“Say, Bentham, there’s been a war, you know!” laughed the curator, “and I was in it--lieutenant of a trench-bombing detail. Dynamite is old stuff, now. I’ve brought a few grenades along, if we have any trouble.” “You’ll need ’em for those blighters!” exclaimed Bentham. “So you were in France, eh?” The regret in his own tones told how keenly it galled him to have been stuck down here out of it all. The talk went back to the war again, of which he could never get enough. “Yes, we’re going to try a new tack in a new way,” said the curator, when they got back to the expedition again. “We’re going to land in that long lagoon at the head of Dorgo Bay. No white men have ever been in that way. The mountains come right close to shore there, and we can get on high ground right off and avoid that swampy jungle. Then, southward along the ridges above the Great Precipice for ours, and we’ll see what we’ll see.” “Well!” said Bentham, shaking his head, “good luck to you! But the pygmies or the Outanatas will get you sure! You’ll have to wade through dynamite the whole way!” “Oh, we’re not exactly unprepared, you know,” demurred the curator. He showed him a curious pistol that the boys had often speculated over. It looked like a foreign automatic, only its barrel was a mere shell of steel, like a shotgun, and it had no hammer or firing mechanism. “I had this made. Sort of shell thrower, you know. It’s rather effective at moderate ranges--shoots T. N. T. shells. It pays to look ahead in these expeditions and try to meet conditions as you imagine them likely to turn out. Force, and plenty of it, is the only thing the savage really understands, so we’re fixed to defend ourselves if we have to.” Bentham looked relieved. “But suppose you get captured and tied up?” he questioned. “Those beggars will eat you, sure--like you all the better if you are white.” “I’ve been tied up before. Mundurucus, up the Orinoco. But I didn’t _stay_ tied long.” He twirled a ring on his right hand with his thumb as the others looked at him questioningly. “Picked this up from an old _guru_ up in the Himalayas. Came out of some Indian palace, most likely. I bet it’s got a history!” He pressed the monogram of the ring with his thumb tip as they watched. It was all done with one hand, but out of its base a tiny, two-edged steel knife stuck up from the base of the monogram. “You twist your wrist, with that ring knife inside, you see, and you’d be surprised to see how easy it is to cut a thong around your wrists with it,” he exclaimed. Shouts on deck interrupted the boys’ exclamations of astonishment and brought them running out of the cabin. The mainland of Kobror lay off not a mile to windward. The crew were tacking ship, and all was shouting and confusion. “I guess we’d better get our outfits ready, boys,” said the curator. “Call Sadok and Baderoon, so we can muster the party and see that they have everything.”