CHAPTER VII
THE YELLOW SNAKE
Over a vast horseshoe of towering crags, with a drumming roar, the dark,resistless river rushed in a mass of snowy foam and broken rainbows downinto the whirling caldron below.
"The Falls of Utiarity," whispered Pinto, as he guided the boat into alittle bend by the bank just above where the terrible downward glide ofthe river began. Making fast to a tree on shore, the whole party staredacross at the most beautiful waterfall on earth, as if they could neversee enough of its beauty. Something seemed to give way in Will's brain,and for a long minute he felt as if he were entering a new and strangeworld. Dim, unearthly images seemed to float before him. He thought ofthe great white throne in Revelation--the mystic emerald circled by arainbow and the pavement of a single sapphire-stone. Before him was thebeautiful water, sinking into the abyss, yet flowing on forever, while agreat rainbow trembled, faded, then came again through the mist andspray like a beautiful spirit walking the waters. With the terror, therush, and the roar of the crashing waters, was a beauty not of earththat took away all fear, until he seemed to be gazing into the seventhheaven and seeing that which was unlawful for mortal man to look upon.
Only a moment, and once more he was back in the body and found himselflooking confusedly into the faces of his companions, all of whom hadfelt something of the same uplift. Without a word, the Indian edged thecanoe along the shore and into the mouth of a deep lagoon, half-hiddenby overhanging trees. Beyond these it widened out and ended in a high,bare bank. Back from this stretched a narrow path, showing like a longline through the dark green of the jungle. Its surface was troddenominously hard and smooth, as if crossed and recrossed by many barefeet.
"The Trail," said Pinto, softly.
"The Trail," echoed Professor Ditson, as they all stared along the thinline which pierced the forest and led away and across the vast basin ofthe Amazon and on and past the guarded heights of Peru until it reachedthe mines from which Spain had dug the gold which enabled her to conquerand hold half the world. Only the cruel, fierce, dogged fighters ofSpain as she was four hundred years ago could have cut this path. Eventhen, when men thought little of life or of accomplishing theimpossible, the Trail stood forth as a great achievement, every mile ofwhich had cost the lives of men.
For a time, the adventurers stared in silence at the brown line athwartthe green, the sign and seal of an empire long passed away. Then Pintogrounded the montaria at the edge of the bank, and, after all of theparty had disembarked with their scanty equipment, pulled the boat, withHen's help, back of a screen of tangled vines, marked by a slenderassai-palm, until it was completely hidden from sight.
"If we are successful," remarked Professor Ditson, "we'll never see thatboat again. If we are driven back along this trail, it may save ourlives."
There was a silence. For the first time the boys and Jud realized thattheir leader definitely expected perils other than those ever presentfrom the wild creatures that guarded the beautiful, treacherous,mysterious forests of this southern continent.
"Are the Injuns down here dangerous?" inquired Jud, at last.
"The personal habits of some of them do not commend themselves even tothe most broad-minded investigators," returned the professor, precisely.
"Such as--" questioned Jud, again.
"Well," replied the scientist, slowly, "for one thing, the wild tribesof this part of the Amazon basin invariably eat any captives they make.Then--"
"That's enough," broke in Jud. "After I've been eaten I don't care whatthey do next. What might be the names of these gentlemen?"
"The Mayas, I think, are the tribe we shall be most likely to meet,"said Professor Ditson, reflectively. "They have no fixed homes, butwander through the forest, guiding themselves by the sun, and sleep inthe tree-tops like monkeys wherever they happen to be when night comes.They hunt men, red, white, or black," he went on; "yet, if Indiantraditions can be depended upon, we do not need to be afraid of them solong as we keep to the Trail."
"How's that?" inquired Will, intensely interested.
"Every tribe which refers to the Trail," the scientist informed them,"speaks of a custom called the 'Truce of the Trail,' under whichtravelers along that road are safe from attack."
"Does that there truce," interposed Jud, "take in white men, or is itonly for redskins?"
"That," returned the professor, "is not certain. Some say yes, some sayno."
"The question is," murmured Jud, "what do the Mayas say?"
