Apparently some sort of festival or religious ceremony was in process of being observed when Dick and Phil burst in so unceremoniously upon them, for the entire population of the village, men, women, and children, were squatted in a circle round the open space in the middle of the village. Despite the scorching heat a large fire was blazing in the centre of the open space, and round it sat the village band, consisting of four drums, made of sections of trees with the inside cut away, leaving a thin cylinder of wood, over one end of which was tightly strained a skin of some sort which was slapped with the palm of the open hand, and about a dozen flageolet players, their instruments being made of baked clay. It was these last that emitted the unearthly braying, bellowing sounds already mentioned. To this hideous medley of sounds a figure in the middle of the circle was dancing, a figure so queer that for a second or two the young Englishmen scarcely knew what to make of it. But presently they saw that it was a man laced-up in a jaguar skin, with teeth, claws, and tail complete, the face of the man peering out from between the gaping jaws. He was not only dancing vigorously, if indeed dancing it could be called, which consisted in leaping violently into the air and springing from side to side over a bundle, the nature of which the intruders could not at first make out, but also singing, or rather howling, certain words which appeared to be
gradually working his audience up into a state of savage excitement; for at intervals one or another of them, apparently moved out of himself, would yell furiously and shake in the air a villainous-looking, triple-barbed spear.
For nearly a minute the people were so completely absorbed in the movements and words of their piache, or medicine man, or witch doctor, as the man in the jaguar skin proved to be, that they were quite oblivious of the presence of the two Englishmen; but suddenly the piache caught sight of them and stopped short in his leapings and howlings, and glared, open-mouthed, at the strangers for a second or two before, with a yell of dismay, he turned tail and, leaping right through the blazing fire in his panic, dashed into a hut and violently drew across the mat which served as a door. This extraordinary behaviour on the part of the medicine man naturally excited the wonder of his audience, and also aroused in them a feeling of consternation which caused them to spring to their feet and look about them apprehensively. Then they, too, caught sight of the Englishmen, and, like their piache, made a mad dash for their huts, yelling as they went. Thus, in the course of a couple of minutes, the two young Devonians were left in complete, undisputed possession of the village, although they were conscious of being stealthily observed from practically every hut in the place.
“Well,” exclaimed Dick, as he stared about him in astonishment, “this beats everything! Men and women, big and little, there must have been close upon two hundred of them, and not one had the courage to stay and face us!”
“They probably took us for Spaniards,” answered Stukely, “and may have thought that we were merely the advance guard of a considerable force. Hence their terror. I only hope that when they discover their mistake they may not revenge themselves upon us for the fright which we have given them. I would that one or the other of us possessed a smattering of their lingo, sufficient to make ourselves understood; I am afraid that we shall find our ignorance in that respect a very serious hindrance as we penetrate farther into the interior; and we must do our best to remedy the—hallo! what on earth is in that bundle? Did you see it move?”
Phil referred to the bundle over which the piache had been performing his extraordinary dance when they interrupted him, and which had the appearance of being simply a bundle of ordinary matting. But Stukely’s eye happened to have been resting upon it while he spoke, and he had distinctly seen it move.
“No, I didn’t,” answered Chichester, in reply to his friend’s question, “for the simple reason that I wasn’t looking at it. But we’ll look at it now, if you like.” And striding over to where the bundle lay upon the ground, he drew his knife, severed the thongs that bound it, unrolled the matting, and disclosed to his own and his companion’s astonished gaze the figure of a little old man, securely bound hand and foot. He was an Indian of some sort, evidently, but not of the same race as the inhabitants of the village, his colour being that of light copper, while that of the others was a very dark brown, nearly approaching to black; also his features were of a totally different and much higher type, his forehead being broad and high, his nose thin and aquiline, and his cheek-bones rather high and prominent; in fact he must, in the days of his youth, have been a decidedly handsome man, with an imposing presence; but now he was old—how old it was rather difficult to guess, but probably not far short of a hundred—shrunken and shrivelled up until he resembled an animated mummy more than anything else. His head and face were clean shaven, and he was naked, except for a sort of petticoat of feathers about his loins, the said petticoat having evidently at one time been an exceedingly handsome garment, though now it was soiled, frayed, and generally very much the worse for wear.
As Dick bent over the old fellow, with his long, keen knife in his hand, to sever his bonds, the creature suddenly cried out some half a dozen words, in a thin, high, piping voice, causing Stukely to start forward and gaze earnestly into the face of the speaker; then, to Dick’s stupefaction, Stukely replied in apparently the same tongue, bent over and rapidly loosed the thongs which bound the old fellow’s hands and feet together, and proceeded gently to chafe the shrunken limbs.