Nicky darted off into the jungle to their left, while Sadok and the
curator hoisted Dwight to his feet and started off along the rocky
side of the mountain. They saw a party of the pygmies scuttling along
in the valley below to get ahead of them. Stopping an instant to
aim, the curator drove another shell down on them. Its detonation was
followed by a sudden silence, and then out of the green depths of the
jungle across the creek burst a full, deep-throated war chant.
“Ko! Ko! Ko!
Hy-_yah!_ Hy-_yah!_ Hy-_yah!_
To-yah-hyah! To-yah-hyah!
Ko! Ko! Ko!”
The curator stopped, exulting. These were _men_!--not the little,
dwarfed aborigines of the hills, but big, tall, deep-chested men--the
Outanatas!
He scarce dared to hope. An arrow whispered through the jungle over
his shoulder, but he heeded it not, his eyes fixed on that open green
tunnel that opened out on the creek bank. The marching song continued,
and he got glimpses of spears and white-scrolled shields moving along
through the greens of the forest below. Then a tall chief stood in the
mouth of the tunnel, his face hideously streaked with white marks, and,
hanging like an apron from his girdle, was the curator’s flaming red
bandanna. It was the war chief of the Outanatas--and behind him came
Baderoon, pointing and urging them on vigorously!
The curator cupped his hands.
“Baderoon! Baderoon! Here we are!” he yelled. Then he and Sadok laid
Dwight down under a rock ledge and sought ambushes. Yells and war cries
sounded from the mountain side all about them as the long line of
Outanata warriors splashed across the creek, brandishing their weapons.
Parties of pygmies formed for the assault in the swales. The occasional
cough of Sadok’s sumpitan at different places on the mountain showed
that he was outlying and picking off men here and there.
Then a knot of the pygmies gathered below the curator, evidently bent
on taking the Outanatas in the rear. He aimed carefully into the midst
of them and fired his third shell. Its stunning report was the signal
for a general attack, for the Outanatas dashed out into the grass
country, a cloud of arrows preceding them, while javelins soared and
poised in the air, to sink out of sight in the long grass.
Baderoon came running up the hill through the jungle.
“Me get’m! Me fetch’m, _Orang-kaya_! Come! No good for white man be
here.” He was fully armed, and exuberant with delight and high spirits.
The curator called in Sadok, and they raised Dwight to his feet and
set off at full speed, with the Dyak covering their retreat. The boy
was fast getting his strength back now, and they went along rapidly.
As they left the plateau the curator looked back. The whole country
behind him was full of tall and short black men, fighting like demons,
catching arrows on ready shields, jabbing at each other with long
spears, and occasionally the white flash of a bamboo knife would tell
where one of a pair had come off victorious.