“And potsherds are things with those Chinese laundry ticket scratches on them,” added Tom.
“Exactly,” said the professor, laughing. “Though some of the strange-appearing inscriptions give much valuable information. As soon as we find some of them—say a broken bit of pottery with hieroglyphics on—I will know I am on the right track.”
And while the scientist and Mr. Damon kept watch at the top of the shaft, Tom and Ned went out into the jungle to hunt. They had killed some game, and were stalking a fine big deer, which would provide a feast for the natives, when suddenly the silence of the lonely forest was broken by a piercing scream, followed by an agonized cry of “El tigre! El tigre!”
CHAPTER XIX
POISONED ARROWS
“Did you hear that, Tom?” asked Ned, in a hoarse whisper.
“Surely,” was the cautious answer. “Keep still, and I’ll try for a shot.”
“Better be quick,” advised Ned in a tense voice. “The chap who did that yelling seems to be in trouble!”
And as Ned’s voice trailed off into a whisper, again came the cry, this time in frenzied pain.
“El tigre! El tigre!” Then there was a jumble of words.
“It’s over this way!” and this time Ned shouted, seeing no need for low voices since the other was so loud.
Tom looked to where Ned had parted the bushes alongside a jungle path. Through the opening the young inventor saw, in a little glade, that which caused him to take a firmer grip on his electric rifle, and also a firmer grip on his nerves.
Directly in front of him and Ned, and not more than a hundred yards away, was a great tawny and spotted jaguar—the “tigre” or tiger of Central America. The beast, with lashing tail, stood over an Indian upon whom it seemed to have sprung from some lair, beating the unfortunate man to the ground. Nor had he fallen scatheless, for there was blood on the green leaves about him, and it was not the blood of the spotted beast.
“Oh, Tom, can you—can you—” and Ned faltered.
The young inventor understood the unspoken question.
“I think I can make a shot of it without hitting the man,” he answered, never turning his head. “It’s a question, though, if the beast won’t claw him in the death struggle. It won’t last long, however, if the electric bullet goes to the right place, and I’ve got to take the chance.”
Cautiously Tom brought his weapon to bear. Quiet as Ned and he had been after the discovery, the jaguar seemed to feel that something was wrong. Intent on his prey, for a time he had stood over it, gloating. Now the brute glanced uneasily from side to side, its tail nervously twitching, and it seemed trying to gain, by a sniffing of the air, some information as to the direction in which danger lay, for Tom and Ned had stooped low, concealing themselves by a screen of leaves.
The Indian, after his first frenzied outburst of fear, now lay quiet, as though fearing to move, moaning in pain.
Suddenly the jaguar, attracted either by some slight movement on the part of Ned or Tom, or perhaps by having winded them, turned his head quickly and gazed with cruel eyes straight at the spot where the two young men stood behind the bushes.
“He’s seen us,” whispered Ned.
“Yes,” assented Tom. “And it’s a perfect shot. Hope I don’t miss!”
It was not like Tom Swift to miss, nor did he on this occasion. There was a slight report from the electric rifle—a report not unlike the crackle of the wireless—and the powerful projectile sped true to its mark.
Straight through the throat and chest under the uplifted jaw of the jaguar it went—through heart and lungs. Then with a great coughing, sighing snarl the beast reared up, gave a convulsive leap forward toward its newly discovered enemies, and fell dead in a limp heap, just beyond the native over which it had been crouching before it delivered the death stroke, now never to fall.
“You did it, Tom! You did it!” cried Ned, springing up from where he had been kneeling to give his chum a better chance to shoot. “You did it, and saved the man’s life!” And Ned would have rushed out toward the still twitching body.
“Just a minute!” interposed Tom. “Those beasts sometimes have as many lives as a cat. I’ll give it one more for luck.” Another electric projectile through the head of the jaguar produced no further effect than to move the body slightly, and this proved conclusively that there was no life left. It was safe to approach, which Tom and Ned did.
