Kitabı oku: «The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents», sayfa 5
CHAPTER IX.
THE MIDNIGHT BELL
It required considerable persuasion on the part of Frank and Harry to induce Mr. Chester to allow them to undertake a trip which, to say the least, was hazardous. After a long talk, however, it was agreed that the boys were to be allowed to go providing that if they did not return within the next three days they were to use every effort to notify their father of their whereabouts.
All opposition being overcome, the boys, after a hearty meal, made a change into light woolen shirts, khaki trousers and rubber-soled canvas shoes. Soft felt hats of the army type completed their attire, and when they had each buckled on a belt to which were strapped magazine revolvers and slung field-glasses and water-padded canteens over their shoulders they were practically ready for their bold dash.
Frank at once made a hasty survey of the ground surrounding the palm-thatched aerodrome and decided that with a little clearing the Golden Eagle could be started without any difficulty if no wind got up. A force of men was at once put to work with machetes and long before noon a “runway” of five hundred yards leading downhill had been cleared, – Frank calculating that this would be sufficient to allow the aeroplane to lift and clear the taller banana bushes. The gasolene for the sixty-gallon tank had been shipped from Greytown at the time that Frank and Harry tuned up the Golden Eagle’s engine, and besides filling the tank to its capacity they loaded their craft up with several five-gallon cans for a reserve supply. A stock of the best cylinder oil and grease for the “screw-up” grease cups that lubricated the crank shafts completed the engine outfit.
The boys calculated on using a pint per horsepower an hour of fuel when the Golden Eagle’s engine was running at its greatest number of revolutions per minute. As they did not intend to turn up more than 800 revolutions – or R.P.M., as aviators call it – they calculated on a considerable saving of fuel unless some emergency arose.
While the runway was being cleared, several of the native workmen had been at work, under the boys’ direction, hauling away the ballast sacks with which the Golden Eagle had been weighed down at the time of her engine test. Harry had also produced a brand-new ensign which he ran up on halyards rigged to a stern stanchion, while his brother and father gave three hearty cheers for the fluttering Stars and Stripes.
The last thing the boys did before their final farewells was to tuck a map of the country over which they were to travel in a corner pocket of the pilot-house, and also load up a waterproof silk tent and an axe, shovel and pick.
“It’s always as well to be prepared for everything,” Frank remarked when his father questioned him about the utility of these last articles. “We don’t know but we may have to dig for water or – or anything in fact in which these tools will come in mighty handy.”
Mr. Chester nodded admiringly at his son’s foresight.
“That’s right, my boy,” he assented, “be ready for everything and you can’t go far wrong.”
“Now,” declared Frank, after the boys had gone over every stay-wire, stanchion and brace on the machine, and the engine had been carefully wiped and the brass parts polished, “the Chester expedition is ready to get underway!”
Harry hopped nimbly into the pilot-house and took up his seat at the rear of the chassis. His job was that of engineer. Captain Frank followed him a second later and with his hand on the guide wheel to which the controls were connected gave a comprehensive look over the aeroplane.
“What would the Junior Aero boys do if they could see us now?” Harry hailed from his seat, looking up from his adjusting of the grease cups.
“What wouldn’t any of them give to be going along?” responded Frank.
It had been arranged that the Golden Eagle was to be headed toward the northwest where, like a blue cloud, the Cordillera range loomed against the sky. Somewhere over in that little known part of the country Rogero and his men were marching toward the coast and – the thought thrilled in both the boys’ minds, though neither spoke of it – it was over there, too, somewhere in those dim blue mountains, that the lost mines of the Toltecs lay and the little known relics of that ancient civilization.
There was a final handshake between the boys and their father and a shouted good-bye to Jimmie Blakely.
“All right astern, Harry?” hailed Frank.
“Ay, ay, sir,” responded his brother.
Harry threw in the switch, having opened the valve that connected the engine with the gasolene tank a few minutes before. At the same instant Frank started the engine. There was an involuntary cheer from the hands who had clustered around the machine but at a respectful distance, recollecting their disconcerting experience at the time that Frank tested the engine.
With her fifty horsepower whirring round her propellers at eight hundred revolutions a minute, the Golden Eagle began to move. Faster and faster she glided over the ground till after a run of about two hundred yards her forward end lifted and she shot upward into the air as Frank’s trained hand had directed the upward gliding planes. The engine was going at its work with a will and the rhythmical purr, so sweet to the ear of the operator of an aeroplane, showed that there wasn’t going to be any balk out of it on this trip.
