“Now, I am beginning to be afraid,” she said.
“No use being afraid now. We’ve gone too far. Walk straight on as if you had seen nothing. We’ll see more.”
They did. It was uncanny, unnerving in the extreme. There came a gleam from a bush and a brown face appeared, to vanish instantly. Then there came a rustle and a low call.
“It—it’s spooky,” whispered the girl, keeping close to Johnny’s side.
He wondered how the affair would end. Who were these people? Were they really wild Mayas? He thought of their own weapons. Few enough they were. He was carrying Roderick’s light rifle and there was some extra ammunition strapped in his pack. A good machete hung at his side.
“But what are we against so many? There must be no fight.”
Yet there was to be a fight, such a strange one as he could not have dreamed of, and that right soon.
As they rounded a turn in the trail, a sudden, piercing scream rent the air. The next moment a beautiful Indian girl dressed in a strange garment of scarlet, with her hair streaming behind her, came racing wildly down the trail and behind her, in mad pursuit, came the strangest creature it had ever been Johnny’s lot to behold.
As heavy as an ox, but shorter of leg and broader of back, the creature had such a face as an elephant might present had he been robbed of half his trunk. Rage gleamed from his small, black eyes. From his side there protruded the shaft of a spear and this, no doubt, was the cause of his sudden anger.
To be snatched from the silence of the jungle to the sudden strain of action is like being dragged from the deep dark of midnight to the glaring light of day. For a second Johnny stood petrified. Then, born as he was for action, and trained for it, too, he sprang forward. The shoulder straps of his pack were thrown off and the pack struck the trail with a thump. Then, like an ancient warrior, Johnny lifted the light rifle and prepared to stand his ground.