Their first thought, after a glance at the jaguar, was for the Indian. It needed but a brief examination to show that he was not badly hurt. The jaguar had leaped on him from a low tree as he passed under it, as the boys learned afterward, and had crushed the man to earth by the weight of the spotted body more than by a stroke of the paw.
The American jaguar is not so formidable a beast as the native name of tiger would cause one to suppose, though they are sufficiently dangerous, and this one had rather badly clawed the Indian. Fortunately the scratches were on the fleshy parts of the arms and shoulders, where, though painful, they were not necessarily serious.
“But if you hadn’t shot just when you did, Tom, it would have been all up with him,” commented Ned.
“Oh, well, I guess you’d have hit him if I hadn’t,” returned the young inventor. “But let’s see what we can do for this chap.”
The man sat up wonderingly—hardly able to believe that he had been saved from the dreaded “tigre.” His wounds were bleeding rather freely, and as Tom and Ned carried with them a first-aid kit they now brought it into use. The wounds were bound up, the man was given water to drink and then, as he was able to walk, Tom and Ned offered to help him wherever he wanted to go.
“Blessed if I can tell whether he’s one of our Indians or whether he belongs to the Beecher crowd,” remarked Tom.
“Senor Beecher,” said the Indian, adding, in Spanish, that he lived in the vicinity and had only lately been engaged by the young professor who hoped to discover the idol of gold before Tom’s scientific friend could do so.
Tom and Ned knew a little Spanish, and with that, and simple but expressive signs on the part of the Indian, they learned his story. He had his palm-thatched hut not far from the Beecher camp, in a small Indian village, and he, with others, had been hired on the arrival of the Beecher party to help with the excavations. These, for some reason, were delayed.
“Delayed because they daren’t use the map they stole from us,” commented Ned.
“Maybe,” agreed Tom.
The Indian, whose name, it developed, was Tal, as nearly as Tom and Ned could master it, had left camp to go to visit his wife and child in the jungle hut, intending to return to the Beecher camp at night. But as he passed through the forest the jaguar had dropped on him, bearing him to earth.
“But you saved my life, Senor,” he said to Tom, dropping on one knee and trying to kiss Tom’s hand, which our hero avoided. “And now my life is yours,” added the Indian.
“Well, you’d better get home with it and take care of it,” said Tom. “I’ll have Professor Bumper come over and dress your scratches in a better and more careful way. The bandages we put on are only temporary.”
“My wife she make a poultice of leaves—they cure me,” said the Indian.
“I guess that will be the best way,” observed Ned. “These natives can doctor themselves for some things, better than we can.”
“Well, we’ll take him home,” suggested Tom. “He might keel over from loss of blood. Come on,” he added to Tal, indicating his object.
It was not far to the native’s hut from the place where the jaguar had been killed, and there Tom and Ned underwent another demonstration of affection as soon as those of Tal’s immediate family and the other natives understood what had happened.
“I hate this business!” complained Tom, after having been knelt to by the Indian’s wife and child, who called him the “preserver” and other endearing titles of the same kind. “Come on, let’s hike back.”
But Indian hospitality, esp
ecially after a life has been saved, is not so simple as all that.
“My life—my house—all that I own is yours,” said Tal in deep gratitude. “Take everything,” and he waved his hand to indicate all the possessions in his humble hut.
“Thanks,” answered Tom, “but I guess you need all you have. That’s a fine specimen of blow gun though,” he added, seeing one hanging on the wall. “I wouldn’t mind having one like that. If you get well enough to make me one, Tal, and some arrows to go with it, I’d like it for a curiosity to hang in my room at home.”
“The Senor shall have a dozen,” promised the Indian.
“Look, Ned,” went on Tom, pointing to the native weapon. “I never saw one just like this. They use small arrows or darts, tipped with wild cotton, instead of feathers.”
“These the arrows,” explained Tal’s wife, bringing a bundle from a corner of the one-room hut. As she held them out her husband gave a cry of fear.
“Poisoned arrows! Poisoned arrows!” he exclaimed. “One scratch and the senors are dead men. Put them away!”
