“I still have part of it, Hal.”
“Yes,” acknowledged Whitman, “but I’ll bet that Joe Nara only let you keep it because he decided it wouldn’t do you any good. Think it over, and you’ll see I’m right.”
Whether or not Mr. Brewster thought it over during the night, Biff certainly did. When they were loading the boats at dawn to resume their trip downriver, Biff asked his father:
“Do you think that Mr. Whitman is right about Joe Nara?”
“There may be something in what he says,” admitted Mr. Brewster. “Nara may have been keeping something from us.”
During the day, they made speedy progress down the river, hugging the bank at every bend to avoid new waterfalls. But the trip proved smooth, which only brought more grumbles from Whitman.
“Nara sent us down this river to get rid of us,” he declared, as they paddled along. “It wasn’t his fault that the Rio Del Muerte failed to live up to its name. As for that gateway where we’re supposed to meet him—El Porto Del Diablo—I don’t think there is such a place.”
One hour later, those doubts were dispelled. As the boats passed a bend, they came to an opening in the jungle that looked like the dry bed of a stream that had once joined the Rio Del Muerte. Then, amid the thick green foliage, loomed the very rock that Nara had mentioned, split like a huge gateway, a short distance up the ravine.
They pulled the boats up on the low, sandy shore, where Mr. Brewster decided to leave the packs and other equipment, though not for long.
“Nara said to come through the gateway,” he said, “and meet him somewhere up the ravine. If we don’t see him soon, we can come back and bring the luggage in relays.”
The trail narrowed at the end of half a mile and veered sharply beneath a high, bulging cliff that slanted back like a gigantic brow, cutting off the sunlight. Mr. Brewster, well in advance, had reached the turn in the ravine, when Jacome, bringing up the rear of the procession, gave a loud, warning shout.
The rest looked up in time to see the tiny, squatty figures of six men drop suddenly behind a row of rocks that resembled the top edge of a castle tower. But that impression was a brief one. As the group stared from below, they saw the rocky summit topple forward.
Those watchers on the cliff top had launched a mass of bounding boulders that encountered bigger chunks of granite and carried them along, with the earth in which they were imbedded. An avalanche of stone and dirt was gaining size as it roared down the slope, threatening to block the narrow ravine and bury every member of the party that had come into its path!
While the others stood rooted, staring upward, Biff looked for his father, in the frantic hope of giving him some last-moment warning. Up ahead, Mr. Brewster was waving for them to join him. Biff grabbed Whitman by the arm and tried to start him forward, at the same time yelling to Kamuka and Jacome:
“It’s our only chance! Maybe Dad can get us past the turn in the ravine!”
They all were starting forward before Biff finished speaking, but their chance faded as the landslide’s roar increased. Spreading as it came over the cliff edge, the first wave of dirt and stone was not only peppering them; it was pouring into the side passage that seemed their only refuge.
Fortunately, none of them was hit by that first spray of smaller stones. Whitman stumbled, but Jacome overtook him and helped him regain his footing. Then they had reached Mr. Brewster, who was blocking them from the side passage where Biff thought he wanted them to go.
Instead, Biff’s father now was rushing them beneath the overhanging cliff, where they huddled against the rocky wall and turned to witness the havoc that they had so narrowly escaped. From this hollow, open space where Mr. Brewster had guided them, they watched tons of dirt and stone drop down in a solid curtain, only a dozen feet away, for the bulge of the cliff above was comparatively slight.
Yet it jutted enough to send the tremendous landslide cascading out beyond them, something on which Mr. Brewster had counted when he made his quick decision. But after the roar had finally subsided, Biff’s father disclaimed any special credit for the rescue.
“I was close enough to see that this pocket offered us our only chance,” stated Mr. Brewster. “As it was, your own prompt response saved your lives. Otherwise, you would now be under there.”
Mr. Brewster gestured significantly to the mound of earth and rock that had piled many feet above their heads. Carefully, they worked their way up over it and down a long slant to the main ravine, which they followed back to the river.
On the way, they looked up to the brow of the great cliff, but saw no human figures there. They noted though, that the landslide had turned the ravine into a dead-end, with no trace of the narrow passage that angled off to the right, the route that they would have taken.
