Chapter XXII: The Queen's Ruby

Darkness had fallen as Curlie Carson, still following the trail of his good pal Johnny, and still urging his donkeys forward, approached the mouth of the cave occupied by the bronze natives and the little doctor. Johnny, as you will know, had been gone from that place several hours. He was now well on his way back.

The black horde, had Curlie but known it, was but two hours behind him on the trail. He did not know. All he knew was that his good pal was missing and that he had passed this way.

By great good fortune, the first person he met was the short broad man, the white doctor.

"Johnny?" the little doctor smiled in answer to Curlie's question. "Sure we had him. We let him go. But he'll be back; may be here at any time. Sit down and rest."

"Here, Beppo," he spoke to a bronze native, "bring us some of that roasted guinea hen and boiled plantain."

When Curlie had eaten and had fed his donkeys from a bundle of wild grass, the little doctor told him as much as he deemed best of Johnny's latest adventure. He showed him the Magic Telescope and bade him make himself at home.

Hardly had he finished speaking when a bronze native, panting and quite done in by running, dropped at his feet. When this man found his breath he told a startling tale of a black, ape-like horde of men, armed with clubs, machetes and rifles who were marching upon the cave.

"Now what?" said the doctor, turning to Curlie for an answer. "We are a peaceful people. Have you brought this mob to attack us?"

Curlie's eyes went wide with wonder. The whole affair was news to him. A few well directed questions and he knew the worst. The leader of this band was none other than Pluto, the bad black man whose shipload of arms he had sunk. The others were his followers. That they were bent on vengeance he did not doubt.

"There's no time for explaining now," he said springing to his feet and seizing a heavy hamper. "Those men are not my friends but my enemies. I think you may leave them to me. But if your men will carry all these heavy hampers into the cave, it will help."

"'There is a destiny'," he quoted to himself, "'that shapes our ends'. A moment ago I was thinking what a lot of wasted toil it had been, urging those stubborn donkeys up this trail. But now--"

Ten minutes later he found himself busy erecting in the mouth of the cave a figure that was as fear-inspiring to the timid bronze men as he hoped it might be to the black horde.

This figure it was that had absorbed so much of his thought and occupied his hours in his laboratory at the Citadel.

* * * * * * * *

At ten that night Johnny was still toiling up the trail. As he paused to drink deep of the cool night air, he caught the gleam of lightning and felt some seconds later the shudder of the mountain as the thunder came rolling in.

"Going to storm," he told himself. "Wonder if we'll make it?"

Dot too heard the thunder. She too wondered. Her wonder was of a different sort. She was still imprisoned. Doris had gone for aid. She had not returned--might not return until morning.

"And if it storms." She shuddered anew at the thought. A severe tropical storm is not soon forgotten. Dot had passed through one. It had uprooted century old trees, brought great ships ashore to break them on the rocks and had changed the very aspect of the country.

That she might not lose her grip on her nerves, she began prowling around her prison. Nor did her search go unrewarded. Of a sudden, as she shot her light in a dark hole behind a rock, she gave forth a low cry of surprise and fear. It seemed to her that a single fiery red eye was gleaming up at her.

A second, a calmer look and she knew that she was gazing upon the largest, most beautiful stone she had yet discovered, a huge ruby set in a circle of gold.

"It's the Queen's Ruby," she told herself, holding it up to the light. There is a legend that the black queen always wore at her throat a gleaming solitary ruby.

"If only some one would come," she said to herself. "If they only would."

The answer was a second roll of thunder.

* * * * * * * *

In the meantime Johnny was making the best of his way up the mountain. Now he was two miles away, now only one. And now, as he paused once more at the top of a steep climb he caught an odd confusion of noises. His guide too heard and at once became violently excited. He began dancing about and howling in a strange manner.

"What's happened?" the boy asked, after he had seized him and forced him into silence.

To this question the native made no reply.

"No use asking more," the boy told himself. "He doesn't understand a word of English."

Immediately, upon being released, the fellow renewed his howling and dancing. In this manner he danced himself quite out of sight. That was the last seen of him.

But Johnny no longer needed a guide. The way was plain, straight ahead and up--up--up. He needed someone to explain the loud tum--tum--tum of drums, the wild screeching and screaming that came to him.

"The son of the bearer of the Magic Telescope is dead," he told himself. "And this is the funeral chant. Or perhaps a witch doctor has arrived, some _Papa Lou_ who is trying out his incantations."

Coming at last upon a clump of tropical pines that shut the traveler off from a view of the cave's mouth, he drew a long breath, stepped boldly forward, then stopped still to stare.

Before the cave, grotesquely lighted up by wavering torches, was the wildest, most terrible assembly of faces he had ever looked upon.

"It--it's like a moving picture scene taken from the Hunchback of Notre Dame," he told himself. "How terrible they are! And how they howl. What can it all mean?"

As he moved a few paces forward and to his right for a better view his astonishment knew no bounds. For there in the mouth of the cave, facing the angry mob of blacks, stood a gigantic solitary figure. Not a human figure was he, but like one. He had arms that now waved madly from side to side and now shot outward and upward as if to rain blows upon an approaching enemy. He had legs that now were motionless and now set him bobbing wildly up and down like an angry child. He had eyes that gleamed now green, now red, now blue, and jaws that from time to time snapped and cracked like the clamps of a steel trap.

"Of such things," said Johnny, "madness is made." He stepped back into the shadows.

Unable to understand the least bit of this wild scene, he found one thought uppermost in his mind; he bore in a sack at his side the precious medicine that might mean life to a dying man. Somehow he must enter the cave. To pass through that angry mob was unthinkable--and impossible.

"There's a secret entrance over here to the right," he told himself. "I will go that way."

Turning, he wearily retraced his steps to approach the cave from a different angle. And still the flashes of light, green, red and blue, continued; so too did the screams and drum beats.

"What's to come of it all?" he asked himself, and found no answer.

Once more came the roar and shudder of thunder, this time louder and more terrifying.

* * * * * * * *

Dot, still trapped among the rocky ruins, heard that thunder. She heard something more. That something set her heart beating wildly. It was the voice of her cousin, calling: "Dot! Dot! Are you still there? Just think! I have found the King."

"The King. There is no King." Dot thought her cousin out of her senses.

"The Marine King of Manowa. He was coming to see about the revolution. And I found him."

"We'll have you out of there in two shakes," said the King. "Just sit tight.

"Now where's that pole? Oh yes, here it is. Guess you're lucky. Going to be a peach of a storm. Less than an hour. Now young lady, out on the end and down we go. Up goes the stone. No. She slipped. Let's heave her up again. Now! Down we go. There you are. Crawl out. Double quick time. Trench duty with no frills. Hurray! Here she is laden with treasure and safe as a buck private in the guard house."

It was with the greatest difficulty that Dot restrained herself from hugging the King as she tumbled off the pile of rocks. She did grip his arm hard and tell him how very, very thankful she was that there was at least one king left in the world.

"And now," said the King in very blunt language, "we've got to beat it and that all-fired fast!"