"If we pass the Trail in safety," went on Professor Ditson, "we stillmay expect trouble from Dawson after we get into the Peruvian highlands.He has great influence with a band of Indian outlaws who call themselvesthe Miranhas, or Killers, and may persuade them to ambush us in order tosecure the map."
"I sure am lookin' forward to this pleasure-trip of ours," confided Judto Will.
During the first day along the trail, Will, who was next to Pinto, triedto pass away the time by learning a few words of Mundurucu. His firstlessons in that language, however, were somewhat discouraging, since thedialects of the South American Indians contain perhaps more syllables toa word than any other language on earth.
"Pinto," he began, "I'll point to things, and you tell me what they arein Indian, and keep on saying it over and over until I learn it."
"All right," agreed the Mundurucu.
"Professor Pinto," went on Will solemnly, pointing to his hand, "what'sthat?"
"In-tee-ti-pix-tee-e-toke-kee-kee-tay-gaw," clattered Pinto, in abreath.
"Hey, hold up there," said Will. "Try it in low."
Half an hour later found him still working on that single word.
"Whew!" he remarked when he finally had it memorized, "I've heard ittakes eight years to learn Eskimo. It's liable to take me eighty beforeI can talk Mundurucu. What about this one?" he went on, undiscouraged,pointing to a curious tree with a mahogany-red bark--which, if he hadbut known it, was a stranger whose seeds had in some way drifted downfrom much farther north.
"E-lit-ta-pix-tee-e-fa-cho-to-kee-not-e," said Pinto, slowly anddistinctly.
For fifteen minutes Will wrestled with this new word.
"Do you know what he said?" at last interrupted Professor Ditson, whohad been listening to the lesson.
"He gave me the name for that tree, didn't he?" returned Will, a littlepeevishly.
"Not at all," said the scientist. "He simply said, 'I don't know.'"
"Not so blame simply, either," murmured Jud, who had also been followingthe lesson.
"Our own language is full of similar mistakes imported from nativedialects," lectured Professor Ditson. "'Kangaroo' simply means 'I don'tknow' in Bushman; so do 'mosquito' and 'quinine' and 'cockatoo' indifferent Indian languages."
"Well," said Will, "I'm going to pass up Mundurucu. Here I've spent thebetter part of an hour in learning two words--and one of them isn'tright."
"It's a gift, my boy," said Jud, patronizingly. "As for myself, I oncelearned three Indian languages, Apache, Comanche, an' Sioux, in lessthan a month."
"Indeed!" broke in Professor Ditson, cuttingly. "You surprise me. Won'tyou favor me with a few sentences in Apache?"
"Surely," returned Jud, generously. "Ask me anything you like inApache, an' I'll be glad to answer it in the same language."
The appearance of a small pond ahead put a stop to further adventure inlinguistics, since Pinto had promised to catch some fish from the nextwater they met. As they came to the shore, suddenly, before Jud'sastonished eyes, a fish about a foot long thrust its head out of thedark water, opened its mouth, and breathed like any mammal. A momentlater it meowed like a cat, growled like a dog, and then went under.
"I'll never dare tell 'em about this in Cornwall," exclaimed Jud,earnestly, as the talented fish disappeared. "They'd think I wasexaggeratin', an' that's one thing I never do. This trip," he went onreflectively, "is liable to make me believe blame near anything."
It was Professor Ditson who told them that the strange fish
was alung-fish and was a link between the fishes and the reptiles.
A little later, Pinto, with a length of flexible palm-fiber, noosed agarpike, that strange representative of the oldest family of fishes lefton earth, and another link with the reptiles. Its vertebrae hadball-and-socket joints like the spine of a snake, and, unlike any otherfish, it could move its head independently of its body. Armored scalesarranged in diagonal rows ran down its back, being fastened to eachother by a system of hooks, instead of lapping over each other like thescales of other fishes. This armor was of such flinty hardness thatPinto struck a spark from it with his steel, and actually lighted fromits own scales the fire on which the fish was cooked.