Back at the river, Biff’s father sat on a pack and commented rather ruefully:
“I guess this about ends our quest for El Dorado.”
“I’m afraid so,” Whitman agreed. “I’ve told you all along that Joe Nara was a phony.”
“You mentioned a few reasons why you thought so,” reminded Mr. Brewster. “But they were hardly sufficient, Hal.”
“All right,” retorted Whitman, “I’ll add a few clinchers. Nara said his men were Wai Wai Indians, didn’t he?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, the Wai Wais come from clear over in British Guiana, not from around here. And you remember those shrunken heads he showed us? To prove that Macus were around?”
Mr. Brewster nodded.
“Those were Jivaro heads,” declared Whitman, “from somewhere up the Amazon itself. Macus don’t shrink heads. All Nara wanted was to scare our bearers back to Santa Isabel and chase us off into the jungle. Right now, he’s probably still down on the Rio Negro, making a deal with Serbot, somewhere near Piedra Del Cucuy, learning what the competition has to offer—”
Whitman cut off, his mouth wide open as he looked downstream. The others turned and saw a dugout canoe approaching, with Joe Nara reclining comfortably against the pack bags in its center, while Igo and Ubi were paddling him up the Rio Del Muerte. Old Joe was smiling as he stepped ashore, but he became solemn when he saw the accusing eyes that were fixed upon him.
“I don’t wonder you’re annoyed,” apologized Nara. “I should have gotten here first—”
“You didn’t expect us to get here at all,” Hal Whitman broke in. “Those directions of yours were a one-way ticket over the falls on the Rio Del Muerte!”
“You tried to come down the river by boat?” Nara paused and stared at the rubber boats. “I didn’t know you had these with you. I said to follow the river, that was all. Remember?”
“I remember,” returned Mr. Brewster. “You also told us to go up through the gateway to the ravine—”
“No, I didn’t!” interrupted Nara. “I said for you to come up through—”
“What would be the difference?”
“Why, if you came up through,” explained Nara, “I would have been there to meet you. But if you had gone up through ahead of me”—he shook his head—“well, thank heavens, you didn’t try it!”
“Why not?”
“Because the tribe that guards El Dorado would have let loose a landslide if they saw strangers coming their way. I was mighty glad to find you waiting here. I knew you couldn’t have gone up through El Porto Del Diablo.”
“But we did go up through.”
As Joe Nara stared incredulously, Mr. Brewster described all that had happened.
“Now that the ravine is blocked,” he finished, “I suppose you can’t take us to your fabulous El Dorado.”
“On the contrary,” returned Nara, with a quick smile, “I can take you to the mine by the short way.” He spoke to Igo and Ubi in dialect; then, as the Indians went to the split rock, Nara announced, “I told them to summon some bearers.”
Igo and Ubi shouted up through the ravine, and their calls seemed to echo back. Soon, squatty Indians appeared from the Devil’s Gateway until a dozen of them had lined silently in front of Joe Nara. Kamuka undertoned to Biff:
“These are the men who pushed stones from hill.”
“I figured that,” said Biff. “I wonder whether they are surprised or sorry to see us still alive.”
“They are neither. They think Nara has made us live again because we are his friends. They think Nara is El Dorado.”
From the furtive glances that the squatty Indians gave toward the Brewster party, along with the way they were awaiting Nara’s bidding, Biff decided that Kamuka had guessed right.
At Nara’s command, the Indians did the unexpected. They began replacing the packs and other equipment in the rubber boats, while Nara suggested that Mr. Brewster and his party get on board. Then the Indians brought dugouts from the bushes, and soon they were all paddling up the Rio Del Muerte, with Nara’s canoe in the lead.
The going was easy, for the current was sluggish here. After about two miles, Igo and Ubi drove Nara’s dugout to a low bank where the jungle appeared to be the thickest. With their paddles, they raised a tangle of roots as they would a curtain, and worked the boat through.
The others followed into a channel wide enough to accommodate the rubber boats with ease. When the foliage had been dropped behind the final canoe, Biff looked back and saw that the mouth of this stream was as completely hidden as before.
They emerged from the jungle near a towering rock that looked like the one from which the Indians had launched the landslide. They pulled up the boats beside the stream and took to a steep trail that brought them up behind the rock, past the far end of the blocked ravine.
