From the pace at which Muley-Hassan's band traversed the jungle paths it was evident to the two young captives that there was imperative need in Muley-Hassan's mind of arriving somewhere at a set time. The usual noonday rest, which even the avaricious slave-trader was in the habit of taking, was not observed and the travelers pressed straight on. Lathrop and Billy were almost ready to drop with fatigue when that evening, just at dusk, they arrived at the bank of a muddy river which Muley-Hassan, impatient as he was to proceed, decided it would be unwise to ford till daylight—when they could look for a good crossing place. At the spot which they had halted, the stream—swollen apparently by rains in the mountains—roared between its banks, in a dark chocolate-colored flood.
Muley-Hassan himself was the only one of his band provided with a tent, or anything resembling one, and the boys shared the common bed of the rest of the party—which was the ground. A more unwholesome resting-place in Africa, particularly on the steamy, swampy banks of a river, could hardly be imagined. So indeed Muley-Hassan seemed to think, for after a short time, during which the boys vainly tried to secure some sleep, he ordered Diego to provide them with blankets to place between themselves and the bare earth.
"I expect to get a good price for them eventually," he said, "and I don't want to lose them unless I have to."
As the boys' wrists and ankles were bound with tough grass while there was no particular attempt made to watch them, and soon the snores of the camp bespoke that it was at rest. Then it was that Billy whispered to Lathrop.
"Now's our time to try for it!"
"Try for what?" whispered back Lathrop in an inert tone.
"To get away."
"What!"
"I mean it. I found a sharp stone imbedded in the ground near to me and I have nearly sawed through my wrist-bands."
After a few seconds' more vigorous scraping against the stone, Billy whispered:
"My hands are free. Wait till I wiggle my fingers and get up some circulation and then we'll make our attempt—"
When he had once more got full control of his cramped fingers Billy stooped cautiously over and loosened the thongs about his ankles. So tightly had they been drawn, though, that it took some little time to get the cramps out of them. At last, however, the boy succeeded in restoring the circulation and then he was ready for the most daring step of his attempt. Cautiously he fell on his hands and knees and began to crawl toward the nearest of the sleeping slave-traders.
"What are you going to do, Billy?" asked Lathrop, in an agony of fear lest the man should awaken.
"Watch me," was the young reporter's reply, as on his stomach he wiggled painfully across the few yards separating him from the sleeping man. In reality it took only a few minutes, but to both the boys the period of time occupied seemed interminable.
But it was no time to hurry things. One false step night cost them their lives and Billy realized this.
With the slow deliberate movement of a snake he, reached out his hand when he got near enough and took from the sleeping man's side his long curved Arab scimitar. Then he glided back to Lathrop as silently as he had left.
He had just reached his resting-place when there was a stir from the further side of the camp. Like a rabbit ducking into its hole Billy was under his blanket and apparently fast asleep in a second. But his heart beat so loudly that it felt to him that anyone who was not deaf could hear it a hundred yards away.
The man who had moved was Diego and the boys could hear his cat-like footfalls as he neared their sleeping-places. Once he stumbled over one of the sleeping men and the aroused one rose with a start and called wildly:
"What is it?"
"Hush, Adab," cautioned Diego, "it is I—Diego. I'm going to give an eye to those two American brats."
"They're tied up hard and fast enough," chuckled the other.
"If they were of any other nationality—yes;" was Diego's reply, "but these Yankees are brave and clever enough to escape from almost any trap."
"You bet we are," thought Billy to himself, giving a realistic snore.
Although he did not dare to open his eyes, the young reporter could feel Diego standing over them in the moonlight and gazing down at them to ascertain if they were still "hard and fast," as the other had expressed it.
For an instant a terrible thought flashed across Billy's brain.
"Suppose Diego should take an idea to examine their thongs?"
But the lieutenant of Muley-Hassan apparently was satisfied, for after a few minutes' scrutiny he turned to go Billy could hear his feet scrape as he swung around.
At almost the same instant the night was filled with savage cries and the camp was thrown into confusion by an onrush of wild figures before whose spears the half-awakened Arabs were slaughtered like sheep.
Not realizing in the least what was happening, Billy yet conjectured that the Arabs were just then too busy to pay any attention to himself and Lathrop. With two slashes of the stolen scimitar he severed Lathrop's bonds and dragging him to his feet dived into the forest.
As they entered its recesses a fleeing Arab, still clutching his rifle, dashed by them and an instant later fell dead. He had been speared through the back.
Billy, with a quick inspiration, seized the dead man's long rifle and his ammunition pouch and, followed by the bewildered Lathrop, plowed desperately forward into the screen of the jungle.
Behind them they heard cries for mercy and fierce shouts from the attacking savages. At first the cries and imprecations of the slave-traders predominated and then, by the altered sounds that came from the scene of the fighting and the crashing of the Arabs' volleys, the boys realized that the tide of battle had changed and that the Arabs were driving back the attacking force.
"What do you suppose happened, Billy?" asked Lathrop, only half awake, as the boys, with the fleetness and endurance that desperate need lends, plunged deeper and deeper into the forest.
