"What can be the matter?" exclaimed Frank, as the boys, followed by the old chief and Sikaso, rushed from behind the hut to ascertain the cause of the disturbance.
Standing in the center of a crowd of excited villagers was Billy Barnes, his helmet knocked off and an arrow sticking through it. He looked scared to death as well he might, for by his side was a stalwart young African, brandishing a heavy-bladed spear above his head. At the young reporter's feet lay the ill-fated camera that had caused all the trouble.
What had happened was this. As soon as Frank and Harry and their companions had left him and Lathrop alone, Billy had started to carry out his determination to take some pictures. The first subject he selected was a serious-faced little baby, innocent of any clothing, that sat playing with a ragged dog at, the entrance of one of the beehive huts. He had just clicked the button and exclaimed:
"This will be a jim-dandy," when he felt something whistle through the air and the next minute his hat lay at his feet with an arrow in it. In an instant the child's father—convinced that Billy was putting Ju-ju medicine on the child—was upon him, armed with his big hunting spear and followed by half the village. Even Billy—scared as he was—did not realize how very near to death he actually came to being. Sikaso's shouted words in a native dialect caused the tribesmen to fall back but they still muttered angrily.
Stepping swiftly up to the camera Sikaso with a single blow of his axe smashed it to pieces.
"Here, that's no way to treat my camera!" Billy was indignantly beginning, when Frank gripped his shoulder in an iron-clutch and whispered:
"Shut up; if you don't want to make more trouble."
Billy was starting on an angry remonstrance when he caught Frank's eye. The young leader was really angry and Billy prudently refrained from saying any more.
As for Sikaso—after demolishing Billy's machine, he turned to the tribesmen and addressing them in stately tones said—as he afterward translated it to Frank:
"Village fools. You see there is no magic in the little black box. It is nothing but a child's plaything for the fat, spectacled idiot." (This part of the oration Frank did not communicate to Billy.) "You see I have smashed it. Do I fear? Do I look now like a man in terror of the white man's medicine. It is nothing. It is broken and gone like the cloud before the wind, like the shadow on the mountain side."