Chapter XXVI: Indians and Prisoners

The red priests of Zataclin had not been thrown long into confusion, nor had they permitted their superstitious fears to keep them from taking prompt action against the daring invader of the temple.

Around the upper floor of the temple ran an inside gallery, which at intervals opened on an outer gallery.

To the inner gallery they rushed as soon as they discovered that the white man had escaped from the temple with the captive. They yelled to the people below, urging them to crowd the white men close up against the walls, yells which the white men heard without comprehending their meaning.

The people obeyed, forcing them along the wall, so that they were brought under the priests on the gallery. Then at the opportune moment the priests flung down that big net which enmeshed the white men and made them prisoners.

In a very few minutes the entire party of white men and the woman were captives in the hands of the howling inhabitants of Zataclin. Instead of being tied, they were simply dragged along enmeshed in the net—dragged back to the wide door of the temple, and then dragged on inside. The Indians yelled shrilly, and the priests who superintended this curious method, shouted loud commands.

When within the temple, the ends of the net were caught up by scores of hands, and the net and those within it were lifted bodily and borne up a broad stairway into a room. Having been pulled into this room, the prisoners were dropped to the floor, still swathed in the binding folds of the net. Then a heavy door was closed on them and they were left alone. Beyond the closed door they heard the Indians yelling fiendishly.

It was as strange a capture as was ever made; the prisoners were like snared birds. For a few moments after their rough usage they could do nothing but lie panting on the floor. At length Buffalo Bill got out his knife, after prodigious effort, and began to cut the cords of the net. He called to the other men to do the same, and they, too, got out their knives and began to slash at the net.

Not a weapon or other bit of property belonging to the white men had been touched. Perhaps the Indians feared to touch the things the white men had in their possession, since the strange fire sticks had the power to inflict wounds and to make that thunderous roar and spout deadly smoke.

It took Buffalo Bill but a moment to free himself, and then he began to cut the cords that held Miss Fernald.

The girl had swooned again under her rough treatment, and the scout and Lieutenant Butler were trying to restore her. She was not long unconscious. When she was helped to her feet, and Lieutenant Butler led her to a couch by the wall, the couch being formed of the coats of the men, she tried to smile her gratitude, yet urged them not to take so much trouble for her. She looked earnestly at the famous scout, whom she recognized with intense gratitude, for she was aware that it was he who had so daringly invaded the temple to release her.

Within their close prison they listened to the ominous sounds outside.

“There is one thing,” said the scout, as he fingered his trusty revolver, “they have favored us greatly by letting us keep our weapons. We can hold a regiment at bay here.”

“But they can starve us out without much trouble,” said Lieutenant Butler.

Young Lawler was walking slowly round the room, studying its configuration.

“There is a hole up there, where the light and air come in,” he said. “There may be something above it.”

“If we could get up there we should be only that much farther from the ground,” suggested Lieutenant Butler, and, acting upon that suggestion, the scout studied the opening in the roof of the room.

“We can get up there, if we think it best,” he said. “We can make ropes out of the cords of this net, and use them to climb with. That part will be easy enough. I fancy we shall want to see where that hole will lead.”

Seeing that she had recovered somewhat, Lieutenant Butler began to ask questions of Miss Fernald. Soon they heard her story. She had wandered forth for a stroll, and had got turned around, as they had supposed, and lost herself; after that she had wandered on and on in a vain endeavor to find the camp. While crossing the sandy area where they had seen her footprints, she had been pounced upon by a hideous creature.

“An orang-utan!” said Professor Bounderby, with the accent of positive knowledge. “It must have frightened you very much.”

“It frightened me almost to death,” she said, “but he was not an orang-utan.”

“No?” he cried. “Not an orang-utan?” He got out his pencil and notebook. “What was it, then?”

All were now bending to listen.

“My dear young lady, if it was not an orang-utan, what kind of beast was it?”

“It was a man.”

“Not a beast, but a man! That is impossible. We saw its footprints, and——”

“It was a gnarled, bent man, hump-shouldered, with very large, long arms, and twisted, naked feet like claws. And he was an Indian, though he did not wear paint nor feathers, his clothing was simply some skins sewed loosely together. When he pounced on me, I fainted. But I regained consciousness by the time we reached the high bluffs that encircle this valley.

“In those bluffs was an opening, which held a queer elevator, and down that elevator and through a black tunnel he took me. When we came out I saw this valley and this temple, with the houses.

“I was so frightened that when he ordered me on I did not try to resist. I was helpless, and I think I was nearly crazy. He brought me to this temple, and here I was placed in a room somewhat like this. To-day I was tied, taken out, put in a pavilion that men carried on their shoulders, and set in the midst of a vast procession. When we got to the temple again, I discovered that I was to be murdered—killed by the priests as a sacrifice to their gods.”

Her face grew paler at the recollection of her experience, and she closed her eyes as if to shut it out of her mind. She opened them, and went on with her story.

“And then this brave man came—this man whom you call Buffalo Bill, the American scout. The rest you know.”

Bounderby still held his notebook and pencil. The professor’s thirst for knowledge seemed to make him forget his position and danger.

“Tell me,” he urged, “about this queer dwarf who captured you. Did you particularly observe his feet?”

“I noticed them—they were gnarled and twisted, as if they had been cut and subjected to torture. I never saw feet like them.” She closed her eyes again and shuddered. “But there are others here like him,” she added. “Another just like him, or nearly like him, brought food to me in my prison, and when I looked out—there were bars in my prison—I saw still others.”

“More dwarfs of that kind!” cried Bounderby, so astonished that he neglected to use his pencil. “Perhaps we have found here a race of queer dwarfs.”

“I should not call them dwarfs,” she corrected. “They were as large as any of the other Indians, only they were knotted and twisted, and they walked bent over. And they were clothed differently from the other Indians.”

“Re-mark-able!” said Bounderby. “Simply past all belief.”

“Yet it is but the truth.”

“My dear young lady, I do not doubt your word; I mean, it is simply so strange that it staggers the imagination.” Then he began to write furiously in his notebook, talking out the words as he set them down. “Remarkable!” he said, as he concluded. “Re-mark-able!”

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