“Cipher, of course,” commented Mr. Henderson. “Well, that proves they were talking to some one who replied. Otherwise the two messages would not be in the same cipher.”
“I can decode it--if I take time,” declared Mr. Pauling. “But I suppose if I do, it will be of little use--probably in Russian.”
“Well it’s blamed good news anyway,” cried the diver. “It proves the old rascal and the plane are still ‘topside’ as the Indians say.”
“And also that we haven’t rounded up all the gang yet,” added Mr. Pauling.
“No doubt they landed some one from the Devon,” suggested Mr. Thorne, “or already had confederates in Surinam.”
“In a way I’m glad they have,” declared Mr. Pauling. “Otherwise they’d not have any one to talk with. Better listen a while longer, boys.”
But no other signals came in and at last, yawning and tired, the two boys put away their instruments and with the others crawled into their hammocks and fell instantly to sleep.
CHAPTER IX—KENAIMA!
For the next three days the boat was worked steadily up the river; paddled swiftly through long stretches of tranquil water; hauled up falls; dragged through rapids and ever penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of the vast wilderness.
From time to time they had met Indians, sometimes individuals paddling silently close to shore in tiny canoes of bark which Mr. Thorne said were known as “wood skins”; sometimes families in big dugouts accompanied by flea-bitten, woefully thin dogs, naked brown children and all their household belongings, and once they had paddled up a creek and had visited a large Indian village where the boys had found a thousand things to interest them.