"Why, that some cannibal tribe that Muley-Hassan pillaged for slaves at some time has trailed him and attacked him," hazarded the reporter.
How near he came to the truth our readers know. The band that had made the midnight attack was the same that had painstakingly trailed Muley-Hassan since he destroyed the boys' camp on the river bank.
"But the Arabs have beaten them off?" queried Lathrop.
"Evidently," replied Billy, as the volleys died out and victorious Arab shouts were beard. "Hark at that! It's really too bad. I'd like to have seen old Muley and his precious band driven into the river. But if they have driven off the savages they'll be thinking about chasing us."
As he spoke there came a low, growling sound that seemed to proceed from some distance, but nevertheless filled the air. It rumbled and rolled above them like—
"Thunder!" exclaimed both boys in the same breath.
"We've got to find shelter of some kind, quick," exclaimed Billy; "these tropical storms are unlike our little disturbances, and if we get caught among these trees in one, of them we stand a good chance of being killed. It looks like we've jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire."
Without the least idea in which direction they were proceeding, the two chums struggled bravely on, Billy encouraging the flagging Lathrop from time to time with a joke, though these latter were, as Billy admitted to himself:
"Pretty dismal!"
At length, just as dawn was beginning to break, they found themselves facing a steepish cliff of rough rocks.
"Well, here's where we turn back," remarked Billy, bitterly discouraged nevertheless.
If they were lost in this equatorial forest, what chance did they stand of ever seeing their home and friends again?
As for Lathrop he sat down on a rock overgrown with a kind of monstrous lichen and gave way to tears. But not for long. Lathrop was a plucky enough lad, and as Billy truthfully remarked:
"We are going to have enough water before long without our turning on the weeps."
So Lathrop braced up and the boys looked about them. To their intense joy they soon spied in the rocks, a short distance from where they then were, a dark hole partly overgrown by creepers, which was evidently the entrance to a cavern. At the same instant there began a mighty pattering on the leaves of the dense tropic growth all about them, and a louder growl of thunder announced that the storm that had been heralded a few hours before was about to break.
"Well, me for that African Waldorf-Astoria," cried Billy, grasping his rifle and making a dive for the hole. Lathrop followed him and as soon as they were inside the cave he lit a match from his waterproof box.
"Looks to me like there might be snakes in here," he whispered, awed by the darkness and silence of the place.
"Rats," laughed Billy, although he himself felt by no means sure that at any moment some scaly monster might not descend from the roof; "but I'll tell you what we'll do. Light a fire."
"How are we to get wood?" asked the practical Lathrop.
"There's plenty of it right at the mouth of the cave. I'll get a few armfuls and in a minute we'll have things snug."
The young reporter hastened to the cave mouth and in a few trips had gathered up several huge armfuls of wood-drift of all kinds from under the great trees all about. He was just re-entering the cave when there came a flash of blinding light so brilliant that it seemed as if the sky itself had split wide open. A bluish glare enveloped the forest and the lightning flash was instantly followed by a crash of thunder that shook the ground under the boys' feet.
"Well, they don't do things by halves in this country," remarked Billy as he re-entered the cave after a second of being temporarily stunned by the terrific flash.
It didn't take the boys long to have their wood in a blaze and as the smoke did not, as they had feared, fill the cavern, they assumed that there must be some opening above through which it escaped. This fact they verified shortly when, after the storm had been waxing in fury for half-an-hour, a perfect torrent of water came tumbling in from the rear of the rocky cavern.
"Hark!" exclaimed Billy as the boys busied themselves trying to scrape out a water-course that would divert the flood from their fire. From far in the rear of the cave came a plaintive sound of "Mi-ou, Mi-ou."
"Cats!" cried Lathrop.
"Cats nothing," was Billy's scornful reply; "here, let's have a look."
He seized a blazing brand out of the fire and hastened to the place from which the sounds emanated.
"Come here, quick, Lathrop," he cried. The younger lad scurried back and found Billy bending over a roughly constructed nest or bed. On it lay four tiny, fuzzy yellow things. They were "meowing" at the tops of their voices as the torrent of water that had annoyed the boys dripped into their snug nesting-place. At the same instant the boys became aware of a sickening odor of decaying flesh.
"Come on! we've got to get out of here quick as quick as we can," exclaimed Billy as they hastened towards the fresh air.
"Why, what is it, Billy?" asked Lathrop.
"I don't know; but I think that those are lion cubs—they look like the ones I've seen in the Bronx Zoo," was the young reporter's reply, "and if they are, this is no place for us. Come on—the storm is letting up. Let's get out quick before the old ones get back."
The storm, with the suddenness with which these furious tropical disturbances arise and vanish, had indeed gone and the sun was shining down once more on the drenched jungle, which glittered with diamond like spangles as the rays struck the dripping fronds and branches. But the boys had no eyes for the scene about them, beautiful as it was, for as they emerged from the cave a low growl greeted them.
Crouched on the ground—her tail lashing the earth like a cat's when it is about to spring—was a huge tawny lioness—her cruel green eyes fixed full upon them.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg