The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Pacific

by John Henry Goldfrap

All round them lay big trees and the bodies of countless birds that had been dashed to death. It was some time before Salloo could persuade a fire to burn, but among the rocks, in crevices the rain had not penetrated, he found old dried leaves and sticks which made capital kindling and at last they cooked a hot meal, in need of which they all stood badly.

Then it was off on the long trail again. Late that afternoon, just as they were making camp, a party of natives came along the trail. They carried the skins of numerous beautiful birds that they had brought down with their blow-pipes. They were friendly and the boys bought some of the skins. Afterward Salloo had a long talk with them and, this being concluded, they kept on their way while our party went on with its preparations for spending the night.

Salloo had some news to disclose, he said. The natives he had been talking to knew the Kini-Balu Mountains well and told him, after he had described the cave they were looking for, that it was a very bad place. Nobody liked to go near it.

“On account of the Kini-Balus?” asked Mr. Jukes.

“No, on account um ghosts,” rejoined Salloo; “ghost of Taratao, old-time chief of Kini-Balus haunt him.”

“Begorry, so long as the ghosts ain’t got a punch it’s sorra a bit I care for ’em,” declared Muldoon valiantly.

That evening Salloo had a novelty for supper in the form of the flesh of a huge lizard, or iguana. At first the boys and their companions did not want to touch it, for in life it had been a hideous looking monster. But being pressed by Salloo, they consented, and found it very good eating. Its flesh tasted like chicken, though even more delicate.

It was about an hour after the meal when they were preparing for bed that Jack complained that he was feeling poorly. He said he had a headache and a feeling of vertigo. The others then admitted experiencing the same symptoms. Nausea soon succeeded these and ere long they were all convinced that they had been poisoned by eating the iguana. The natives, who camped some distance off with Salloo, experienced no such illness but then they had eaten none of the iguana which, to Captain Sparhawk’s mind, made it all the more certain that it was the giant lizard’s flesh that had made them ill.

Salloo was called from the native camp and bitterly reproached for inducing them to eat it. He protested that it could not have been the iguana that had made them ill. Had he not himself eaten it? But in the end he returned to the native camp with his head hung down, completely crushed by what he deemed the injustice of his white friends in blaming him for their illness. At first they were not greatly alarmed, not deeming it possible that they had actually been poisoned, and Captain Sparhawk administered remedies from the medicine chest. But, to their alarm, instead of decreasing in severity, their sufferings grew more acute as the night wore on.

Their ideas became confused, and as in sea-sickness in an acute stage, they lay about, not caring whether they lived or died. If they tried to rise, their heads swam, their feet tottered. Thus it was that Salloo found them in the morning when he came from the native camp.