The watchers below saw the Golden Eagle, like a great yellow bird, leave the ground for the upper air in absolute silence. It was such an impressive sight that even the usually voluble natives failed to make any demonstration. At a height of about two hundred feet Frank pulled the control tiller hard over and the Golden Eagle swung round slightly on an almost even keel from the eastward course she was on and headed away to the northwest. The last the group at La Merced saw of her she was a dull bronze speck against the brilliant blue sky, heading steadily for the mountains at a height of about six hundred feet.
It had been arranged between the boys that they should keep going till dusk and then alight in some suitable place and make camp for the night. That they were running great and grave risks they well knew, but neither of them was of the caliber that talks much of such things and so as they forged steadily for the hills with the exhaust throbbing as evenly as a healthy pulse, their conversation was mainly about the course they should adopt to save Billy Barnes if he had actually fallen into Rogero’s hands.
That there would have to be quick action neither boy doubted. Rogero was not the man to stop at half measures, and that Billy would be shot or tortured after a drumhead court-martial; or, perhaps, with even not that attempt at legal formality, was practically certain.
As he sat at the wheel, Frank, from time to time, called Harry to take his place at the duplicate tiller wheel while he with the field glasses swept the earth below for any sign of any camp. The portion of Nicaragua over which the Golden Eagle was soaring is very sparsely inhabited. With the exception of an occasional river bank camp of wandering rubber-cutters, there is little human life.
“What are we making, should you judge, Frank?” asked Harry, when they had been underway about an hour with only the monotonous dull-green jungle, like a leafy carpet beneath them.
“Easily twenty,” replied Frank, “throttled down as we are.”
“Has it occurred to you that we are going to find some difficulty in securing a suitable landing-place?”
“I’ve been thinking of that,” replied the elder boy, “it is of course impossible to make a landing anywhere here, and I can’t for the life of me, see any break in the jungle in the direction we are headed.”
“No,” replied Harry, eagerly, “but have you noticed those hills? As we get nearer to them I can see through the glasses that there seem to be rocky plateaus on their upper ridges that would just about suit us for a settling-down place.”
“What do you propose then?” asked Frank.
“I was thinking that it would be a good idea to speed up a bit so as to reach the mountains by dark and make camp there till we can scout about a little and get Rogero’s bearings.”
“That’s a good idea,” replied Frank, “I’ve been thinking anyway that we would do Billy more harm than good if Rogero knew that we were flying to his rescue. Our best plan is to pitch our tent there in the hills on one of the plateaus and work from that point as our headquarters. There’s the question of gasolene, too, we don’t want to run out of that and the less needless flying we do the better say I.”
“How far do you suppose those hills are from us now?” asked Harry.
Frank consulted his map.
“Not more than fifty miles at the outside. We can make them easily by sundown if we speed her up,” he announced. As he spoke he increased the velocity of the engine till it was running almost at its revolution capacity. Under the increased impetus the Golden Eagle drove forward a good ten miles an hour faster.
As the hills grew nearer both boys eagerly focussed their glasses on them. At a distance the range had not looked to be a very considerable mountain formation, but on a closer approach the boys were astonished to see that they were a formidable chain of hills, slashed and cut into every direction by deep canyons, between which there were several broad plateaus almost entirely unwooded. In other places giant trees clothed the hills almost to their summits.
“One of those bare plateaus will make an ideal landing-place,” said Frank, as the Golden Eagle swung steadily forward toward her decided destination. “The big trees will screen us from the view of anyone except an airship scout and I don’t think that there will be much likelihood of our encountering one of those.”
It was twilight when Frank swung the starboard rudder over and the Golden Eagle began to describe swooping circles above a plateau about five hundred feet up on the mountain-side. It was a ticklish job to land, but under Frank’s skilful manipulation of the planes and rudders the boys’ ship settled down as gently as a tired bird toward the smooth surface of the plateau. As she struck the ground in a little cloud of dust, but without the slightest jar, Harry threw in the brake clutch that controlled the settling wheels and after sliding about twenty feet, the Golden Eagle came to a stop in the wildest part of the Cordilleras of Nicaragua. With a cheer both boys jumped out and excitedly assured each other that their adventures had really begun at last.
There was but little time that night to survey their landing-place. By the time the sun dropped, however, they had accomplished such good work that the tent was up, the portable cots erected and Harry had a fire lighted; while Frank had announced with a shout of triumph that he had found a little runnel of water oozing from the mountain-side which by a little enlargement with the pick and shovel soon formed a pool of clear, cold water.
It was with light hearts that the boys fell to on a supper of fried bacon, coffee and bread. There was not time to cook a more elaborate menu that night, but both declared enthusiastically that what they did have tasted to them as good as a banquet. Supper over and a lantern lighted in the tent it was arranged that Frank should take the first watch, lasting till midnight, and that he should then awake Harry who would do sentry duty till dawn. Till they learned if they had any undesirable neighbors this was agreed to be the prudent course.
