“See!” exclaimed the princess, for it was she who had unbound their eyes. “See what a beautiful world we have brought you to!”
It was indeed a beautiful world. All a-glitter with raindrops flashing in the sun, palms and giant tropical ferns had never seemed so lovely as now.
Birds sang their best. Even the screaming parrots, that they might not be entirely out of harmony, appeared to soften their discordant notes.
But into this symphony there crept a wildly disturbing sound. Dim, indistinct, yet unmistakable, there came the noise of battle.
At the first sound of it, Johnny Thompson glanced wildly about him. Then, having sighted down the creek a familiar bend in the river, he exclaimed:
“It’s Daego. The battle is on! They are not a mile from here. I must go!”
Seizing the prow of a boat, he pushed it into the stream, sprang in, seized a paddle, and would have been away, single-handed, to enter the conflict.
They dragged him back. The old chief tried to learn, from Johnny’s wild flinging arms, what it was all about. In the end he appeared to understand, for, after instructing his men to look to their weapons, he ordered them into their boats. Once more the Mayas, a hundred strong, swept down the river, grim, silent, determined.
So it happened that a second time that day Pant saw the river above his raft lined with boats.
“Friends or enemies?” he thought. “Let them come. Without aid we lose. More of the enemy cannot matter.”