Adventure stories; Brazil -- Fiction; Fantasy literature; Jungles -- Fiction
"His purpose is not changed by our arrival, Capitao. He and his men go
to-morrow to attack and destroy the Red Bones. When they reach the town
of Umanuh they will surround it, and all will rush in when the chief
gives his yell of war."
"About what I expected. An Indian has a single-track mind always. But
his strategy is rotten. Might be good enough if he had only Umanuh to
deal with, but with Schwandorf in the game it's different. Ask him how
he expects to protect his women while he's gone."
"He says," Lourenço reported, "that there will be no danger to the
women, because his warriors will be between the women and their enemies
until those enemies are dead."
"Very simple. So simple that it's foolish. He doesn't figure on the
other fellow's mind at all; doesn't realize that a man like Schwandorf
is bound to outguess him on such straightaway tactics and isn't at all
likely to play into his hands. But that's the exact situation. The
German will outguess him, and it's up to him to outguess the German in
turn. We'll do his guessing for him.
"Schwandorf goes into Umanuh's town, learns what's happened, finds the
Red Bones frothing at the mouth, and is sore himself. He figures that
we've returned here with the women, that Monitaya's men are blood-mad
against the Red Bones, and that they'll do just what they are planning
to do--march on Red Bone town and leave their women unprotected except
by the old men, whose defensive power is negligible. He is in this
country for the express purpose of getting girls, and with Monitaya's
men away from their _malocas_ he has a wide-open chance to make the
biggest slave haul of his life. So he plans to outmaneuver Monitaya,
attack this place, capture all the young women, allow the Red Bones to
massacre everyone else and burn the houses, and then move on without the
loss of a man. After that perhaps he intends to find us and get Rand, or
perhaps to attack other Mayoruna _malocas_. At any rate, his first
objective is this place. Am I right so far?"
"Dead right," Knowlton nodded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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