Luckily, as it at first seemed, for the captives, their march was not a long one; for upon surmounting the crest of the pass they found themselves only a short two miles from a native village, the inhabitants of which no sooner perceived the approach of the party than they turned out and greeted it with songs and dances of rejoicing, the fervour of which became almost frantic when, a little later, the presence of the two white men became known. The language of the strangers was utterly incomprehensible to Dick and Earle, and so jealously was every movement of the two watched that they found it impossible to communicate with Inaguy; but after observing their captors for some time, while they seemed to be explaining matters to the villagers, Earle gradually got the impression that the strangers had somehow obtained knowledge of the presence of the explorers in the country and had been watching them for perhaps a day or two, waiting for a favourable opportunity to fall upon the camp and take it by surprise.
Upon their arrival at the village the entire plunder of the camp was deposited in a large hut which was hastily prepared for its reception, and this done, the prisoners were once more securely bound and distributed among the huts of the village, one prisoner to a hut, the owner of which, with the several members of his family, was held responsible for his safe keeping.
The ensuing three days were spent by the captives in this village, during which nothing of moment happened except that they were kept in such rigorous confinement that none was permitted to obtain even a momentary glimpse of another, otherwise they had not much to complain about, being kindly treated, according to savage ideas of kindness. But although, during those three days, the inhabitants of the village seemed to go about their business pretty much as usual, there appeared to be an undercurrent of subdued excitement, coupled with a condition of eager expectancy, which was plain to both Earle and Dick, and which somehow produced in both a considerable amount of apprehension as to their ultimate fate.
Then, well on toward evening of the third day, a runner, hot, tired, and dusty, wearing every appearance of having travelled far and fast, arrived in the village, evidently bearing an important message or communication of some sort; for within a few minutes of his arrival the entire population of the village became imbued with a spirit of the wildest rejoicing and excitement, which lasted far into the night; and early on the following morning the prisoners were brought forth, loaded up with the baggage belonging to the explorers and, surrounded by an armed guard of sixty men, they set out upon a forward march, accompanied by the entire populace of the village, who beguiled the tedium of the journey by continually singing what seemed to be songs of a highly jubilant character.
Chapter Ten.
In the Hands of the Mangeromas.
For five weary days did that company tramp up hill and down dale through rugged, mountainous country, the Indian women carrying their meagre belongings in small bundles wrapped in matting upon their bowed shoulders, while their lords and masters strode blithely along, encumbered only with the weapons they carried, making the air vibrate with their barbarous songs, the unhappy captives meanwhile, staggering under their heavy loads, being compelled to keep pace with their light-footed guard. It was not so bad for Dick and Earle as it was for their unfortunate servants, for the two white men were by this time in the very perfection of training, and capable of an amount of physical exertion that, six months earlier, they would have regarded as impossible; moreover, they were both highly endowed with that inestimable quality known as “grit,” while the miserable bearers were, in addition to their heavy loads, weighed down by a premonition that their present misery was but the prelude to an inconceivably horrible and lingering death.
Late in the evening of the fifth day, after an exceptionally long and fatiguing march, the company reached what was without doubt the capital of the country, for it covered some two hundred acres of ground, and contained dwellings capable of accommodating, at a moderate estimate, at least five thousand persons. It is true the dwellings were of the most primitive description, consisting of huts, for the most part built of wattles and palm thatch, with here and there a more pretentious structure, the walls of which were adobe, and it was indescribably filthy; yet the place was laid out with some pretension to regularity, being divided up into several wide streets, while in the centre of the town there was a wide, open space, or square, one side of which was occupied by a hideous and ungainly idol of gigantic proportions, with a long sacrificial altar at its feet, while on the other three sides stood dwellings of such pretentious character that they could only belong to the chief dignitaries of the place.