Half an hour later the Golden Eagle, stripped of all her heavy gear and only carrying just enough gasoline to get her to the river camp, where the adventurers expected to find a reserve supply, rose slowly into the air with her queer tow tugging behind on the wireless ground rope. The boys had cached the wireless apparatus and the other gear, to be called for at some more opportune time. To their great regret, also, they had had to leave some of the ivory behind them. But the majority of what they did not dare trust to the gas-bag they carried in the chassis. Luckily for them there was hardly a breath of wind and the novel carrier towed well.
As the occupants of the great aeroplane gazed back at the sinister Moon Mountains as they fast faded out—they saw silhouetted against the evening sky a dark figure.
It was recognized at once as one of the beaten gorillas scouting to see if the terrible white men had really gone.
"There's the man we saw this afternoon," laughed, Frank, as with rapidly beating propellers the Golden Eagle II winged her way with the convoy toward the River Camp.
CHAPTER XIV
AN ESCAPE—AND WHAT CAME OF IT
From the pace at which Muley-Hassan's band traversed the jungle paths it was evident to the two young captives that there was imperative need in Muley-Hassan's mind of arriving somewhere at a set time. The usual noonday rest, which even the avaricious slave-trader was in the habit of taking, was not observed and the travelers pressed straight on. Lathrop and Billy were almost ready to drop with fatigue when that evening, just at dusk, they arrived at the bank of a muddy river which Muley-Hassan, impatient as he was to proceed, decided it would be unwise to ford till daylight—when they could look for a good crossing place. At the spot which they had halted, the stream—swollen apparently by rains in the mountains—roared between its banks, in a dark chocolate-colored flood.
Muley-Hassan himself was the only one of his band provided with a tent, or anything resembling one, and the boys shared the common bed of the rest of the party—which was the ground. A more unwholesome resting-place in Africa, particularly on the steamy, swampy banks of a river, could hardly be imagined. So indeed Muley-Hassan seemed to think, for after a short time, during which the boys vainly tried to secure some sleep, he ordered Diego to provide them with blankets to place between themselves and the bare earth.
"I expect to get a good price for them eventually," he said, "and I don't want to lose them unless I have to."