But he had hardly tapped out with a hesitating finger the first word of his message when he felt a bullet whiz by his ear and the report flashed so close to him that it deafened him and scorched his skin.
"Thought I was bluffing did you, eh?" sneered the Portuguese, "come now, no tricks; send out what I tell you or the next bullet will come closer."
And so it came about that the queer hesitating message that Frank received at Moon Mountains was sent out.
Immediately it was dispatched Muley-Hassan gave the order to advance and his ragged followers, carrying the worst wounded in improvised litters, set out toward the northwest.
"We are going to the Moon Mountains," whispered Billy to Lathrop, "at least it looks that way. I overheard Muley-Hassan say to Diego that we'd have to hurry to get the ivory—"
Lathrop's reply was cut short by a scene that sent the angry blood to both boys' faces.
Before the camp was abandoned for good and the plunge into the forest began, Muley-Hassan gave a sharp order and directed several of his men set about demolishing the camp. Diego himself smashed the field wireless of which Frank and Harry had been so proud. He hacked it to atoms with one of the heavy axes. The tents and provision boxes were next piled in a heap and set in a blaze.
As the column of dark smoke rose from the ruins of the once happy camp into the clear sky the order to advance was given and the train once more moved forward.
They had hardly deserted the clearing before, from the river bank, half a hundred wild figures appeared.
They were similar in appearance—only even more wild-looking than the savages fought off by Frank, Harry and Ben the previous day. Like the others their slashed and scarred faces and clay-daubed lips showed them to belong to one of the fierce cannibal tribes of the Bambara region.