Jan of the Jungle Page 13

  A quick survey showed him that there was no one in the hall. He stepped out, followed by Koh, his nostrils wide as he endeavored to catch Chicma's scent. The perfume from the lamps confused him.

  Presently he turned to the left and like a hound on a trail, went straight to a door about fifty feet away. Here he halted, sniffing for a moment, then lifted the curtain and peered in.

  He saw Chicma, but she was not in a cage, and she was not alone. She was lolling on a cushioned divan, daintily nibbling on a sweetmeat from a dish piled high on a taboret beside her. Her ragged jaguar-skin garment was gone. In its place was a gaudily colored jacket of the softest silk. There was a jewel-studded gold collar around her neck, and jewels blazed from golden settings on her finger and toe rings. Beside her stood a slender yellow slave girl, who was brushing her fur.

  Jan turned to Koh.

  "Seize the slave," he whispered. "We'll bind and gag her. Then Chicma can come away with us."

  Together they rushed in. Koh clapped his hand over the girl's mouth before she could cry out. Startled by their abrupt entrance, Chicma leaped down from the divan and started to run. Then she recognized Jan, and stopped.

  "What do you want?" she clucked, in her guttural chimpanzee tongue.

  "I've come to take you away," he said.

  "I like it here," she replied. "I won't go away. You do not need me. You are grown, and can care for yourself. Go away and don't bother me."

  Jan was dumfounded. To think that he had risked his life needlessly, passed through countless perils to save Chicma from her captors, only to find that she actually liked her captivity! All this he could not tell to Chicma. There was no chimpanzee way of expressing it.

  "I will go," he clucked to her. To Koh: "She won't go. We must go without her. First I'll help you bind the girl."

  He tore a strip of cloth from the curtain. But before he could use it, the girl suddenly wrenched her mouth free from Koh's hand, and shrieked loudly.

  There was an answering shout from the hallway, the clank of armored men running.

  "No use to bind her now," said Jan. "Come."

  He dashed out the window, onto the balcony. Koh flung the girl from him and followed, just as a host of warriors rushed into the room. One of the guards, searching the the shrubbery beneath, spied the two figures on the balcony and shouting to his fellows, pointed upward.

  The nearest tree stood about twenty feet from the balcony. Jan stepped up on the rail, and shouting, "Follow me!" plunged across the dizzy height. For him it was not much of a jump. Many times he had leaped this far, from tree to tree, in the jungle. His sure hands gripped the lowest branch, clung there. But the branch cracked, sagged, then tore loose from the trunk. Jan's body swung out to the horizontal and dropped. He struck on his back with terrific force. Then came oblivion.

  CHAPTER XXIII. THE LOTUS MARK

  IN HER boudoir on the second floor of the Suarez hacienda, Doha Isabella was talking with Georgia Trevor. The hour of the siesta was past and a servant had just brought tea.

  Ramona, accompanied by her duenna, bad gone quietly to the patio to read a book.

  Jan had not been found. After two months in the jungle Dr. Bracken had sent word that he had set up a base camp far to the south, and that he had sent a messenger to Captain Santos, instructing him to build a similar camp to the east. He bad suggested that the same thing be done to the north and west thus keeping a large area of the jungle under constant watch. Harry Trevor, trusting him implicitly, had immediately accepted the plan. Both he and Don Fernando were absent, establishing the new base camps, but were expected to return that day, as Ramona was to leave for school early the following morning.

  Georgia Trevor stirred her tea thoughtfully. "Ramona seems quite sad today," she said. "I wonder what can be wrong with her? Do you think it is because her vacation has ended and she must leave for the States tomorrow?"

  The dona put down her cup. "That may have something to do with it," she answered. "But she has assured me many times that she likes school. There is something wrong with Ramona, some undercurrent I can't fathom. At the beginning of her vacation she was bright and cheerful, but as the days passed she seemed to grow more and more worried about something."

  "She's still quite young to be away from home for ten months at a time," suggested Georgia Trevor. "No doubt she gets homesick. Only seventeen, isn't she?"

