Courage, True Hearts Part 45

"Beesiness, sah, beesiness," replied the prime minister. "Wot dis wo'ld be widout beesiness, tell me dat?"

Carrambo held his head a little to one side and both open palms out in front of him.

As, however, the question was too philosophical in its nature, Duncan made no reply.

"'Scuse me one moment, sah."

He hurried away, and presently afterwards reappeared from behind a hut, dragging a poor little naked girl by one hand.

"You take lifel and s'oot de chile," he said. "She foh de king's dinner. Dis will make one good implession on dese pore ignolant savages."

This might have been true, but Duncan nevertheless did not see his way to become the king's executioner.

He shot a fowl, however, and at the flash and report the savages, who had never seen white men before, and never heard the sound of a gun, screamed wildly, and rushed off with such precipitation, that they seemed to be all a mist of long black scraggy legs and arms.

But Carrambo's voice recalled them, and they returned awed and terror-struck.

The dead fowl, moreover, was evidence of the terrible power possessed by these great "children of the air".

What might they not do next?

These innocent wretches trembled to think. I call them innocent simply because they knew not sin.

"If then," says the apostle, "knowing these things, happy are ye if ye do them."

For knowledge brings with it responsibility, and this neglected is accounted to us as sin.

This night our young heroes spent in the car of the balloon, and honest Viking went on guard. But even if the savages--for savages they were of the most demoniacal type--possessed any longing to do them to death, fear, natural and supernatural, deterred them.

Next morning early, Carrambo, the king's prime minister, departed upon his long and dangerous mission, taking two young warriors with him, and promising faithfully to return in two weeks at the farthest.

"S'pose you not see me den," he added sententiously, "den I gone deaded foh tlue."

The place seemed more lonesome now that Carrambo had gone, for, scoundrel though he undoubtedly was, he was someone to speak to.

They now began seriously to consider their situation and prospects.

In their heart of hearts they believed that they had been the means of sending succour to their marooned s.h.i.+pmates, on that lonely isle of the ocean. Their minds were easy enough on that score, for if even the steamer they had hailed had resumed her course without making any attempt to find the isle and rescue the mariners, the Sultan of Lamoo, Duncan fully understood, had always been friendly with the British, and would immediately despatch a.s.sistance in some shape or other.

Duncan, before doing anything else, got out his instruments of observation, and as well as could be made out, the glen in which they were virtually imprisoned was between two and three hundred miles off the coast, and some degrees south of the line.

He was puzzled at first as to why the place had never been discovered by British explorers.

But there are hundreds of such tribe-lands that have never yet been trodden by the foot of Christian men.

There was one clue to the mystery, however, and this was probably the true one, but they did not find it out just then.

"Now," said Duncan, "for a visit of ceremony to that fat old pig of king. And we must take him some presents, too."

Duncan had not forgotten that there were on board the _Flora_ many large and beautiful strings of beads, which had been intended for bartering with any natives they might meet, and he had stowed away many such in the balloon car.

"Come, Conal, or Frank," he said, "I don't care which. But one of you with Vike must stay by the car and stand by your guns, in case the cupidity of these cut-throat natives gets the better of their fear."

"I'll stay," cried the c.o.c.kney boy, as pluckily as ever Englishman spoke.

So down the hill towards the village, revolvers in their belts and rifles c.o.c.ked, marched Duncan and Conal.

They found the king sitting cross-legged outside his kraal or great gra.s.s hut, and being a.s.siduously fanned by his wives.

These were no beauties, but Duncan lifted his cap and salaamed to the king first and then to them.

They seemed both pleased and tickled, and giggled inordinately, until the king rounded on them, scowling and drawing his fore-finger across his throat in a most significant manner.

The young Britons, as they approached his majesty, tried not to look at the awful remains of his last night's feast, but the sickening sight obtruded itself upon them in spite of all they could do.

Besides the beads, they had brought with them a four-pound tin of preserved beef.

They had expected his majesty to take a little of this, but were not a little surprised when he seized the tin and began digging out and swallowing huge lumps of it, with a guttural e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of delight between each mouthful.

"Goo--goo--goo!" he exclaimed, as with about a yard of hideous tongue he finished off by licking out the tin.

"Nothing more horrible have I ever seen!" said Duncan.

"That is true," said Conal.

The king threw down the empty tin--he couldn't swallow that--smiled, nodded, and pointed towards the clouds.

"Goo--goo--goo--" he cried interrogatively.

Duncan nodded and smiled in turn, although he had wished the brute had choked himself.

But the horror of the brothers is not to be described when, at a call from the king, accompanied by a string of words that consisted mostly of vowels, two slaves came forward and offered them the roasted forearms of a child--no doubt those of the girl which Carrambo had asked them to shoot the day before.

They turned away, and shook their heads, but fearing to give offence, immediately presented his majesty with a string of beautiful beads.

His delight was childish-like and unbounded, and he immediately called for his sedan-chair of bamboo cane, and was trotted through the village of huts that his subjects might admire him.

That same forenoon Duncan, accompanied only by Viking, went on a voyage of discovery as he called it. He wanted to find out the lay of the land.

Two natives, impelled by curiosity, followed him, and when he beckoned to them and gave each a bead, they readily accompanied him as escort.

Vike kept aloof.

He didn't like the looks of these savages.

But after climbing a conical hill, Duncan found out the true reason for the isolation of these savages. Their country was at least a thousand feet above the level of the land. And this last, except on one side where the mountains hid their snow-capped heads in the clouds, everywhere were dark and seemingly impenetrable forests.