CHAPTER XXIV BLIND DRIFTING
Late in the evening following his startling adventure in the ancient Mayatemple, Johnny tapped at Jean's door.
"Hist!" he whispered. "Go get Rod and come to my room. Got something toshow you."
A few moments later, in the privacy of Johnny's room, lighted only by aflickering taper, the brother and sister stood before a mysterioussomething which stood upon a stool and was covered by a cloth.
"See!" Johnny exclaimed as he lifted the cloth.
They started back in surprise and wonder. Made of pure gold, with a jewelgleaming from his hand, the Maya god, an awesome creation, stood beforethem.
Determined that his adventure in the temple, which had come so near beinga tragedy, should not be without its reward, Johnny had dared to take thegod from the place of its long concealment. He had succeeded in bringingit from the corridor to the bush where he had hidden it until he couldsmuggle it safely through the darkness.
"That," he said in an awed whisper, "is the only ancient Maya god everdiscovered; he is the god of the rising sun. There are no such gods inthe museums of the world. This one, aside from the gold and the jewelwhich seems to be a roughly cut diamond, is priceless as a curio and asan example of ancient art. And that," he exclaimed as he wrapped thecloth about it and hid it in a dark corner, "makes me all the moreanxious to get away from this hidden city of wild people."
"You're not thinking of taking the thing with you!" exclaimed Roderick indismay.
"Of course we shall!" Jean looked at her brother in utter disgust. "Whatdo you think?"
"Think!" exclaimed Roderick. "I think it will get us into a great deal oftrouble."
"Trouble? Who cares for trouble?"
"I am going to the chief the first thing in the morning," said Johnny."I'll try to tell him or his daughter, by maps and signs, all about mycamp on Rio Hondo and the urgent need of my getting back there. Theprincess likes us. She'll do anything she can for us. Somehow we mustescape."
* * * * * * * *
To be drifting down a strange tropical stream at night is enchanting,haunting, and mysterious enough; but to be drifting down that same streamwith your eyes so completely blindfolded that you only know it is nightbecause you have been told so, surely this is the most mysterious of all.
Johnny Thompson, Jean and Roderick were passing through just such anexperience. For hours, many hours, seeing nothing, now led by the hand,now drifting in a dugout, they had traveled. Where were they going? Home?Going to some more remote corner of the Central American jungle wherethere was no danger of their being discovered?
Not one of the three could so much as guess. They only knew they weregoing somewhere and were on their way. Such a strange way, too; overpaths that were so overhung with vines and palm leaves that they must beconstantly dodging to avoid them; now on a small stream where the dangerof being caught by vines and dragged overboard was still greater, and nowout upon a wider stream where from time to time a sudden burst ofsunlight warmed their faces, they traveled on and on. For Johnnyespecially, the short portages made on foot were extremely difficult, foralways he carried his pack on his back. He dared not trust it to another.In its very center was the golden god of the rising sun.
It had turned out strangely, his resolve to have it out with the oldchief about allowing them to return to the Rio Hondo. First, by the aidof many small sticks and stones and a tiny artificial stream, he picturedto the young princess his coming up Rio Hondo in search of mahogany, hisearly success, defeat, a second venture, the treachery of Daego, theprobable condition of his camp at the present moment and the need for hisspeedy return.
He had watched with much concern the face of the chief as his daughterpresented the cause to him. That she was telling much, perhaps a greatdeal too much, he guessed from the changing expression on the old man'sface. A frown was replaced by a smile. This was followed by a look ofsurprise, if not of consternation.
"She's not telling about Rio Hondo," Johnny had whispered. "What do youthink?"
"Yesterday. The hidden corridor," Jean had whispered back.
"That's exactly it!" Johnny exclaimed.
At once he regretted having entrusted the girl with his mission. "If shetells too much she may get us into greater trouble," he whispered toJean, and at that moment he thought of the golden god.
"Of course," he whispered to Jean, "it's mine by right of finding. Thesepeople did not build this ruined temple, nor did they make or inherit thegod. It's been lost for centuries. Can't tell about their queer ideas andcustoms, though."
Had that plea of the princess gotten them into trouble, or was it gettingthem out? This was the question which Johnny asked himself over and overas they drifted, blindfolded, down that river in the night.
It was strange, fascinating, weird, this eternal drifting, drifting,drifting on into the night. Now the sudden brush of a palm leaf told himthey were traveling close to the bank; now a mad forward plunge followedby low exclamations, told of rapids; and now the distant bark of a dogsomewhere on land suggested a cabin and some few scattered inhabitants.