After Harry turned in Frank looked over his rifle and revolver and took up a position by the camp-fire. He employed the early part of the night with pencil and pad, figuring out some aeronautical problems, but as it grew near to his hour to be relieved he grew so sleepy that he got up and paced about to fight off his drowsiness. He had made perhaps a dozen turns up and down in front of the tent when something happened that caused even the usually hard-headed boy to start violently and feel a queer sort of chill down his spine.
It was the tolling of a bell!
The hour, the loneliness of the spot all combined to augment Frank’s startled amazement at the sound. He could hardly believe his ears. With a beating heart he strained his attention to locate the sound. It seemed to come from a spot further up the mountain-side. Whoever the bell-ringer was he paid no attention to time or rhythm. The bell would toll loud and sharp for a few minutes and then its clangor would die down and almost cease. Then without any apparent reason it would start up again furiously. Hurriedly Frank awoke his younger brother.
“What on earth do you suppose it is? Spooks?” demanded the startled Harry.
“I don’t know, but it’s something human, and I mean to find out before we leave this place,” declared Frank, doggedly.
CHAPTER X.
THE ONE-EYED QUESAL
Seen in the bright light of the early tropic day the plateau upon which the Golden Eagle had settled was certainly an ideal spot for a boy’s camp. It was in form a rough circle about a quarter of a mile in circumference. To the west the mountain-side shot up in a rugged cliff. To the east a deep canyon cut down to the valley below, clothed heavily with huge Manacca palms, plane and rosewood trees, here and there interspersed by a lordly mahogany grove. Huge ferns as big as rose-bushes in America shot up out of the rich dark soil, and from the tops of many of the trees whose names were unknown to the boys trailed magnificent orchids and lianas and parasitic plants of many varieties.
From below it would have been quite impossible to have sighted the camp and the mountain above was so rugged and precipitous that any attack or observation from that quarter would have been most improbable. As soon as it was light Harry, with the collapsable canvas bucket went to Frank’s spring and got a supply of water. This done he set about getting breakfast. In the meantime Frank had been skirmishing about for fruit, and by the time the fragrant odor of Harry’s steaming coffee-pot had diffused itself about the camp the elder boy returned triumphantly with an armful of bananas and dark-green bread-fruit. Harry selected two of the largest of these last and cutting them open set them on the hot coals to roast.
“Why, where on earth did you learn tropical cookery?” demanded Frank as he watched Harry deftly turning the appetizing looking slices.
“I watched the natives down at La Merced,” replied Harry, “you see I figured that when you are in Rome do as the Romans do, and that as the jungle is good enough to provide us with ready-grown loaves we ought to return the compliment by knowing how to cook them.”
Naturally enough the boys’ conversation fell on the mysterious bell-ringing of the night before.
“I can hardly believe that I didn’t dream it,” remarked Frank.
“But I heard it too,” rejoined Harry, “and there is no question that it was a bell and a good, loud-toned one at that.”
“Well, what a bell-ringer, let alone a bell, can be doing round here is inexplicable,” said Frank. “I took a good look around before breakfast while I was out getting the fruit and I can see no sign of any habitation or settlement that might account for it.”
“You don’t think it possible that it could be a trick to scare us?” asked Harry.
Frank laughed.
“I considered that too,” he replied, “I hardly think that it could be that. Anyhow it will take a good deal more than that to frighten us away. Seriously though I would like to solve the mystery.”
“Maybe the monkeys hold prayer-meetings,” laughed Harry.
“What’s the matter with forming the Chester Exploration Expedition and taking a climb up the mountain after breakfast,” he broke out suddenly.
“You’re on,” rejoined Frank, “I think it will be perfectly safe to leave camp for a while anyhow and we may make some important discoveries.”
Accordingly an hour later the boys were making their first plunge into the practically unknown fastnesses of the Cordilleras of Nicaragua. Each carried a canteen full of water, a supply of roasted bread-fruit and several soup tablets besides matches in waterproof boxes and their revolvers and rifles. Of course a pair of field-glasses, and the axe also formed a part of their traveling equipment.
With all this paraphernalia it was hard work clambering up the rugged mountain-side more particularly as when their course required them to plunge into the jungle, they found their way impeded by huge snake-like creepers that hung from the trees and crawled over the ground in every direction. They had been climbing steadily for about an hour when Harry uttered an exclamation of delightful surprise.
“Look, Frank,” he cried, pointing to a magnificent bird that flashed through the jungle ahead of them. Both boys gazed admiringly at the marvelous splendor of its plumage. It was about the size of an eagle and its back was covered with a shimmering glossy mantle, so to speak, of emerald green. Its waistcoat was of a deep rich carmine and its long curved beak a bright yellow.