In fear the Indian wife prepared to obey, but as she did so Tom Swift caught sight of the package and uttered a strange cry.
“Thundering hoptoads, Ned!” he exclaimed. “The poisoned arrows are wrapped in the piece of oiled silk that was around the professor’s missing map!”
CHAPTER XX
AN OLD LEGEND
Fascinated, Tom and Ned gazed at the package the Indian woman held out to them. Undoubtedly it was oiled silk on the outside, and through the almost transparent covering could be seen the small arrows, or darts, used in the blow gun.
“Where did you get that?” asked Tom, pointing to the bundle and gazing sternly at Tal.
“What is the matter, Senor?” asked the Indian in turn. “Is it that you are afraid of the poisoned arrows? Be assured they will not harm you unless you are scratched by them.”
Tom and Ned found it difficult to comprehend all the rapid Spanish spoken by their host, but they managed to understand some, and his eloquent gestures made up the rest.
“We’re not afraid,” Tom said, noting that the oiled skin well covered the dangerous darts. “But where did you get that?”
“I picked it up, after another Indian had thrown it away. He got it in your camp, Senor. I will not lie to you. I did not steal. Valdez went to your camp to steal—he is a bad Indian—and he brought back this wrapping. It contained something he thought was gold, but it was not, so he—”
“Quick! Yes! Tell us!” demanded Tom eagerly. “What did he do with the professor’s map that was in the oiled silk? Where is it?”
“Oh, Senors!” exclaimed the Indian woman, thinking perhaps her husband was about to be dealt harshly with when she heard Tom’s excited voice. “Tal do no harm!”
“No, he did no harm,” went on Tom, in a reassuring tone. “But he can do a whole lot of good if he tells us what became of the map that was in this oiled silk. Where is it?” he asked again.
“Valdez burn it up,” answered Tal.
“What, burned the professor’s map?” cried Ned.
“If that was in this yellow cloth—yes,” answered the injured man. “Valdez he is bad. He say to me he is going to your camp to see what he can take. How he got this I know not, but he come back one morning with the yellow package. I see him, but he make me promise not to tell. But you save my life I tell you everything.
“Valdez open the package; but it is not gold, though he think so because it is yellow, and the man with no hair on his head keep it in his pocket close, so close,” and Tal hugged himself to indicate what he meant.
“That’s Professor Bumper,” explained Ned.
“How did Valdez get the map out of the professor’s coat?” asked Tom.
“Valdez he very much smart. When man with no hair on his head take coat off for a minute to eat breakfast Valdez take yellow thing out of pocket.”
“The Indian must have sneaked into camp when we were eating,” said Tom. “Those from Beecher’s party and our workers look all alike to us. We wouldn’t know one from the other, and one of our rival’s might slip in.”
“One evidently did, if this is really the piece of oiled silk that was around the professor’s map,” said Ned.
“It certainly is the same,” declared the young inventor. “See, there is his name,” and he stretched out his hand to point.
“Don’t touch!” cried Tal. “Poisoned arrows snake poison—very dead-like and quick.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t touch,” said Tom grimly. “But go on. You say Valdez sneaked into our camp, took the oiled-silk package from the coat pocket of Professor Bumper and went back to his own camp with it, thinking it was gold.”
“Yes,” answered Tal, though it is doubtful if he understood all that Tom said, as it was half Spanish and half English. But the Indian knew a little English, too. “Valdez, when he find no gold is very mad. Only papers in the yellow silk-papers with queer marks on. Valdez think it maybe a charm to work evil, so he burn them up—all up!”
“Burned that rare map!” gasped Tom.
“All in fire,” went on Tal, indicating by his hands the play of flames. “Valdez throw away yellow silk, and I take for my arrows so rain not wash off poison. I give to you, if you like, with blow gun.”
“No, thank you,” answered Tom, in disappointed tones. “The oiled silk is of no use without the map, and that’s gone. Whew! but this is tough!” he said to his chum. “As long as it was only stolen there was a chance to get it back, but if it’s burned, the jig is up.”
