“Begone!” he cried. “Cajou saves his people.”
As he spoke, he discharged his revolver over the heads of the prostrate subjects of the outwitted black man, and there was an answering shout from the fiery Bird of Death as it swept over the stockade. The Fiend of the Skies had been thwarted once more by the fetich of the white man and, with another hiss of rage, its yawning throat yet spitting flames and smoke, the Bird of Death turned and disappeared seaward.
When it had passed, and Cajou and his people looked again for the all-powerful white man who had saved them, he was gone. None followed the retreating ghostlike form of the fetich maker, and as Captain Bassett felt his way down the bluff steps, he could see fading the red eyes of the air monster.
On the beach once more, his faithful men and boat ready for him, he paused, drew the little bag from his pocket and struck a match. There was but one glance, and he threw the match from him. Cajou had not deceived him this time. The great pink pearl had come back to its owner.
When the Pelican sailed away from Palm Tree Cove on that eventful evening, thirty-seven and one-half minutes before sunset, the spongers, left in open-mouthed wonder, soon began an important task. Dry driftwood and fallen palm trees were collected until it was wholly dark. Then fires were started on the beach in two places, to the right and left of the Pelican’s starting place. A few minutes after eight o’clock, out of a louder and louder whirr in the starlit skies, with a rush as of a rising wind, the aeroplane darted beachward.
In the shadows, the daring young aviator, stiff in muscle and worn with strain, landed in the shallow water. As if newly alarmed, the waiting spongers hung back. But the tired boy sprang into the water, grasped the sinking machine, and in a few moments a dozen willing hands had drawn it high on the white sand. With no attempt to dry his clothes, and with only a glance at his watch in the glare of the beach fires, the exhausted boy threw himself on the sand alongside the aeroplane and was soon unconscious.
When he awoke, it was day, and Captain Bassett was standing over him.
“Come to the schooner,” said the Englishman kindly, “get some breakfast and a bath and finish your sleep in bed.”
Dazed for a moment, Andy rubbed his eyes, and then sprang into a sitting posture.