By this pond grew a great orchid with thirty-one flower-stems, on oneof which Will counted over a thousand beautiful pearl-and-gold blossoms.Near the water, too, were many varieties of tropical birds flamingthrough the trees. Among them were flocks of paraquets colored green andblue and red; little honey-creepers with black, purple, and turquoiseplumage and brilliant scarlet feet; and exquisite tiny tanagers likeclusters of jewels with their lilac throats, turquoise breasts, topazcrowns, and purple-black backs shading into ruby red. These were allsearching for insects, while among the blossoms whirred dainty littlehumming-birds of the variety known as "wood-stars." Then there wereblood-red macaws with blue-and-gold wings, and lustrous green-blacktoucans with white throats, red-and-yellow tail-coverts, and hugeblack-and-yellow bills.
For the next few days the treasure-hunters followed the narrow,hard-beaten path through stretches of dark jungle and thorny thickets,or found themselves skirting lonely lakes hidden in the very heart ofthe virgin forest. Everywhere the Trail was omniously clear andhard-trodden. Sometimes they all had that strange knowledge that theywere being watched, which human beings who live in the open acquire aswell as the wild folk.
At last there came a day when the supplies had run so low that itbecame necessary for Pinto to do some hunting. Will went with him, andtogether they silently and cautiously followed one of the many littlepaths that at irregular intervals branched off from the main trail. Thisone was so hidden by vines and creepers that it seemed improbable thatany one had used it for a long period of time. It led the hunters intoone of the patches of open country sometimes found in the forests of theAmazon. This particular one was fringed with great trees and crossed byanother path nearly parallel to the one they were following.
Near the center of the clearing, Pinto managed to shoot two curassows,huge, plump birds which looked and tasted much like turkeys. Leavingthese with his companion, the Indian pushed on ahead for more. Suddenlyhe reappeared among the trees, and Will noticed as he hurried towardhim, that his copper-colored face showed gray and drawn, while beads ofsweat stood out on his forehead. As he joined the boy, Pinto placed hisfinger on his lips with a look of ghastly terror and led Will into thedeepest part of a near-by thicket. From there, though hidden from sight,they had a view through the close-set bushes of the other path.Suddenly, from far down that trail, sounded a faint, but regular,clicking noise. As it became louder and louder, rising and falling in aregular cadence, Pinto slipped like a snake deeper into the longjungle-grass.
"Lie still for your life," he whispered in Will's ear, so faintly thatthe boy could scarcely make out the words. Then, in an instant, from outof the jungle not twenty feet away there strode along the dim path afigure of nightmare horror--that of a tall naked man, with gaunt andfleshless arms and legs, great knobs of bone marking his knee andelbow-joints. His sunken body was painted black, with every boneoutlined in a chalky white, so that he seemed a living, walkingskeleton.
Around the black and wasted neck, wrinkled like that of a mummy, hung along string of small bones which, with a thrill of horror, the boyrecognized by their nails as those of human fingers. It was these,striking together, which made the clicking noise that Will had heard.The face of the horror was painted black, except the lips and chin,which showed blood-red, while out of the holes at the corners of thelower lip protruded curved, gleaming peccary-tusks. These ornaments gavean indescribably brutish appearance to the countenance that theyornamented, while above them two snaky black eyes with an expression ofimplacable cruelty glittered like crumbs of glass from under overhangingbrows. Like a specter, the shape disappeared among the shadows; but itwas followed by another and another and another, until a long processionof terrible figures had passed.
As the ill-omened clicking died away in the distance Will sprang to hisfeet.
"No!" hissed the Indian. "Our only chance of life is to lie quiet. Thatis a Maya war-party on a man-hunt!"
"They'll meet the others on the Trail," whispered Will.
"Six men can't do any more against fifty than two," returned Pinto,practically. "We'll only throw away our lives and not save theirs."
"Stay if you want," returned the boy; "I'll live or die with them!" andhe sped back at full speed along the path over which they had come. Justbefore he reached the Trail he looked back--and there was Pinto at hisshoulder.
"Very foolish," the latter muttered, "but--I come too."
Down the Trail the two hurried, and, rounding a bend, burst in suddenlyupon the rest of the party lying in the shade of the overhanging treesawaiting their return.
