When they were within arrow shot of us we each stood back of a tree on either side of the trail and as a squad of them came up unsuspectingly we blazed away at them with our revolvers and there were eight cannibal carcasses ready for the buzzards to pick.
When we reached the fezenda Bert came near to giving the buzzards still more pickings, for he mistook my companion and myself, with our long, unkempt hair and bare bodies, as brown as those of Indians, for a precious pair of cannibals and he took a couple of pot-shots at us.
After we had taken our baths and put on some honest-to-goodness clothes we had a long talk-fest. Señor Castro, he said, believed that I had been devoured by jaguars, but he had somehow felt that I had been captured by the cannibals. He had searched into the depths of the jungle for some trace of me until he was taken down with the fever where he lay nigh unto death for a month. When he got well he concluded he’d go north for in the meantime Señor Castro had gotten another operator.
“I’m certainly an unlucky dog, Jack,” Bert bemoaned his fate; “I can’t understand why I couldn’t have had even a look-in on that cannibal business. Here I’ve been down with the fever while you’ve had as fine an adventure as ever befell a man. Back to Broadway for mine where the only cannibal princesses I shall ever see are those that trip the light fantastic in the chorus.”
“Truly, I’m sorry, old man,” I consoled him, “but it wasn’t my fault though it was your misfortune. You’ll get yours yet, so cheer up.”
A week later we were ready to sail down the Amazon to Para, there to take ship for New York. Señor Castro paid us the full amount agreed upon by the manager of the Compagnie Francaise de Telegraphie sans Fil and we had in all a total of about 4,000,000 reis between us—in fact we were, as we had anticipated, bloated millionaires. I had a satchel full of bills of big denomination—there is neither gold nor silver money down there.
When we got to Para, though, and we began to spend our money we were astonished and disgusted to find that a meal cost about 6000 reis, the street-car fare was 400 reis and the postage on a letter home was 300 reis. In other words, 1,000,000 reis was just about equivalent to 325 dollars in our money. Well, we were millionaires while we thought we were anyhow.
What about the diamonds I have? I don’t know but if they are the real thing I think I’ll organize a company, go down there with a machine gun, wipe out the cannibals and open up a diamond field.
CHAPTER VI—WORKING WITH MARCONI
I must tell you about a fine experience I had with Mr. Marconi when he received the first signals across the Atlantic, but before I do so I want to say a few words concerning the great inventor and his wireless telegraph.