Let us pass as quickly as possible over the subsequent discussion during which it was decided by lot that Bob and Frank should stay behind to operate the radio, while Jack should accompany the main party for the purpose of concealing the receiving set and loudspeaker in an advantageous place.
Both Bob and Frank keenly regretted the necessity which would prevent them from forming part of the expedition, for they wanted very much to see the discomfiture of The Prophet. While as for Bob, he yearned to be present in case of a fight.
However, where necessity commanded, like good soldiers they could only obey. Half the force of bearers was to be left with them and two of the guards, including Samba. This latter trusted fellow, it had developed, was a native of this region who had been carried away by slave traders in his youth, and, therefore, knew the dialect. It was he, accordingly, who would have to speak over the radio.
Early in the morning, Mr. Ransome’s spies returned before daylight, in fact, having set out from a village where The Prophet was located during the night and camped until the first faint streaks of dawn at the foot of the precipice, after which they had made their way up the height in short order.
The Prophet was located in a big village eight miles distant on the plain. They had marked the location well, and through glasses were able to point it out to Bob and Frank. Thus that there would be any difficulty in observing the signal rockets, which Mr. Hampton would send up as a sign for Samba to “speak his piece” over the radio there no longer remained a doubt.
Welcome was the word of the spies that The Prophet, whose activities heretofore had lain in the central portion of the great plain, nearest the active volcanoes, and who only recently had invaded the fringes, had not yet aroused the natives to such a pitch of hostility against the whites as to make it impossible for Mr. Hampton’s party to obtain a hearing.
“That’s all we shall need,” said Mr. Hampton, as all ready to follow the bearers and other members of the party down the steep paths of the precipice to the plain, he and Jack paused for a last word with Bob and Frank. “Once we get a hearing, we can trust to the superstitions of the natives to do the rest.”
They wrung each others’ hands in farewell, and then the departing ones set out. Jack was elated, of course, at the turn of fortune which had made it possible for him to be “in at the death” as he phrased it. Yet he realized, too, that a considerable weight of responsibility rested upon him to see to it that the receiving set was properly hidden and in good working order.
As for Bob and Frank, when the others had disappeared around a turn of the path, dipping into a canyon, they swallowed their disappointment at being left behind and hastened away to take up their duties. Chief of which, of course, was the drilling of Samba not only in the message he was to utter over the radio and which he translated into high-flown native language, but also in coaching him how loud to speak into the transmitter, how close to approach his lips to it, and the proper tone to employ to achieve the best effect.
To descend the precipice and cross the plain to the village would take the slow-moving party much more time than it had the spies. It was not expected they would reach the village, in fact, until late in the afternoon. Moreover, some time would be spent there in negotiating with the chief and in drawing off the crowd of natives from the vicinity of The Prophet’s hut through means of Niellsen’s motion picture camera, in order that Jack should have his opportunity to conceal the radio receiving set and the loudspeaker.