The trail climbed steadily, with more slopes rising ahead. Beyond them were mountain peaks, some looming blue and cloud-capped in the distance, overlooking a vast, unexplored region. The chunky bearers marched steadily onward, crossing logs over deep ravines and following ledges hewn in the mountainsides. Biff kept his eyes fixed on the backs of the trudging Indians to avoid any dizziness from looking below.
“We are now in the Parima Mountains,” Joe Nara told them. “This part of the range is in Venezuela.”
“I know,” acknowledged Mr. Brewster. “We crossed the border from Brazil soon after we left Piedra Del Cucuy.”
“What about these Indians of yours?” Hal Whitman put in. “You say they are Wai Wais, Nara, but that tribe lives over in Guiana.”
“The main tribe does,” returned Nara, “but this one group remained here to guard the sacred mountain, where El Dorado is located. They believed that Daipurui, the Spirit of Evil, would go on a rampage if anyone found the mine.”
“And how did you get around that?”
“I figured out a trick,” chuckled Nara, “that made them think I was El Dorado himself, the original Golden Boy in person. So they took Lew Kirby and me up to the mine, the same way they’re going now.”
Single file, the Wai Wais were climbing steps cut in a cliff, gripping liana vines as handrails to balance the weight of their packs. As Biff began the climb, the bearers looked like big, bulging beetles crawling toward the skyline. One by one, they dropped from sight as did the others in the party. Biff learned the reason, when he reached a slanted ledge, like a niche hacked in the cliff, and found the Wai Wais squatting there.
Kamuka came just behind Biff, then others of the party, and finally Joe Nara. Evidently, the Wai Wais were awaiting him, for they began an odd chant that included the words, “El Dorado—El Dorado—” and continued as the shock-haired prospector strode past them.
Nara paused where the ledge burrowed at a slant into the cliff and beckoned for everyone to follow, which they did. They entered a gloomy mine shaft, so low that all members of the party had to stoop, except the boys. The Wai Wai bearers, already bending under their burdens, followed the route automatically as though the passage had been cut to their size.
Daylight showed where the shaft opened into a great cavern. There, the sun shone through cracks and other openings in the ceiling. It glinted on chunky rock walls that fairly burned with vivid golden yellow.
All the tales that Biff had ever heard of hidden treasure had suddenly become real. This was a wonderland of wealth, with glittering side shafts going deeper into the mountain, promising new finds for anyone who followed them. Kamuka, awed by the yellow glitter, asked in breathless tone:
“How much you think this worth, Biff? A millioncruzeiro—maybe?”
“A lot more, if it’s gold ore,” returned Biff. “But it’s worth practically nothing if it is simply yellow quartz. A lot of that is found in Brazil, in places easier to reach than this. What’s just as bad, it may be fool’s gold.”
“Fool gold? What is that?”
“A mineral called pyrite,” exclaimed Biff, “usually iron, mixed with sulphur. It often fools people who think that it is gold. But it is more the color of brass than gold, and it leaves a green streak when you rub it on something smooth.”
As Biff picked up a chunk of yellow rock to examine it, he caught a nod of approval from his father. Biff had repeated facts that Mr. Brewster had told him regarding metals. Now, Biff’s father indicated a stretch of rocky wall, where patches of yellow shone from a background of milky white. He asked:
“What do you make of this, Biff?”
“It looks like gold quartz for sure, Dad!” exclaimed Biff. “There’s no chance of mistaking that. Or is there?”
“In this case, there is no mistake.” Mr. Brewster was studying the milky quartz as he spoke. “Undoubtedly, this shaft was first mined centuries ago, for it resembles old Indian mines that I have inspected. But although it yielded gold years ago, I doubt that its wealth has even begun to be tapped.”
“You’re right about that,” chuckled Joe Nara, who was standing by. “Look there—and there—and there—”
Nara had turned on a powerful flashlight, and with each announcement, he pointed its beam down another rough-hewn shaft that branched from the main corridor. Each time, the glare was reflected with a new burst of brilliance.
“The gold of El Dorado!” boasted Nara. “A mountain full of it and a lot more that cropped over, as I’ll show you!”
