"Judging from the volume o' music let loose there must be 'bout half a dozen o' the beggars," whispered the Shadow. "Here, Jack, take this blooming ghingi, and let her rip. My arms are about busted. I'll do a bit o' a yell myself and see what happens."
Jack seized the string of the syren and whirled with a will, and from the lips of the Shadow there issued a most lugubrious groan, which seemed to combine in it all the horrors that any demon of darkness could have conjured up. That seemed to decide matters; with screams of terror seven or eight stalwart blacks broke away from a point where they had been huddled ahead of the camels; their dark forms were just visible as they fled, and they made a somewhat ghost-like spectacle. Jack gave a low chuckle of delight.
"Your voice fetched them, Shadow," said he.
"Keep the ghingi whizzing, Jack, keep it whizzing!" came the agonized reply. "I couldn't do it again for all the gold in Australia. My throat's burst, it is."
Their concerted action was now prompt and effective. In a trice the Shadow had a grip of the nose-rope of the leading camel, and had turned the unwieldly train on a backward course. Once more the bells rang out their noisy clamour, yet still the ghingi sounded loud and shrill, and still the jarring cries of the stricken warriors echoed in reply from a not too remote distance. The adventuresome pair were not yet out of all danger. Indeed it soon became evident to them that the mystified aborigines were not altogether willing to accept the warning call of the ghingi as a reason for the total abdication of their plunder. Their discordant cries were just a bit too close to be pleasant.
"If they rush us, Jack," the Shadow hoarsely whispered, as he tugged at Misery's nose-rope, "we'll have to make a bolt for it."
Jack grunted a sympathetic affirmative. "I can't swing this wretched old ghingi much longer," he said.
Even while he spoke the savages seemed to decide on a definite course of action; their yells suddenly grew louder and nearer. It was very probable they had observed the boys through the gloom, and were thus awakened to a knowledge of the ruse by which they had been deceived. Anyhow there could be no doubt as to their intentions; they meant to recapture the camels, and that right speedily, and yet the Shadow was loth to leave his charges.