CHAPTER II.
YAMOUSA.
No sound had come from the woman since the two boys had reached thescene. Groping their way to her, they found that she had becomeunconscious and was drooping heavily in the cords that held her boundto the stump.
"Of all the things that ever happened to us, mate," remarked Dick,"this captures the prize. We get cast away on a little turtle back inthe Bahamas, and Lat Jurgens and this old hunks, Whistler, come to theisland in Nemo, Jr.'s submarine. We capture the pair and leave 'emroped in our tent; then we capture the submarine. Later we send ashorefor Jurgens and Whistler and the landing party reports that they havevanished. Now, dropping down here in answer to a cry of distress, wefind Whistler giving an old woman a taste of the cat. Whistler, of allmen! I'm fair dazed with it all."[A]
[A] For an account of the adventures of Motor Matt and his friends inhelping Archibald Townsend, otherwise Captain Nemo, Jr., recover hisstolen submarine from Jurgens and his rascally followers, see No. 12 ofthe MOTOR STORIES, "Motor Matt's Peril; or, Cast Away in the Bahamas."
"So am I," said Matt, "but we'll not let that bother us now. This oldwoman has been brutally treated, and has fainted away. We must get herto the hut and see what we can do to revive her."
"Right-o," agreed Dick. "I've my sheath knife handy and I'll cut herloose from that stump in a brace of shakes."
Matt held the limp form upright while Dick severed the cords; then,picking the woman up, they carried her through the woods, back to theclearing, and laid her on the ragged blankets in the hut.
"I think I saw a candle on the shelf over the fireplace, Dick," saidMatt. "Better light it."
Dick found the candle. It was a tallow dip stuck in an old tincandlestick. With the light in his hand, he walked to the old woman'sside and bent downward.
The face of the woman was scarred and hideous. There were big goldearrings pulling down the lobes of her ears, and another large ringpierced her nose and fell down over her upper lip. Her cheeks werehollow, and the yellow skin resembled parchment. Her clothing was amotley garb of patched rags. Two claw-like hands, with finger nails aninch long, lay on the blankets beside her.
Matt lifted his eyes to Dick's with a shudder.
"She's not what you'd call Cinderella, exactly," grinned Dick, "and Idon't think her beauty will ever prove fatal."
"Anyhow," said Matt, "she's a woman and needs help. That's enough forus to know."
A tin water pail stood on a bench, and there was a gourd dipper hangingover it. Matt filled the gourd and returned and dashed the water in theold woman's face.
The effect was magical. With a screech that caused the boys to startbackward in consternation, the old woman sat up suddenly and glaredabout her, with eyes like coals. Abruptly her attention fixed itself onthe boys and she began to croon in a harsh, mumbling voice:
"Si to te 'tit zozo Et moi-meme mo te fusil Mo sre tchoue toi--_Boum!_"
She exploded the last word like the crack of a revolver, lifting andaiming her fingers as she might have done with a weapon.
"Avast, there, old lady!" cried Dick. "We're friends of yours. Can'tyou understand that?"
"American?" shrilled the woman, rising slowly to her feet.
"Yes," said Matt.
"Where is ze man zat take me from my home and beat me wiz ze stick?"she demanded, crouching like a cat, while her talon-like hands clawedthe air angrily.
"He ran away," answered Matt. "We cut you loose from the stump andbrought you here. Do you know that man?"
The old woman staggered to the fireplace and stirred up the coalsunder the kettle; then she turned back, took the candle out of Dick'shand and studied his face. From Dick she turned to Matt, giving him asimilar scrutiny.
Her eyes were bright and fiery--age had not seemed to dim them. As sheturned from Matt, the hag gave a croaking laugh.
"I guess we'd better send the 'blue peter' to the masthead, oldship," said Dick, "trip anchor and slant away. This don't look like acomfortable berth, to me."
"You not go 'way yet," cried the woman, whirling about. "You are zegood boys, you help Yamousa, ze Obeah woman, and by gar, Yamousa helpyou! Sit on ze bench."
She waved one hand toward the bench on which the water pail wasstanding. Dick, heeding a significant look from Matt, followed to thebench and sat down.
"Do you know that man who was beating you?" asked Matt, again,determined if possible to get a little information about Whistler.