  "Yes-er-we think she is. I may as well tell you all about it," said the dona. "Ramona is not our daughter, though we love and cherish her as our very own."

  "I've noticed that except for her dark eyes and hair she doesn't resemble either you or Don Fernando. There seems to be something Oriental about her type of beauty, suggesting a princess of ancient Babylon or a vestal virgin from some temple of Isis."

  "It may be," said the dona, "that your intuition is nearer the troth than you realize. I'll show you something."

  She opened a tiny wall safe and from one of its trays removed a large brass key. With this she unlocked the lid of a massive brass-bound chest. In the bottom of the chest was a black lacquered basket, its lid inscribed in white, red and yellow, with characters greatly resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics. As if it were a fragile sacred relic, the dona lifted it reverently and placed it on a table.

  "This," said the dona, "is the basket in which we found Ramona a tiny baby not more than six months old. My husband had gone out on the river with an Indian servant, for some early morning fishing. He noticed the basket floating nearby, and was attracted by the strange characters with which it was covered.

  "He lifted the basket into the boat, and was astounded when he heard strange little mewling sounds coming from it. He tore off the lid. Lying in the bottom of the basket on a bed of soft wool, wrapped in a shawl of golden-yellow silk, was a tiny baby girl.

  "He rushed home to me at once, and when I saw the child, I immediately fell in love with her. She was half starved, showing that she had been floating in the basket for many hours. She may have traveled that way for a great many miles, as the current is very swift. We tried to learn who her parents were, and when we were not able to find out anything about them, we adopted her.

  "The inscriptions on the basket could not be read by any of the Indians we asked, although for some reason the Indians always seemed to regard them with superstitious awe.

  "About a year later Sir Henry Westgate, the English archaeologist and explorer, stopped here on his way into the jungle. He told us he sought traces of colonists from an ancient civilization that had once existed on a vast continent in the Pacific.

  "My husband showed him this basket, told him where and how he had found it, and asked if he could decipher the writing on it. Sir Henry's expression when he-saw that basket reminded me of Galahad, finding the Holy Grail. He said that it was a historical discovery of vast importance, and that if the people who had set it adrift could be located, the riddle of the lost continents of Mu, Atlantis and Lemuria and the origins of all ancient civilizations and cultures could be solved. Here is his translation."

  From the bottom of the basket she took a sheet of paper, and read aloud:

  "'To thee, mighty Hepr, Great God of the Waters, enthroned in eternal power and glory upon the coils of the great serpent, between thy sentinels the twin mountains Qer-Hapi and Mu-Hapi, Samsu, humble slave of thy beloved son, Set, consigneth this daughter of Re, that thou mayest deal with her in thy great wisdom according to thy omnipotent will so powerful that went thou to relax it for but an instant, the gods would fall down headlong and all men would perish.'"

  "What can it mean?" asked Georgia Trevor, tensely.

  "According to Sir Henry," replied the dona, "it means that a certain Samsu, High Priest of Set, or Saturn, for some reason set the child adrift upon the water, hoping that she would meet her death. She may have been his own child, or she may have been the daughter of some other powerful man. The statement that she is a daughter of Re shows that she is a royal princess, or daughter of the sun. For the safety of hi
s soul even though he desired her death, the High Priest dared not slay a royal personage himself. So I suppose he managed to put the blame on Hepr, God of Waters, by consigning her to the river in a basket that would float.

  "In the palm of the baby's right hand was tattooed an open lotus, the sacred flower of Mu. This proved beyond all doubt that Ramona was a princess of the blood imperial, Sir Henry said. If he is correct, Ramona's ancestors were ruling a mighty civilization while our Cro-Magnon forbears in Europe were living in caves and wearing animal skins.

  "The remains of every civilization of the past, Sir Henry told us, show the cultural influence of Mu, the mother continent. Her ships carried adventurers to all parts of the earth, where they established colonies ruled by the viceroys of the motherland. But Mu, along with Lemuria was broken up by a great earthquake, and sank into the ocean.