“Why,” cried Frank as, with a harsh unmusical cry, the bird vanished, “that’s a quesal.”
“A quesal?” demanded Harry much mystified.
“Yes, I was reading about them in that book on Nicaragua I got to read on our voyage down here,” rejoined Frank.
“They were the sacred birds of the ancient Toltecs who decorated their temples and religious houses with pictures of them,” he went on. “To lay hands on them meant death to the sacrilegious person so doing and the priests used to have great colonies of them in the groves round their temples.”
“You are as good as an encyclopedia, Frank,” laughed Harry, “I’d like to get a shot at one of them, Toltecs or no Toltecs. Or better still to have one alive. Just think what they’d say at home if we brought one back in a cage.”
Frank smiled.
“I’m afraid, Harry,” he said, “that even if we did catch one we could do nothing like you propose with it. A peculiarity of the quesal is that it will not live in captivity. Not even an hour it is said. The human touch kills them immediately.”
The boys steadily pushed forward, although as the sun climbed higher the heat of the dense tropical forest that covered the mountain-side at the point they had now reached became most oppressive. Suddenly there was a loud grunting sound from a few feet ahead and a herd of small brown animals dashed away. Not before Harry, however, had got his rifle to his shoulder and brought one of them down with a skilful shot.
“A wild pig,” he announced triumphantly, turning over the animal he had brought down with his foot. Compared to a domestic porker the wild swine didn’t look much bigger than rabbits, but the boys hailed the one Harry had shot as a welcome addition to their larder.
“If we only had some apple sauce,” sighed the epicurean Harry.
“Why don’t you wish for mustard?” laughed Frank.
Harry’s pig weighed about thirty-five pounds, and so he carried it without much effort over his shoulder till they reached a clear space on the mountain-side, where they could cache it and easily find it on their way down.
“Now, if only no ocelots or jaguars come around we’ll have roast pork for supper to-night,” he remarked as he laid down his burden.
“I’ll show you how to fix that,” said Frank. With a few blows of his axe he lopped off some low branches from a near-by tree, and placed them in a circle round the carcass.
“That’s a dodge, Blakely told me about,” he announced when he had finished. “Any animal thief that happens along wouldn’t touch that pig now for the world. They see the branches and figure out that it is some kind of a trap.”
From time to time as the boys mounted higher, they stopped and carefully turned their glasses on the valley below. Somewhere in its apparently uninhabited sweep they knew that Rogero and his army and Estrada’s troops were maneuvering, but nothing that they could see gave them any inkling as to the exact whereabouts of the troops.
“We shall have to make a scouting trip in the Golden Eagle,” said Frank with determination, as after they had scoured the valley for the twentieth time, they admitted that it was hardly worth the trouble.
“Yes,” agreed Harry eagerly, “and the sooner the better.”
They stopped for lunch shortly after noon, without having made any progress in discovering anything about the mysterious bell or who its ringer could have been. Although Frank’s pedometer showed that they had covered several miles, they had not even come across the semblance of a footpath or any other indication that they were not the first human beings to explore the mountain-side. Lunch despatched they agreed to proceed as far as a battlemented cliff that shot sheer up ahead of them for two hundred feet or more, cutting off any view of the mountain-top, and then turn back. If they had found nothing by that time to throw any light on the bell-ringer or the instrument on which he performed, they decided that it would be waste of time to keep on.
At the foot of the cliff its beetling height was even more impressive than when seen at a distance. It shot up, naked of tree or bush, like a huge wall. There was not foothold for even a mountain goat on its smooth gleaming surface.
“Well,” said Frank, as the boys gazed up to where its summit seemed to touch the blue sky, “here is where we stop short. Not even a fly could get up that.”
As he spoke, Harry who had been poking at the smooth surface of the obstruction with the axe, gave a sharp exclamation.
“Did you say that the quesal was the sacred bird of the Toltecs?” he demanded in a tone of suppressed excitement.
“Yes,” replied Frank. “Why?”
“Why?” repeated Harry, “just look up there and tell me what you make of that?”
He pointed to some half-obliterated markings on the surface of the cliff about thirty feet above where the boys stood. There was no doubt about it – the markings, though dimmed by time and in places almost obliterated altogether, unquestionably formed a rude exaggerated outline of the bird they had seen that morning.
“Well, what do you think of it, Frank?” demanded Harry impatiently, after his elder brother had gazed at the spot for some time.
“Simply this,” replied Frank calmly, though his heart beat faster, “that we are very near some sort of Toltec temple, or ruin or even the lost mines themselves!”