"_Oui_, I know heem!" answered the woman, with a spitting snarl. "Onetime he work on ze sugar plantation near ze bayou, and he come manytime to see Yamousa and have her tell him ze t'ings he do not know. Hecome now from ze Bahamas and ask about ze iron chest, and where zisTownsend take heem. But Yamousa, she no tell. For why Yamousa no tell,eh? Well, she see zat Whistler haf ze bad heart. Whistler try to beather, _make_ her tell; zen ze American boys come and drive heem away.How you get here, eh?"
"We came in an air ship," Matt answered.
"_Sacre tonnere!_ I know zat you come--I seen him in ze smoke."
Yamousa had said things which had aroused the intense curiosity ofthe two boys. Whistler had tried to force her into telling him thewhereabouts of an "iron chest." That iron chest had been found in asea cavern of an uninhabited island among the Bahamas, had been takenaboard Townsend's submarine, and had been in the submarine when Mattand his chums turned the boat over to her owner on the Florida coast.Townsend had taken the chest to New Orleans, and Jurgens and Whistlerwere eager to recover it.
What the chest contained, no one knew. A man who called himself simplythe "Man from Cape Town" had given Townsend a chart and secured hispromise to find the chest, carry it to New Orleans, and open it in thepresence of a woman whom the Cape Town man claimed was his daughter.These two were then to divide the contents between them.
The fact that Whistler, and presumably Jurgens, as well, still haddesigns on the chest, was surprising information for Matt and Dick. Thethree boys were proceeding to New Orleans in the _Hawk_, in response toa request from Townsend; and it might easily chance that the businesswhich had led Townsend to call Motor Matt and his friends to NewOrleans was to cross the evil designs of Jurgens and Whistler.
"Do you know anything about that iron chest, Yamousa?" inquired Matt.
"Not now, but I find heem out," replied the old woman. "By gar, I findout anyt'ing zat ees wanted to be known."
"You say you knew that we were coming?"
"_Oui._"
"I can't understand how you discovered that. We didn't know ourselveswe were coming until we got a telegram at Palm Beach, Florida,yesterday."
"I tell by ze smoke," repeated the woman; "I read heem in ze smoke."
"What sort of a place is this, anyhow?" muttered Dick to Mattuncomfortably. "Is the old lady a fortune teller? I never took muchstock in that sort of thing, you know."
"Yamousa ees ze Obeah woman," chirped the hag, her ears havingevidently been sharp enough to overhear what Dick had said: "I am zevoodoo queen. I know t'ings ozzers don't know, an' ze people come fromever'where to see Yamousa--from New Orleans, _oui_, and from Algiers,Plaquemine, St. Bernard--all up and down ze river an' ze coast--zey allcome to haf Yamousa tell zem t'ings zat zey don't know. I tell you zesame. You are my franes--_mes amis_--an', I do planty mooch for you.Where is ze ozzer of you? In ze smoke I see t'ree, all in ze flyingboat zat come to Bayou Yamousa."
"She means Carl," muttered Dick, "and how the old Harry she knewanything about him is a fair dazer."
"In ze smoke I see heem," replied the hag, again catching Dick's words.
"I think I'm beginning to see through this a little, Dick," said Matt."In some way, Jurgens and Whistler got off that island in the Bahamasand----"
"Zey hide in a cave till you go 'way," broke in Yamousa, "an' zen zeycome out an' bymby ze boat come from ze Great Bahama an' pick zem off._Oui, h?_, zey ees bot' ver' bad an' haf ze bad heart."
"How did you find that out, Yamousa?" asked Matt.
"Not
in ze smoke, not zat, _non_. Whistler tell me."
Yamousa's knowledge, which, for the most part, seemed to be derivedfrom unusual sources, filled Matt and Dick with growing bewilderment.
"Sink me," muttered Dick, "but my nerves are beginning to bother me. Goon, though, matey. What about Whistler?"
"Why, he's still after the iron chest, he and Jurgens. They got awayfrom that turtle back in the Bahamas, landed in this vicinity, andWhistler came here to get this voodoo priestess to tell him where hecould locate the chest."
"All my eye and Betty Martin, that! Just as though Yamousa could tellhim!"
"Anyhow, Whistler must have thought so or he wouldn't be here. Wesaw and heard enough to convince us that what Yamousa said about hisdesigns was true. We got here in time to drive him off and----"
Just there occurred a startling interruption. A frantic yell came fromthe clearing--a yell that was plainly given by Carl.
"More trouble!" boomed Dick, leaping from the bench, "and it's Carlthat's flying distress signals now."
Matt did not reply, but he led the way to the door and through it intothe dying glow of the fire on the bayou bank.