  "An expedition had set out from the motherland on a good-will tour of Mu's colonies, led by the Crown Prince, with a retinue of ten thousand men and women from all walks of life.

  "While he was in Egypt the prince received word of the destruction of the motherland. He set sail for Atlantis, but in a terrific storm many of his ships were lost. Of his own flagship nothing was ever heard.

  "Sir Henry was convinced that the prince and a band of his followers had landed somewhere on the coast of South America. The sight of Ramona's basket convinced him that he was on the right trail, and that if he would follow this river and all of its branches to their sources, he would be sure to find the descendants of the people of Mu. With this intention be led an expedition into the jungle some sixteen years ago. Since then no word has come from him. Probably he and his men were killed by savages."

  Standing in the patio beneath the tiny balcony that jutted out from the dona's boudoir, Ramona waited for Jan. She had waited there every day of her vacation, but now, the last day, hope had fled.

  A humming bird with iridescent plumage shot past Ramona's head as she sat beneath the trysting tree, and lighted on a bush, beneath the dona's window. She put down her book and followed it, to watch it at close range while it sipped the nectar from the flowers.

  Above the pixie drone of the midget flyer's wings, she suddenly heard her supposed mother say: "Ramona is not our daughter." Shocked, she had remained to listen, and had heard the whole story.

  Ramona turned away from the window with eyes brimming, stunned to, learn that she was not a Suarez and that the don and dona, whom she had loved as her father and mother, had merely taken her in, a foundling. Her real parents, it seemed, had not wanted her-had even desired her death. Otherwise they would not have set her adrift on the river where the chances were a hundred to one that she would perish.

  As she walked down the path toward her tree, an Indian entered the patio. He glanced cautiously about as if fearful of being seen, then came toward her. Bowing low, he handed the girl a folded slip of paper.

  "Jan send you this," he said softly, with a wary glance in the direction of the snoring duenna. "I wait for you outside gate."

  With' trembling, eager fingers, Ramona unfolded the little missive, while the Indian slunk away. She instantly recognized the large, crudely made capital letters of Jan's writing.

  RAMONA: I AM BADLY HURT. WANT TO SEE YOU. THE INDIAN WILL SHOW THE WAY. WILL YOU COME? JAN.

  Would she go? She had promised her father that she would never leave the patio, unguarded. No, not her father. Don Fernando had deceived her about that, as had the dona. Yet a promise was a promise, for all that, and she had never broken her word.

  For a moment she stood there, a prey to conflicting emotions. But only for a moment. This was an emergency. Jan was wounded-perhaps dying. And he wanted to see her--needed her. That was enough. Promise or no promise, she must go.

  As she passed the arbor, the corpulent Senora Soledade stirred uneasily, ceased her snoring for a moment, and seemed about to awaken. Ramona ran forward on tiptoes and quietly opened the gate. Stepping through she closed it soundlessly. Over among the young rubber trees the Indian stood with folded arms, waiting.

  When he saw her coming, the savage started off toward the jungle. Once in its depths, he stopped until she came up.

  "How far?" she asked.

  "Only a little way," he answered. "I show you, quick."

  At first he led her straight south, but presently he began turning toward the southeast. As they penetrated deeper and deeper into the jungle, Ramona began to grow apprehensive. She recalled that Jan had told her all Indians were his enemies. If this were the case, she wondered how it would be possible for him to employ an Indian as a messenger.

  Then, to add to her fears, she began to hear sounds behind her, as if someone or something were dogging her footsteps. She ran up close to her guide-touched him on the shoulder.

  "Something is following us," she said. "I heard it. It may be a puma or a jaguar. I'm afraid."

  "I go look," said the savage, and walked back for a little way. Returning presently, he said: "Nothing follow. No be 'fraid."

