. Yet, as I thought of this, I realized that even that small knowledge was a gain; realized too that he must have some powerful reason for lying so doggedly when he believed we were about to torture him. And, thinking further, I felt that his reason must be this—his fear of the consequences of falsehood was less than his fear of what we might do to him if he told us the truth.

When we reached Senhor Tom again I spoke out this thought. He nodded slowly, and for a little time he said no word. When he did speak he did not reproach us for our carelessness. It was never his way to fume over what was past and done.

“You're right, Lourenço,” he said. “And so were you right, Pedro, when you said the pajé was at the bottom of some trickery. Now let's boil down events so far.

“We know a prisoner was taken. And in spite of the word of Andirah and his pajé, we have every reason to suppose that the prisoner was our Lady Marion. She must have been somewhere in the maloca when we were there. She must have been there when you fellows returned this afternoon and found the tribe all inside. She may have been inside that bat-mask you saw going to the priest's house, or she may not. If she wasn't, she must have been tied up tight in the maloca when the gang went into the woods. In that case she certainly would be there when you, Pedro, spied into the maloca soon afterward. And you saw no sign of her.”

“No sign, senhor,” Pedro echoed. “I crawled up to the rear, worked a hole in the wall, and stood there watching. I saw only Indians; and those Indians did not act as if any one else was there. They were doing the usual things—cooking, resting, working on weapons, talking. What they talked about I do not know, but they showed no excitement or sign of anything unusual.”

“So. Then she must be in the hut of the pajé or”

He hesitated and shut his teeth.

“—or dead,” he finished. “And I don't believe she's dead. I won't believe it until I have to. Tucunas aren't butchers. They're a good bunch, on the whole, and friendly to whites. Of course they differ among themselves, just as any people do—some good, some bad; and things are upset now because of the anti-white war that measly Black Hawk tried to start. But I'm betting our girl is alive and in that priest-house.”

“But where?” I protested. “We both looked everywhere”

“Maybe not everywhere. Remember that house belongs to the pajé, who is a wizard and so on. A house of that kind is likely to be full of tricks. I want to go over that house inch by inch, move everything around, poke into the walls and the roof and the ground and—I was going to say 'into the jars,' but you tell me you looked into all of them. Come on, let's go.”

He arose with as much snap as if it were broad day and his sight were perfect. We looked at him, at the black jungle around us, and back at him. To travel through the darkness would be slow work for us, though to him night and day were all the same now. Yet, after reaching the house of the pajé, we should have all night in which to search it undisturbed; for none of the Tucunas was likely to come there. And we too, though we could not imagine how that hut could conceal a captive, became eager to search it more carefully.

So we gathered bamboo torch-wood, killed our fire, and started.

Though we had our own trail to follow on this second journey, our progress through the gloomy forest would have been slow even without Senhor Tom. As it was, we advanced only by using the same plan as on our first trip to the maloca; I went ahead, bending over to watch the footmarks, while Pedro led our companion.

Around us the night noises resounded, and from time to time eyes gleamed at us in the torchlight. Twice we saw eyes so widely spaced that they could belong only to one kind of animal—a jaguar, slipping along through the forest and watching us. But the brute did not attack, and when we drew near the Indian settlement we lost sight of him—though he gave a snarling, coughing roar after he disappeared, and we knew he was not far off.

At last we came out in the little open space behind the hut of the pajé. Just at the edge of the bush I had to drop one of the torches, which had burned down so that it was almost blistering my hand; and, though I still had a couple of sticks left, I did not light another.

Now that we were in the open it was just as well to approach stealthily, even though we believed all the Tucunas to be in their tribal house.

Stepping carefully, we crossed the bare ground with ears strained and eyes peering through the gloom. Overhead the stars gleamed bright, and as we neared the hut its roof loomed plainly against the sky. Past the end of the place we went, along the side, and around the corner where the torn door hung partly open. There we paused, listening hard.

No sound came from within the priest-house. Beyond the doorway all was black and still. From the direction of the maloca came no noise. I stepped into the hut, Pedro following closely. Again we listened, hearing nothing near us.

Without waiting for the door to be shut, I struck a match and glanced about. While the match burned I saw nothing new. But as the flame dwindled and died Pedro sucked in his breath sharply and I realized that he had seen something.

“The jar!” he whispered excitedly. “The jar of the snake!”

Swiftly I scratched another match. As its little blaze flared out I saw what he meant.

The broad-bottomed jar holding the dead surucucu had been moved. It still stood on its flat base, and its wicker plug lay near, just as I had left it. But the vessel now was more than two feet farther to the right than it had been.

And in the ground which had been covered by that wide bottom gaped a black hole.