From the great central room, Joe Nara led his companions down through a maze of shafts and tunnels. Each passage joined with another, and frequently the links were steep steps worn smooth by the feet of native miners, hundreds of years before.
At intervals, daylight showed through shafts that had been driven down through the mountain to tap a vein of gold. Always, the passages led finally into new corridors that glittered with rich ore. At last, a long straight tunnel brought the party out on the far side of the mountain, hundreds of feet below the starting level.
The slope was gradual here, featured by dirt gullies leading down to a grassy valley, with the jungle beyond. As they followed the bed of one dry stream, Joe Nara pointed to the sparkle in its sands.
“That’s where I’ve picked up some of these,” he chuckled, bringing some small gold nuggets from his pocket and displaying them in his open hand. “But mostly I find them up some of the smaller stream beds. The gold just kind of oozes out of the mountain.”
Near the bottom of the slope was a shallow depression that nestled like a bowl in the curve of the mountainside.
“That’s where the lake was,” declared Nara. “The lake where El Dorado used to take a dip and come out all covered with gold. It’s dried up, now, but there’s still plenty of gold down in those sands.”
Mr. Brewster studied the lake bed carefully. Biff saw his father look beyond, as though following a sandy course that led down to the grassy area that fringed the jungle.
“You are probably right,” Mr. Brewster told Nara. “The lake was artificially formed, and once the dam was broken, the water found its way down into the jungle.”
“And it joined a stream there,” added Nara, “as I’ll show you. Do you know why this all happened?” Tilting his head, he darted one of his birdlike glances at Whitman, then back to Mr. Brewster. “I’ll tell you why. When the Indians found that the Spaniards and the English were going after El Dorado as well as after each other, they closed up shop.
“That’s what they did. Just closed up shop. They busted the dam and got rid of the lake, so nobody could find it. They covered over all the shafts so nobody could find them either. They started rumors about El Dorado being somewhere else, to send all the explorers on a wild-goose chase. Then they kept guard over the real El Dorado to scare away anybody who stumbled on it by mistake.”
“All quite logical,” agreed Mr. Brewster. “That is the way the Indians would act.” He turned to Whitman and asked: “You agree, don’t you, Hal?”
“I agree,” nodded Whitman. “NowI know why Nara showed us those shrunken heads. He did want to scare our bearers so they would run back to Santa Isabel. But it was because his Wai Wais would have made trouble if we brought a strange tribe here.”
“They made trouble enough as it was,” declared Nara, with a dry chuckle. Then, turning to Mr. Brewster, he said, “Let’s see what’s left of that map Lew Kirby gave you. Then we can figure what to do next.”
Mr. Brewster produced the torn corner from the map. It showed the mine, the stream bed, the lake, and the trail that continued into the jungle, where it reached a river that was marked on the map.
“The route is an easy one,” stated Nara, “as you can see. But first, I want you to estimate the value of the mine. Then pick out the ore you want, so we can take it to the river. From there, we will go downstream to the Casiquiare Canal and work our way through to the Orinoco River.”
They camped that night beneath the trees that fringed the jungle. The next day, Mr. Brewster returned to the mine and studied it in detail. They stayed in the same camp another night and on the following day, the Indians brought down loads of ore that Mr. Brewster had selected.
Those loads were carried several miles through the jungle to the river that Nara had mentioned. Biff and Kamuka helped make a new camp there. Then they swam in the river while they waited for the Indians to bring the packs. The water was very clear, and the boys brought up handfuls of glittering sand from the bottom. When Mr. Brewster saw it, he commented:
“There’s a fortune in gold to be dredged from this stream. But we still have the problem of getting it down the Orinoco.”
Joe Nara had the answer to that problem. His Indians showed up with a small flotilla of odd-looking craft that resembled themonteriasof the Amazon. Nearly thirty feet long, each boat had an open cockpit at the front with a thatched cupola at the stern, serving as a sort of cabin.
Nara’s boats were different, however, from the more antiquated river craft. His boats were low in the stern, so that the big steering paddle could be replaced by a sizable outboard motor. Nara had such motors and the gasoline to fuel them.
“Every trip I made downriver,” explained Nara, “either over the mountain and down the Rio Negro, or down this stream to the Orinoco, I bought motors and gasoline and brought them back here. I knew that some day, Lew Kirby would talk some company into a big deal for our mine.