  He proceeded as before, but it was not long until the girl heard a twig snap behind her. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, then screamed at the top of her voice as she saw a strange savage coming stealthily toward her, carrying a small coil of rope. Like a charging panther, the native sprang forward. She turned to run, but the Indian who had lured her into the jungle stopped her before she was fairly started. Then despite her cries and struggles, he held her while the other bound her hands and gagged her.

  Then someone other than Jan had written the note! But who? And how could any one imitate his lettering so well?

  Suddenly they came to a tiny clearing, walled in on all sides by tangled, matted vegetation. In the middle of the clearing was a small, newly built hut.

  Standing in front of the hut, smoking a cigarette, was Captain Santos, a grin of triumph on his dark features. He dropped the butt, ground it beneath his heel, and slowly exhaled the blue-white smoke through his nostrils as the two Indians came up with their beautiful young captive.

  "Unbind her," he commanded in Spanish.

  While they loosed the bonds that held her wrists, the captain removed her gag.

  "Now go! Vamos! Get the supplies from the hacienda and hurry back to camp. I'll see you there-later."

  Ramona faced him bravely, trying to hide the horrible fear that clutched at her heart.

  "What is the meaning of this, Captain Santos?" she demanded. "Where is Jan?"

  "Jan," he replied, brutally seizing her wrists, "is dead. And since you ask, it means, my little one, that you are mine."

  She tried to pull away, but the powerful fingers held her like steel bands. She kicked, bit and screamed, but Santos only laughed.

  "Cry out all you like," he said. "It will amuse the monkeys and parrots." Then he dragged her into the dark interior of the hut.

  CHAPTER XXIV. CAGED

  WHEN JAN became conscious after his fall from the tree, he was lying on a smooth stone floor. He sat up, and numerous twinges of pain shot through the muscles of his back.

  Then he remembered his leap from the balcony of the Imperial Palace, the broken tree limb, and the crash that brought oblivion.

  He got to his feet unsteadily and looked about. He was in a narrow cell, on all sides of which were stout iron bars. The air was heavy with the odors of sweating men and animals. In a cell on his right was a hairy man-monster like the ones that had attacked him when he first entered the valley. This husky creature was squatting in a corner, busily scratching himself. Jan could see other hairy monsters squatting in the cells beyond.

  In the cell on Jan's left still another form paced back and forth. There were a few scattered patches of hair on his body, but the rest was quite naked and as white as Jan's own skin. His beard and the hair on his head were much longer than those of the hairy-bodied creatures at the right, both hanging below his waist, and were dark brown, streaked with gray. He stood more erect than these others, and was not nearly so heavy or muscular. />
  There were two doors to each cell. One led to a passageway in the rear, and the other to a circular arena of white sand about an eighth of a mile in diameter. Looking across this arena, and to the right and left, Jan could see hundreds of other cells. Those nearest him housed yellow men, white men, and hairy men. But in those farther away were caged many strange and terrible-looking creatures. Some, such as the saber-toothed tigers, cave bears and hyaenodons were familiar to him. But there were many others-giant beasts, birds, and reptiles-he had never seen or heard of before.

  Presently a great commotion started among the men, beast-men, and beasts. Amid a deafening medley of roars, growls, shrieks, shouts and howls came a sound of clanging gates. Then Jan saw the reason. It was feeding time.

  He could see the attendants coming along the passageway. One would move a lever, raising a gate a little way, while the other pushed food beneath it. Then the gate would clang back into place and the two would move on to the next cage while a third, following them, filled the water pans.

  Like the beast-men on one side of him and the wild-looking white man on the other, Jan was fed raw meat. He was hungry, and seized it eagerly. It proved to be the flesh of some creature unfamiliar to him, but quite palatable and satisfying. After eating he drank, and lay down on his belly to ease his bruised and aching back. With his head cradled in his arms, he soon fell asleep.

  Some time later he awakened with a start. Something was prodding his shoulder. It was the end of a long pole thrust through the bars by a white man who wore a yellow tunic and sandals. He withdrew the pole as Jan scrambled to his feet and faced him.

  "Do you speak the language of men, wild one?" he asked.