And now we must leave the floating canoe with its occupants and turn to the River Camp, where we left the Boy Aviators overcome with anxiety as to the fate of their young comrades. The situation was indeed one calculated to try the stoutest heart. There was only one drop of sweet in their cup of bitter.
Harry, poking about among the ruins of the deserted camp, had discovered several cans of gasoline that the raiders had overlooked. They formed sufficient fuel with the picric cakes that Frank still had a supply of, to drive the big aeroplane for several hundred miles if the wind conditions were favorable.
But leave the river camp the boys dare not, for they realized that if Billy and Lathrop did manage to make their escape, they would, if possible, come back there. True, it was a chance so remote as to appear almost impossible, but under the circumstances even the shadow of a hope seemed to assume substance. And so they waited, and had been waiting, while the stirring events we have related had been happening to their missing chums.
As if to add to their oppression, old Sikaso mooned about the camp, his eyes rooted to the ground in moody absorption and muttering to himself, "five go—three come back," till Frank angrily ordered him to stop. The realization that his gloomy prophecy seemed only too likely to be fulfilled, however, did not tend to relieve the situation.
"If we do not hear from them to-morrow, we shall be compelled to take to the air and fly to the coast," said Frank as they sat that evening round a camp-fire which had been lighted to keep away marauding lions, whose roars ever and anon shook the forest. At such times old Sikaso's eyes wandered longingly to his great war-axe. There is little doubt that he would have liked to work off his gloomy feelings by tackling a lion single-handed with his weapon.
"You think, then, it isn't worth while waiting if we have heard no news by then?" asked Harry.
"It isn't that," said Frank in reply, "but we have not provisions left to more than tide us over another day. What the Arabs didn't destroy they spoiled."
Harry nodded his head silently.
Cruel necessity, it seemed, was to compel them to evacuate the camp, to which they still clung in the hope the lost adventurers might return.
It was in vain Ben Stubbs cracked his jokes that night and related all sorts of droll sea yarns in the hope of cheering up his young companions. For the first time since he had known them it looked as if the Boy Aviators had really lost all hope, and truly the facts seemed to warrant the stoutest-heart in the world being downcast—to say the least.
Suddenly without a word old Sikaso left the fire and strode off into the forest. He was gone for more than an hour and when he came back his look of gloom had vanished. For him he was almost cheerful.
He swung his terrible axe in all sorts of fantastic evolutions and hummed to himself his grim chant with a fierce sort of joy.
"White boys, the smoke is going to tell me things to-night," he exclaimed suddenly. "When the moon reaches to the top of the sky I shall tell you news of the four-eyed one and of the red-headed."
Impatiently they waited till the moon reached her zenith and then watched wonderingly while the old savage built a small fire of sticks, over each one of which he mumbled something in African.
"What good does he suppose all this hocus-pocus is going to do us?" muttered Harry irritably, "as if an old fire could tell us anything we didn't know already. It's all rubbish, I say."
"I'm not so sure," remarked Frank thoughtfully. "We have already seen something of what his skill can do and I don't mind letting him see if he can't conjure up something to give us a ray of hope."
"Oh bosh, Frank," replied Harry, "if he ever did get anything right through this rigmarole and hanky-panky it was simply because he had good luck. That's all."
"For my part, I've knocked around the world too much to be so cock sure of some things as some young chaps seem to be," put in Ben Stubbs, with a chuckle, looking up from the frying-pan that he was scouring with sand.
Harry looked abashed and said nothing.
If old Sikaso had heard any of this colloquy he made no sign, but with the face of a graven image went about his preparations. Slowly he struck the sparks from his never-failing flint and steel, and a few seconds later the little fire was sending up a blaze.
"Do you see anything?" asked Frank.
"Too soon now, wait till smoke come," he said, and resumed his intense watching of the fire.
After a delay that seemed maddening, to two at least of the group that was watching, the old Krooman announced that all was ready.
Even Harry felt a thrill of interest as the old man began to spin slowly on his toes round the column of smoke, chanting slowly some strange mixture of savage music which was, as Frank guessed, an incantation to the fetish that, as he believed, dwelt in the smoke. As the smoke grew thicker he cast some sort of powder from a skin-bag into it and instantly a thick yellow column of vapor shot up.
The whole forest about seemed impregnated with the strong odor of the stuff and the boys' eyes smarted. Old Sikaso kept up his dance, bending lower and lower till it seemed that he must be actually inhaling the pungent, acrid smoke.
As this strange scene progressed, Frank felt his eyes begin to grow dim and an unaccountable languor fill his limbs. His head swam round and he desired nothing so much as to lie down and sleep—-and yet a compelling power forced him to keep his eyes fixed on the column of smoke over which the aged Krooman was now stooping with outspread hands.
Suddenly he gave a sharp cry—an exclamation almost of command.
"Look—look, white boys, and you, old man of the sea and the forests of the far-off land, and I shall show you the magic of the sleeping heart of Africa."
With eyes that started from his head Frank gazed, in obedience to a majestic sweep of the African's hand, full into the ascending column of yellowish smoke.