“What’s more, I knew the first thing they would ask would be if they could transport either the gold or the ore once they mined it. My answer is, yes, and I’ve got the boats to prove it—and the motors, too. I’ve kept them for a long time.”
Judging by the appearance of the motors, that was true. Some were twenty years old, but all proved serviceable when attached to the loaded boats. The four boats that formed the strange flotilla started out at a slow but steady speed down the narrow jungle river that marked the first stage of a long, adventurous journey.
Each boat carried a crew of three. Biff and Kamuka were in one boat with Mr. Brewster. Jacome and a Wai Wai Indian were in another with Hal Whitman. The third boat was Nara’s, with Igo and Ubi as its crew. The fourth, which served as a kitchen boat and carried the food supply, was manned by three Wai Wai tribesmen.
The packs, which included tents and other equipment, were in the boats commanded by Mr. Brewster and Mr. Whitman. The ore from the mine was mostly in Nara’s boat, which squatted lower in the water due to its added weight. But it maintained the same speed as the other craft for the simple but sufficient reason that Nara had equipped it with the largest of his old-model motors.
The containers of gasoline were distributed among the boats, and all were careful not to waste any of the precious fuel. At times, they used the oars or let the current carry them. When they encountered channels that were narrow or shallow, they poled the boats through.
They were deep in the jungle when the river opened into a fair-sized lake, where Nara pulled his boat alongside of Mr. Brewster’s, to check the map again.
“This is one of the lagoons that connects with the Casiquiare Canal,” explained Nara. “Actually, the Casiquiare is an overflow from the Orinoco that reaches the headwaters of the Rio Negro, forming a link with the Amazon. But sometimes the canal backs up and flows the wrong way. The important thing is that it is always navigable, clear to the Orinoco.”
The job now was to work from one lagoon to another, through channels that would have been shown on the missing portion of Kirby’s map. Nara knew the route from memory, and fortunately he had been over it several times. But he still had trouble picking his way through a lot of lesser channels, and at times he called upon Mr. Brewster to check the course by compass.
“Taking a boat through a jungle,” declared Nara, “is just like going for a hike in the woods. First thing you know, you’re traveling in a circle. Only you don’t ever really know it, because wherever you are, it always looks the same.”
The more Biff thought that over, the more true it seemed. But when he discussed it with Kamuka, the Indian boy disputed the notion.
“One place is not like another,” declared Kamuka. “I look there, and I see so many trees. I remember them like picture. You show me another place, the picture is different.”
“In that case,” said Biff, “I suppose you can never get lost in the jungle.”
“I get lost easy,” returned Kamuka. “Too easy. Any place I do not know, I am lost—maybe. But I never get lost in the same place where I was before.”
Biff decided to test that out in a simple but effective way. As they chugged along, he made notes of certain spots and told Kamuka to remember them on his own. When they reached a similar place, Biff asked Kamuka to tell him the difference. Always, Kamuka came up with some slight variation that tallied with Biff’s list.
When they swung into a small cove past a jutting point with an odd overhanging tree, Biff was sure that they had seen the place before. This time, Kamuka couldn’t come up with enough differences in the scenery. Triumphantly, Biff was saying:
“You see, Kamuka? This could be the same place where we were an hour ago, or enough like it so you can’t tell the difference—”
“Except,” said Kamuka, “that there was no smoke in trees, no campfire with people around, no boats coming out from shore—”
Biff looked up in surprise. He saw more boats, a whole batch of them, shooting out from opposite points to block off any retreat.
More than a dozen in number, those boats were filled with natives who shouted savage war cries as they closed in on Nara’s flotilla, forcing the heavier boats toward the shore. There was no avoiding the camp where warlike natives waited, armed with spears, for now other canoes were darting out from hiding places to complete the rapid roundup.
Rather than be boarded by the natives, Mr. Brewster ordered the boats to the shore. There, he and Whitman sprang out with loaded rifles. Biff and Kamuka followed, bringing their machetes. Jacome joined them, armed in the same fashion. Immediately, they were surrounded by a dozen silent natives, who stood ready with poised spears.
“Be careful,” warned Jacome. “Do not make move. Big pot on fire is used to cookcurare. Spear point poison—maybe.”
