Knowing that it was rather more than probable some of the Indians would
be stationed upon the hills to watch for the queerly shaped air-demon,
the professor felt obliged to lose no further time, and so the
separation was effected, just as the eastern sky was beginning to show
streaks and veins of a new day.
“Touch and go!” cried Waldo, with a vast inhalation as he watched the
aeromotor sail away with the swiftness of a bird on wing. “And for a
weenty bit I reckoned 'twas you and me as part of the go, too!”
In company the lads enjoyed a more leisurely meal than their relative
had dared wait for, knowing that, at the very least, they would have the
whole of that day to themselves, so far as uncle Phaeton was concerned.
As a matter of course, he would not attempt to return except under cover
of night, or in the early dawn of another day.
All that had been thoroughly discussed and provided for the evening
before, and was barely touched upon by the brothers now. Their first and
most natural thought was of yonder Lost City, with its inhabitants, red,
white, and yellow, as Waldo put it; but being still under the foreboding
fears of the professor, they finally agreed to remain where he left them
until after the sun crossed its meridian.
It was a rather early meal which the brothers prepared, if the whole
truth must be told; and the last fragments were bolted rather than
chewed, feet keeping time with jaws, as they hastened towards the
observatory.
There was pretty much the same sort of view as on the day before, the
main difference being that many of the Indians were labouring in the
fields, instead of watching for the air-demon.
Using the glass by turns, the lads kept eager watch for the white women
whom Waldo stubbornly persisted were within the town; but hour after
hour passed without the desired reward, and Bruno began to doubt whether
there was any such vision to be won.
“The sun was in your eyes, and you let mad fancy run away with your
better judgment, boy,” he decided, at length. “If not, why--what now?”
For Waldo gave a low, eager exclamation, gripping the field-glass as
though he would crush in the reinforced leather case. A few moments
thus, then he laughed in almost fierce glee, thrusting the glass towards
his brother, speaking excitedly:
“A crazy fool lunatic, am I? Well, now, you just take a squint at the
old house for yourself and see if--biting you, now, is it?”
For Bruno showed even more intense interest as he caught the right line,
there taking note of--yes, they surely were white women! Faces, hair,
all went to proclaim that fact. And more than that, even.
“Fair--lovely as a painter's dream!” almost painfully breathed the elder
Gillespie. “I never saw such a lovely--”
“Injun squaw, of course. Couple of 'em. Nobody but a fool would ever
think different. The idea of finding white women--”
“They are ladies, Waldo! I never saw such--and I feel that they must be
the ones lost by poor Edgecombe when that storm--”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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