“It looks so,” agreed Ned. “We’d better get back and tell the professor. It he can’t get along without the map it’s time he started a movement toward getting another. So it wasn’t Beecher, after all, who got it.”
“Evidently not,” assented Tom. “But I believe him capable of it.”
“You haven’t much use for him,” remarked Ned.
“Huh!” was all the answer given by his chum.
“I am sorry, Senors,” went on Tal, “but I could not stop Valdez, and the burning of the papers—”
“No, you could not help it,” interrupted the young inventor. “But it just happens that it brings bad luck to us. You see, Tal, the papers in this yellow covering, told of an old buried city that the bald-headed professor—the-man-with-no-hair-on-his-head—is very anxious to discover. It is somewhere under the ground,” and he waved to the jungle all about them, pointing earthwards.
“Paper Valdez burn tell of lost city?” asked Tal, his face lighting up.
“Yes. But now, of course, we can’t tell where to dig for it.”
The Indian turned to his wife and talked rapidly with her in their own dialect. She, too, seemed greatly excited, making quick gestures. Finally she ran out of the hut.
“Where is she going?” asked Tom suspiciously.
“To get her grandfather. He very old Indian. He know story of buried cities under trees. Very old story—what you call legend, maybe. But Goosal know. He tell same as his grandfather told him. You wait. Goosal come, and you listen.”
“Good, Ned!” suddenly cried Tom. “Maybe, we’ll get on the track of lost Kurzon after all, through some ancient Indian legend. Maybe we won’t need the map!”
“It hardly seems possible,” said Ned slowly. “What can these Indians know of buried cities that were out of existence before Columbus came here? Why, they haven’t any written history.”
“No, and that may be just the reason they are more likely to be right,” returned Tom. “Legends handed down from one grandfather to another go back a good many hundred years. If they were written they might be destroyed as the professor’s map was. Somehow or other, though I can’t tell why, I begin to see daylight ahead of us.”
“I wish I did,” remarked Ned.
“Here comes Goosal I think,” murmured Tom, and he pointed to an Indian, bent with the weight of years, who, led by Tal’s wife, was slowly approaching the hut.
CHA
PTER XXI
THE CAVERN
“Now Goosal can tell you,” said Tal, evidently pleased that he had, in a measure, solved the problem caused by the burning of the professor’s map. “Goosal very old Indian. He know old stories—legends—very old.”
“Well, if he can tell us how to find the buried city of Kurzon and the—the things in it,” said Tom, “he’s all right!”
The aged Indian proceeded slowly toward the hut where the impatient youths awaited him.
“I know what you seek in the buried city,” remarked Tal.
“Do you?” cried Tom, wondering if some one had indiscreetly spoken of the idol of gold.
“Yes you want pieces of rock, with strange writings on them, old weapons, broken pots. I know. I have helped white men before.”
“Yes, those are the things we want,” agreed Tom, with a glance at his chum. “That is—some of them. But does your wife’s grandfather talk our language?”
“No, but I can tell you what he says.”
By this time the old man, led by “Mrs. Tal”—as the young men called the wife of the Indian they had helped—entered the hut. He seemed nervous and shy, and glanced from Tom and Ned to his grandson-in-law, as the latter talked rapidly in the Indian dialect. Then Goosal made answer, but what it was all about the boys could not tell.
“Goosal say,” translated Tal, “that he know a story of a very old city away down under ground.”
“Tell us about it!” urged Tom eagerly.
But a difficulty very soon developed. Tal’s intentions were good, but he was not equal to the task of translating. Nor was the understanding of Tom and Ned of Spanish quite up to the mark.
“Say, this is too much for me!” exclaimed Tom. “We are losing the most valuable part of this by not understanding what Goosal says, and what Tal translates.”
“What can we do?” asked Ned.
“Get the professor here as soon as possible. He can manage this dialect, and he’ll get the information at first hand. If Goosal can tell where to begin excavating for the city he ought to tell the professor, not us.”
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 254