Between the circling natives, Biff saw the fire and the pot that Jacome mentioned. It was a big, crude kettle, steaming over the log flames.
“I’m glad they’re just cookingcurare,” Biff whispered to Kamuka. “I thought maybe they were boiling some special stuff to shrink our heads.”
“Maybe they do just that,” returned Kamuka solemnly. “I do not like this. Not one bit, Biff.”
A tall chief with a drooping feathered headdress and a plumed belt had taken charge, and was ordering Nara and the Wai Wais from their boats. Nara’s Indians brought their machetes, but old Joe came entirely unarmed. He jabbered dialect at the feathered chief. Then, finding that he didn’t understand, Nara let Igo and Ubi take over as interpreters.
After a brief talk, Nara turned to Mr. Brewster.
“They are Maco Indians,” stated Nara. “They were told that we intend to attack their village.”
“Macus,” Biff’s father groaned. “I knew they would catch up with us.”
“Not Macus,” corrected Nara. “Macos, who live on the upper Orinoco. But they can be just as dangerous, now that they’re sure we are their enemies.”
“Where did they get that idea?” asked Mr. Brewster.
“From three men who stopped at their village near the Casiquiare,” explained Nara, “and told them that we would come sneaking through the backwaters to the spot where we are now.”
“Serbot, Pepito, and Urubu,” Mr. Brewster decided grimly. “It must have been Pepito who stole the map in Manaus. They were unable to locate the mine on their portion of it, but they cut across our route and stirred up this tribe against us.”
“What do we do now?” put in Whitman. “Give them presents and send them away happy?”
“They won’t be happy unless they take us, too,” declared Nara. “They want us to accompany them to their village, so that their king can hear our story. He will decide whether we are guilty or innocent.”
“That means he will either find us guilty,” observed Mr. Brewster, “or he’ll put us through some ordeal where we will come out more dead than alive. Should we make a stand for it here?”
“Not a chance,” returned Nara. “Those spear tips are already poisoned. That’s why they’re boiling water, to cook up a new brew after they’ve used their spears. One false move now, and we’re goners.”
From the bristling appearance of the spears and the glares of the two dozen spearmen who now surrounded the party, it looked as though Nara was right. Impatient mutters were coming from the tribesmen while the feathered chief awaited a reply.
“We can’t fight them,” declared Mr. Brewster, “and we can’t go with them. What choice does that leave us?”
“Only one,” replied Nara calmly. “We must convince them that we have a right to be here, more right, in fact, than they have.” He turned to Ubi and Igo and announced importantly: “Tell them who I am.”
Igo and Ubi babbled in dialect with the title “El Dorado” sprinkled through it, bringing echoing exclamations of “El Dorado” from the Maco tribesmen. At the finish, Igo spoke simply to Nara:
“They say they like to see you show them.”
“I’ll show them!” Nara made a spreading gesture with his arms. “Tell them to clear the way to that big pot up there by the fire, and I’ll show them I’m El Dorado!”
As Igo translated the statement, the Maco chief ordered his followers to clear a path, which they did. Old Joe Nara strode forward, nodding his head as though his triumph was already assured.
“I hope,” said Kamuka, “that Senhor Nara can do something to help, like real El Dorado would.”
“Whatever he does,” added Biff fervently, “it will have to be good, if it’s going to help at all!”
When Joe Nara reached the big campfire, he extended his hands above the simmering kettle and swept them back and forth in slow, impressive fashion. His back was toward the half-circle of tribesmen, but now, he changed position.
First to the right, then to the left of the fire, Nara repeated his odd ritual. Finally, he stepped beyond the fire and turned to face the group through the rising steam which wavered and curled about his arms as he repeated his ceremony.
Two savage spearmen had stepped up to flank him with poised weapons, but Nara paid them no attention. Biff looked slowly around and saw that he and his father were under similar guard. So were Kamuka and Hal Whitman, as well as Jacome and the other natives. Whatever Nara might do, there would be no chance to make a run for the boats.
Now Nara was drawing his shirt sleeves clear up past his elbows. He looked like a wizened wizard as he showed one bare arm and then the other, holding his upraised hands with widespread fingers. Looking toward the sun, which was almost overhead, Nara made a clutching motion with his right hand; then a downward throw toward the kettle, as though flinging blobs of sunlight into the bubbling liquid.