"Mayas! Mayas!" gasped Pinto.
As he spoke, far down the Trail from around a curve sounded the faint,ominous clicking which the two hunters had heard before.
It was then that the old scientist showed that he deserved the right tolead which he claimed.
"Stand still!" he said sternly to Pinto, as the latter seemed inclinedto bolt down the Trail away from the fatal sound. "Put up your gun!" heordered Jud; "the Truce is our only chance."
Then, with quick, decisive commands, he lined the party up so that nopart of the body of any one of them extended beyond the surface of theTrail, and yet a space was left wide enough to allow any others usingthe path to pass. At the head of the line he placed the two Indians, Joeand Pinto, so that the Mayas might note the presence in the party ofmembers of their own race.
"Show the peace sign," he snapped sharply to Joe, who led the line."Brace up!" he went on, slapping Pinto sharply on his bare back; "don'tlook so scared. No matter what they do," he said, turning to the rest ofthe company, "don't leave the Trail for a second or make any kind ofattack on them. They will probably try to make us break the Truce of theTrail. If any of us do, we are all lost."
"My peace sign," muttered Jud, grimly, "will be an automatic in onehand an' this little toothpick in the other," and he opened thefive-inch blade of the jack-knife with which he had killed old ThreeToes, the grizzly, as already chronicled in "The Blue Pearl." "If I'mgoin' to be eaten," he went on, "there'll be eighteen Mayas that ain'tgoin' to have any appetite for the meal"; and he shifted the single clipof cartridges remaining, so that he could feed them into the automaticif it came to a last stand.
All further conversation was ended by the appearance of the samehorrible apparition which had so terrified Pinto a short time before. Asthe gaunt painted skeleton of the first Maya showed against the greenbackground, surmounted by the black and blood-red face with the grinningtusks and implacable eyes, an involuntary gasp went up from the wholewaiting party. Jud slipped the safety-catch from his revolver; Pinto'sface looked as if suddenly powdered with ashes; Will's hands stole tothe hatchet at his belt; while, down at the end of the line, Hen Pinegripped his heavy machete until his great muscles stood out like ironbands. Two of the party alone showed no sign of any emotion: Joe, thedescendant of a long line of proud Chippewa chiefs, disdainfullystretched out both empty hands palms up in the peace-sign; whileProfessor Ditson's calm face seemed to show only the mild interest of ascientist.
As the leading Maya caught sight of the waiting line, he slowed hisswift stride and the war-party crept up close and closer. Then came thetense moment which would decide whether the Truce was to hold. As thegrim hunters moved up, there was no sign on the face of any of them ofany acceptance of the peace which Joe had of
fered. With short, glidingsteps, they made a complete circle around the little party, closing upuntil their menacing, fearful faces were less than a foot away and thereek of their naked bodies was like the hot taint of jaguars of thejungle in the nostrils of the waiting six. In their left hands theycarried bows and quivers of fiercely fanged arrows gummed with fatalvenom, while from their belts swung curved, saw-toothed knives andshort, heavy clubs, the heads of which were studded with alligators'teeth.
As the Mayas came closer, the waiting line wavered involuntarily beforethe terrible menace of their hating, hateful faces. The Mundurucuespecially, although no coward, had been taught from earliest childhoodto dread these man-eaters, the Mayas. It was Professor Ditson whonoticed that, in spite of their menacing approach, not a single warriorhad as yet gripped a weapon.
"Steady, Pinto, steady all," he said calmly, "They're trying to stampedeus. If one of you leaves the Trail, we're all dead men."
He spoke just in time, for already Pinto was looking longingly towardthe refuge of the forest, forgetting that the woodcraft of those huntersof men was superior even to his own. Perhaps even Professor Ditson'svoice would not have stopped him if it had not been for a suddenhappening.