They were quite a goodly company, this Maya band which escorted him fromtheir city to some unknown destination. Johnny, with his whitecompanions, rode in a large pit-pan. There were other crafts. From timeto time he caught the sound of their dipping paddles, heard their lowcries of warning as one boat came perilously near another. Twice they hadmade camp. At such times as this, blindfolded though he was, Johnny wasable to estimate the number of men.
"About a hundred," he had said to Jean.
"Quite a band," she had agreed. "Wonder why so many?"
"Who can tell?"
The princess was with them. He heard her voice from time to time. The oldchief, too, perhaps. He could not be sure of that.
Wondering dreamily how it all would end, and wishing with all his heartthat Jean at least was out of it all, he fell into a doze.
From this he was awakened by a sudden movement of the boat. It was as ifthe hand of a giant had seized the prow and suddenly turned it through aquarter of a circle, then had given it a powerful shove.
For a second the boy's head whirled.
"Wha--what has happened?" Jean whispered.
Johnny chuckled. "We're in a larger river, much larger. In fact, it is agreat river, and something tells me----," his words came swift and eagernow, "that it is the good old Rio Hondo!"
"Johnny, it can't be!"
"It could be, and is!" said Johnny emphatically. "I haven't ridden thatold river for nothing. She has a way of teasing and tossing your dugoutwhile she whirls it forward that no other river ever had.
"Besides," he added with another chuckle, "I can smell the water. Itactually _smells_ black."
"What's that?" the girl exclaimed suddenly.
"Sounds like thunder," said Johnny.
* * * * * * * *
It was thunder, the forerunner of a storm. It was not a local storm,either, but one of those wide sweeping storms that tear at the timber onall the headwaters of a great river. Pant, at the edge of his camp, wherehe was assisting in shooting the last of the mahogany logs into theirboom, heard it and his face grew thoughtful.
The hour of great suspense came at last. Their boom was loaded. They wereready to go down the river. Daego had not yet led his men to the attack.
"We'll get away in the darkness," Pant said to his Carib foreman, fairlydancing about in his eagerness to be away. "We'll give old Daego theslip."
Tivoli's only reply was a sweep of the hand toward the blackening sky. Asif in answer to his signal, there came crashing down upon them one ofthose sudden storms that are known only in the tropics.
"We'll get away under cover of the storm," said Pant. "That will bebetter still."
"You don't now these tropical storms," said Tivoli. "All night in therain fifteen men must work; fifteen men must rest, sleep beneath canvasin hamm
ocks. Even with fifteen men we may not save the raft, tied upright here. You do not know the tropics. There will be water in theriver, water in the sky. Which is river? Which is sky? You cannot tell.The river will rise like a tide. There will come down snags, great trees,palm trees, mahogany, yamra, black tamarind, santa maria, many, manysnags. All night long, at the edge of the raft, we must fight these snagsaway. There will be no sleep for Tivoli tonight, and perhaps no logs forMr. Johnny Thompson after that, either."
Tivoli was right. Such a storm as this was! Nothing of the kind had everbeen witnessed by the boys before. Flash after flash of lightning, waterin sheets, in streams, great avalanches of water that one could all butswim through. Rolling thunder vied with the increasing roar of blackwaters. And after that came the snags! And how those Caribs did work!
All night, till the clock hand stood at three, they labored. Then thewater began to subside.
Then, exhausted, they threw themselves upon the bare logs and slept.
"At dawn we are away," muttered Tivoli.
* * * * * * * *
All that night, regardless of the lightning that set the water allagleam, in spite of the deluge of rain that fell, the Mayas and theirblindfolded captives drifted silently down that broad river which indeedwas Rio Hondo.
Awnings of cloth, cunningly treated with the juice from the bark of thewild rubber tree, protected them from the rain. They were safe and dry.The river carried them onward. What more need they ask?
* * * * * * * *
At dawn, as a matchless sunrise painted the east red and gold, thereappeared above Pant's raft on the broad river a black line, a line not ofdrift logs, but dugouts, dories and pit-pans. Each craft was loaded withmen, and as the sun sent its rays shooting across them they waved theirhands and let forth a bloodcurdling shout. In each uplifted hand theregleamed a long bladed machete.
"They come!" said Tivoli in response to Pant's call. "Let them come. Seethat all the men are wakened quickly."