Then, he boldly drove his right arm shoulder deep into the kettle, keeping it there while he stirred the boiling water with his bare arm. The tribesmen began an excited babble when they realized that Nara was unharmed. It became a shout when Nara brought his hand from the kettle and raised it high, for all to see.
From fingertips to above his elbow, Nara’s hand and arm glittered like burnished gold, catching the sparkle of the sunlight which he had seemingly captured to transform his flesh into that precious metal. Now the tribesmen were shouting recognition:
“El Dorado! El Dorado!”
Nara apparently had turned legend into fact. To prove his power, he repeated the process with his left arm. He showed it bare and white, dipped it deep into the hissing water and brought it out all golden like his right.
The cry of “El Dorado! El Dorado!” increased as Nara stalked among the Maco tribesmen, showing them his hands and arms at close range. The warriors were awed, from their chief down to the pair of spearmen who were supposed to keep Nara a prisoner—something which they had now forgotten in their amazement.
The Wai Wais remained silent. Igo, Ubi, and Nara’s other followers had seen him perform this wonder. They took his power for granted. Now, at a word from Nara, Igo and Ubi gathered up small pebbles which they showed to the Maco tribesmen.
Nara went back to the big kettle, and there he took pebbles first from Igo, then from Ubi, promptly dipping them in the bubbling brew. As he brought out the pebbles, he held them in the sunlight, showing them to be pure gold. Nara gave the magic stones to Igo and Ubi to distribute among the Maco warriors, who crowded forward to receive the gifts.
Biff found himself practically alone beside his father. In an awed tone, Biff asked, “How did Nara work that trick, Dad?”
“He stirred the water to reduce its temperature,” explained Mr. Brewster. “It had begun to boil at the top, but was still cool below. I’ve seen the Fiji Islanders do a similar stunt.”
“But how did he turn his hands and arms all golden?”
“With some dye, probably, that he dropped into the water while he was making passes over it.”
“I still can’t see how he managed to fool those natives into thinking that those colored pebbles are real gold.”
“They are real gold,” Biff’s father stated, with a smile. “Remember all those nuggets that Nara carries? I think he has been palming them from his pockets. Every time he dips a pebble into the kettle, he lets it drop and brings out a nugget instead.”
Biff watched Nara give the dip treatment to a few more pebbles, then nodded.
“I think you’re right, Dad,” said Biff, “but Nara is mighty clever at it. Only why is he handing out so many nuggets?”
“To buy our freedom, son,” returned Mr. Brewster. “Look. Nara is bargaining with the chief right now.”
The nuggets apparently weren’t enough, for the Maco chief was shaking his head emphatically. Nara promptly came up with a much bigger offer. He picked some stones the size of hen’s eggs and began passing them among the tribesmen, who nodded eagerly.
“Nara can’t possibly be carrying nuggets the size of those stones,” declared Mr. Brewster. “They’d weigh him down so he couldn’t walk. Get ready now to run for it.”
Biff passed the word to Kamuka, who relayed it to Whitman. By then, the Maco chief had accepted the ransom offer, but wanted the big stones turned to gold. Nara went to the kettle, pretended to throw in more fistfuls of sunlight, then turned to the chief and made a beckoning gesture, as he cackled:
“Come and get it!”
Headed by the chief, the tribesmen made a charge for the magic kettle, all anxious to turn their stones into gold before the pot ran out of concentrated sunlight. Nara stepped away to let them pass, then waved for Mr. Brewster and the rest to begin their own dash the opposite way.
They raced for the boats and were clambering on board, with Nara only a few yards behind them, when the milling tribesmen noticed their flight. Still, the natives were too busy to be bothered until they found that the stones refused to turn to gold. Then they threw them down and grabbed up their spears instead, but by that time the motors were spinning and the boats were under way, with Igo hauling Nara over the side of theirmonteriawhile Ubi handled the helm.
Some of the natives started a pursuit in their canoes, but the outboards soon outdistanced them. All seemed safe and serene during the next half hour, while they followed deep though sometimes narrow channels. Then, from far in the jungle behind them, came thebom-bom-bomof a savage drum.