As the leader of the Mayas half-circled around Joe, the latter turnedto face him, still holding out his arms. The motion flung open hisflannel shirt, unbuttoned to the waist, and showed, tattooed red on hisbrown skin, the curling, twisted totem-mark of intertwined serpents bywhich Joe had claimed the right of his blood in the lodge of the GreatChief during the quest of the Blue Pearl. As the Maya caught sight ofthis sign he stopped in his tracks. Little by little the menace died outof his fierce eyes, and, as if drawn by a magnet, he crept in closer andcloser with outstretched neck, staring at the tattoo marks which wounddown and around Joe's waist. Then, with a sudden gesture, he swept asidethe ghastly necklace that he wore. There, outlined against his fleshlesschest just over his heart, showed a similar emblem--crimsoninter-twining serpents facing in opposite directions, with gaping mouthslike those of which the totem-pole was made which towered before thelodge of the Great Chief in far-away Akotan. The Maya chief stoodmotionless for a moment. Then he stretched both hands out toward Joe,palms up, and stood as if waiting.
"Put your hands in his, boy," hissed Jud, from down the line; "he'swaitin' for the brotherhood sign."
Without a word, Joe clasped hands with the Maya chief, and for aninstant the two looked into each other's eyes, the spectral cannibal andthe lithe son of a French trapper and a Chippewa princess. Then,disengaging his right hand, the Maya fumbled at his belt and suddenlystretched out toward Joe the supple, beautiful tanned skin of a snake,such as but one of the party had ever seen before. It was long andnarrow and of a flashing golden-yellow, thickly flecked with tinyred-brown spots. This he wound around the boy's neck, so that it swunggleaming against his gray flannel shirt. Once again with outstretchedhands the strange figure stood as if waiting, encircled the while byfierce, impassive faces with tusks gleaming horribly against blood-redjaws, and white painted bodies showing like ghosts against the green ofthe forest.
"Give him your tie," dictated Jud. "Don't you know blood-brothers haveto exchange presents?"
Joe hesitated. He had a weakness, perhaps inherited from both sides ofhis family, for neckties of the most barbaric colors. The one that hewas wearing was one of Cornwall's best and brightest, a brilliantgreen-and-purple creation which had cost him a whole dollar at WhiteWilcox's store. To give it up would leave him tieless in a greatwilderness.
"Hurry!" muttered Professor Ditson, as the Maya chief began to lower hisoutstretched hands.
Thus urged, the boy reluctantly pulled a foot of glimmering silk fromhis neck, and the next instant the most brilliant tie that ever gracedMr. Wilcox's emporium was gleaming against the gray-white of a necklaceof human bones.
The Maya received the enforced present with a grunt of undisguisedpleasure, and, raising both hands above his head with palmsoutstretched, faced his waiting band and began a crooning song filledwith strange minor cadences. One by one his men took up the strain, and,led by him, filed away from the trail like ghosts going back to theirgraves. As the clicking of their necklaces and the notes of their chantsounded faint and fainter and at last died away in the green tangle ofthe jungle, a long sigh of relief came unconsciously from every memberof the expedition. It was Jud who first broke the silence.
"I've always heard," he said, "that Injuns north, south, east, an' westbelonged to the four main totems, the Bear, the Wolf, the Snake, an' theEagle, but I never believed it before to-day. That old tattoo-mark,boy," he went on, turning to Joe, "certainly came in right handy."
"He gone off with my good tie," returned Joe, sorrowfully.
"And a good job, too, I call it," remarked Will, who had never approvedhis friend's taste in neckwear.
It was the Maya's present which most interested Pinto and ProfessorDitson. The Mundurucu Indian sidled up close to Joe and stared at theglittering skin with all his eyes, but without attempting to touch it.
"It's the sacred snake that in the old days only kings and gods couldwear," he murmured.
"He's right," said Professor Ditson, raising the gleaming, golden skinreverently from Joe's neck. "It's the skin of the Yellow Snake which theAztecs used to wind around the forehead of Atapetl, their terriblegoddess of war. Only her priests knew where to find these snakes, and itwas death for any one else even to look at the skin except at the annualsacrifices of the goddess. This one," he went on, "will be asafe-conduct for the whole party all the way to Peru--and ought to be alesson to you," he continued severely, turning to Jud, "never to speakagainst snakes again."
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