Nat returned with the rifles, and with Ding-dong Bell, who had already, from his post at the engines, observed the great birds.
“Now, boys,” spoke the professor, “we must use our best marksmanship on these creatures. They are a real menace to the ship.”
Nat took up his position at one side of the pilot house, Ding-dong Bell at the other, while the professor aimed from the centre window.
At the word “fire!” from the professor, all three rifles began to pump lead into the wheeling, circling, screaming flight of condors.
Several stopped abruptly in their soaring circles and fell to the earth, stricken to death. But others, that were only wounded, fought with more fury than ever. The attack by the adventurers appeared to enrage them. They flew furiously at the Discoverer, and one or two even dashed themselves at the pilot house.
But after ten minutes or more of steady firing their numbers diminished. The ones that were left began to sheer off, and finally took flight away from the invaders of their realm. The noise of the firing brought Mr. Tubbs and Matco out of the cabin, and both watched with interest the effects of the fusillade.
When it was over, and the Discoverer had left the last of the great birds behind, old Matco spoke excitedly in Spanish to the professor.
“What does he say?” asked Nat, when the old man had finished what appeared to be a tirade against something or somebody.
“He says,” rejoined the professor, “that what we have done is very good. That when he was a youngster he was carried off by one of these birds. His mother, who rushed out to save him, was attacked by the condor’s mate and so seriously maimed and torn that she died.”
“But how did he escape?”