Nara signaled for the boats to draw together for a conference. In a worried tone, old Joe announced:
“Maco drums. You can hear them for thirty or forty miles. They are telling other tribes to be on the watch for us. So be ready for trouble.” He paused, then asked Mr. Brewster in a low, confidential tone, “How did you like the golden arm trick?”
“Very good,” replied Mr. Brewster. “But these natives use paints themselves to color their faces and bodies, so I can’t understand how you fooled them with a dye.”
Biff was close enough to hear Nara’s chuckle.
“I didn’t use dye,” Nara stated. “I used a fine powder made from dried plants, sprinkled with tiny flakes of gilt, that spreads on the water like a dust. Dip your hand in and bring it out, the stuff gathers and clings like a snug rubber glove. After it dries, you wipe it off.”
Canoes on the river
Nara showed his hands, now perfectly clean; then added, “I sprinkled just about enough for myself, so those Indians didn’t get any on their own hands. They still think that I alone have the golden touch, but even my being El Dorado won’t help us now that they feel I robbed them.”
Drummers
An hour later, the drums were still throbbing when Joe Nara pointed above the jungle to a huge, flat-topped mountain that towered like a mighty mesa above the wavy green.
“Cerro Duida,” called Nara, from his boat. “One of the biggest mountains in the Parima chain, about a mile and a half high. It was a long time before anybody climbed it, because Indians are afraid to go with them, on account of the spirits they think live on top. It’s kind of tied in with the El Dorado story. Anyway, Cerro Duida is close to the Orinoco River—”
Nara broke off as some canoes came scooting from the canal banks, filled with armed natives. Motors were opened to the full, and the flotilla again outdistanced the native dugouts. But Biff, at the bow of his father’smonteria, saw new problems ahead.
“We’ve missed the main channel, Dad,” Biff called to the stem. “It’s shallow ahead, with a lot of sandbars.”
Mr. Brewster cut off his motor and signaled for the other boats to do the same.
“We’d better pole our way through,” he decided. “We still have time before those natives catch up with us, and we can’t risk getting stranded on a sandbar.”
“Watch where you push pole,” Kamuka advised Biff. “Bigsucuriamay wrap around it.”
As Kamuka pointed, Biff saw a huge anaconda lazily sunning itself on a sandbar near the canal bank. Beyond that were others; in fact, the area was alive with the giant snakes, though none appeared to be active.
Carefully, the boats were poled through the channels without disturbing the basking boas. Biff looked back and counted a dozen of them, still in repose. Snakes as well as shallows had been avoided, when Nara’s boat ran on a hidden sandbar that the others had crossed. With its heavy cargo of ore, Nara’smonteriarefused to budge.
Mr. Brewster attached lines to Nara’s boat, so that the others could haul it free. He told everybody to pole at once, and his plan seemed certain of success, when Nara shrilled:
“Look back there!”
Native canoes had come around the bend. Seeing the flotilla stuck among the sandbars, the tribesmen increased their paddle strokes. Nara grabbed a rifle and shouted to Mr. Brewster:
“Get your boats clear! I’ll fight them off!”
“Keep going!” ordered Mr. Brewster. Then, to Nara, he called: “Don’t start shooting! They outnumber us ten to one, and those spears of theirs have poison tips. Once they start throwing them, we won’t have a chance—”
It was too late. Joe Nara couldn’t be stopped, once his mind was made up. He opened fire at the canoes when they reached the first sandbar. Two dozen warriors rose to fling their deadly spears!
With the first crackle of Nara’s rifle, Mr. Brewster shouted, “Down everybody—and get ready for them!” That, Biff knew, could be more than just a shower of spears. The warriors themselves would be arriving next, with other weapons. The only hope would be a few more pole thrusts, but while that might save some of the party, it wouldn’t help Joe Nara.
It happened though, that Nara had helped himself. Those crazy shots that peppered the sandbars without coming near a canoe, unleashed a terrific force that took the native warriors by complete surprise. As they poised their spears, the sandbanks sprang into life before their eyes.
Roused by the blasts of Nara’s guns and the ping of the bullets in their sandy sunning spot, the anacondas lashed their way straight downstream in a broad horde of writhing fury that seemed to stretch like a monstrous ribbon, two hundred feet in length.