The languor the boy had felt at first had now quite left him and he was only intent on seeing what was about to transpire.
Sikaso's voice once more rose in his dismal chant and he cast more of the powder from his skin-bag into the fire. The smoke pillar grew to an immense size and, as he gazed at it, before Frank's amazed eyes a scene as strange to him as any he had ever set eyes on, began slowly to take shape.
There was a river edge with mighty banks at the summit of which waved fronds of tropical plants and in which huge beasts, that he recognized as hippopotami, wallowed and sputtered. An unhealthy steam arose from the banks and the river boiled angrily along between its confines in a dark mud-colored flood.
So far the scene was not unlike the river in which he and Harry had so nearly lost their lives, but as he gazed the details grew clearer, as if it had been a magic lantern view, growing by degrees stronger and every outline of the tropical view was suddenly thrown into strong relief.
All at once the boy uttered a sharp cry, which was echoed by his brother and Ben. Old Sikaso never moved a muscle but kept on chanting.
Into the center of the wonderful smoke picture there had swum a canoe.
And in it were seated Billy Barnes and Lathrop!
With them, too, was the figure of a venerable white bearded man who seemed to be about to collapse. From time to time he raised himself feebly and gazed ahead. Frank could see Billy at such times stoop forward and speak to him.
The boys' plight was evidently a terrible one.
Their clothes were ripped and torn and Billy's shirt scarcely covered his body; which was a mass of cuts and scratches. A great cloud of mosquitoes hung about the canoe, clearly maddening its occupants with their myriads of tiny stings. The faces of both the young navigators were drawn and lined with anxiety as they paddled ahead in the turbulent current.
"See," cried Sikaso harshly, as the picture faded, "do the white boys still doubt?"
"No, no!" cried Harry. "Show us more, Sikaso."
The Krooman cast more of the magic powder into the dying fire and again a thick pillar of smoke curled upward.
His low crooning chant then began once more.
As before the picture did not assume shape at once but swam, as it were, slowly into view. This time the surroundings had changed. There was a look of agonized terror on the faces of all the occupants of the canoe as she seemed to be literally hurled forward upon a current that ran as swiftly as a mill race.
The frail craft rocked terribly and once or twice she shipped some water that Lathrop instantly bailed out with a shallow earthen dish.
Frank could almost hear the roar of the water as he gazed in silent fascination on the mysterious pictures of the smoke.
And now the apprehension on the faces of the occupants of the canoe was agonizing to watch. Once Frank saw the old man arise as if to cast himself into the water rather than face what lay ahead, but Lathrop instantly drew him back.
Again the picture died out and again the old Krooman threw on more powder. As the smoke rolled up once more no one spoke. The situation was far too tense for that.
The scene now seemed to show that indeed all was over with the occupants of the canoe. The frail craft was seen to be in a tunnel of rough stone through which the roaring vortex of the waters poured with such violence that the boys and their aged companion were continually drenched with spray. Lathrop had hard work to keep the craft free of water now, and bailed incessantly. The old man was on his knees his hands clasped and his lips moving as if in prayer. Billy, his face set, sat in the stern. Again and again with a quick twist of his paddle he saved the canoe from annihilation in the boiling current.
It was an agonizing scene to watch, and to the onlookers it seemed as real as if they had been gazing at the peril itself instead of its counterfeit presentment in smoke-pictures.
At last the walls of the tunnel were seen to widen out and the current to move more slowly. Frank gave a sigh of relief which was echoed by the others as the canoe emerged from the subterranean river into a broad lagoon with low banks covered with tropical verdure and seemingly, from the absence of steaming vapors a healthy spot. But even as the canoe entered the quiet waters a great body projected itself through the water followed by three other bulky forms.
They were recognized instantly by the watchers as hippopotami.
The leader of the animals made straight for the canoe, and the watchers trembled as they looked, for it was evident that one snap of the creatures' huge jaws would cave in the side of the canoe as if it were an eggshell.
With trembling excitement the Boy Aviators saw their young companions with both paddles make desperately for the shore, but before they reached it one of the hippopotami intercepted them, and with a charge of angry fury literally tossed the boat clean out of the water.
A second later the gazers at the smoke pictures saw the two missing adventurers and their aged unknown companion struggling in the water. It seemed that all was over when a strange interruption occurred.
A long, dark horny head with two cruel eyes and rows of saw-like teeth in its long jaws, sped through the waters. The hippopotamus turned savagely on the intruder and the two snapped savagely at each other for several minutes when the crocodile, mortally wounded to judge by the red swirl on the surface of the stream, made off.
But Billy and Lathrop were seen to have taken advantage of the brief breathing spell it gave them. In a few strong strokes they had swum with the aged man to shallow water and quickly waded ashore. They were safe then for the time being. But for how long?
Frank saw the two comrades gaze about them in despair at the wilderness of jungle that closed about them on every side. He saw them cast horrified looks at each other at the situation in which they found themselves—lost in the trackless African forests.
The next minute the old man fell forward on his face and lay still. Whether he was dead or unconscious, Frank could not, of course, tell—and then the smoke died out, and the picture faded.
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