HE match went out.
Once more I scraped a fresh fire-stick, and this time I gave its flame to a new torch. By the larger light we looked down into the cavity.
It was empty.
But it had not been empty long. At its edge dirt was broken away, and at the break showed fresh finger-marks; marks made by the hands of some one pulling himself up out of the pit.
Lowering the light, I examined the hole itself. It looked about five feet deep, and its sides were lined by a tube of woven sticks which would keep them from caving in.
“What is it?” asked Senhor Tom.
We told him what we had found. He nodded shortly.
“That's one of the things I thought of,” he said. “I'll tell you why after you look around some more. Get busy now, and move everything.”
But before we began a thorough search Pedro noticed something else.
“That cursed bat-mask is gone,” he pointed out.
So it was. The hideous thing had vanished.
“A queer thing for an escaping prisoner to carry off,” I said. “Perhaps, though, some one else took it. Before we go, let us see if more holes are here.”
Swiftly we moved every jar, stamped on the ground, explored the walls and the roof with our knives. We found no other hiding-place.
“Uh-huh,” said our comrade when we told him. “That ends our visit here. I thought of the possibility of a ground-hole for this reason—the Tucunas have a habit of burying their chiefs in big jars under their houses. Knowing this, it occurred to me that the medicine-man might use a burial jar, or anyway a hole in the ground, to conceal something that wasn't dead.
“If we'd come here a little sooner we might have found what we've been hunting for. Now we haven't much chance of trailing anybody until morning. No one knows what may happen before then.”
We said nothing. But I thought of that jaguar which had slipped along beside us, not quite willing to attack three men carrying fire. If he should meet a lone wanderer with no light, he might be more than willing to make his kill.
I turned toward the door. But Pedro took the smoky torch from me, lay down beside the hole, and lowered the light to the full length of his arm. Before I could puzzle out what he was doing he arose again.
“The dirt in the bottom of that hole has boot-tracks in it,” he told us. “Now if we
A noise stopped him. Shouts were rising in the clearing beyond us, where the maloca stood. One voice yelled so loud that we caught the words “anyi” and “andirah”—devil and bat.
“Bat-devil,” Pedro repeated. “The bat-mask is there at the maloca! Come!”
Grasping Senhor Tom's hands, we lunged out of the place and ran for the path leading to the tribal house.
Luckily we found it without loss of time, and very soon we had passed through the forest and emerged into the larger clearing. At the farther end of the tribal house lights flared, and it was there that the commotion was loudest. There was no doubt that the Tucunas were awake and that many of the men were outdoors with lights and weapons. But we ran on, determined now to see that prisoner in spite of Andirah and all his tribe.
Yet even as we ran we realized that the lights were fading out and that the noise was passing into the house. When we reached the farther corner and turned toward the door we saw only a number of Indians who seemed to be awaiting us. They peered at us in the light of our flickering torch. Into their faces came blank surprize.
“The whites! Tupahn!” they grunted.
No doubt they had thought our torch to be that of their pajé, running from his hut in pursuit of the escaping prisoner.
“Tell them to let us pass, senhor,” Pedro muttered. “Most of them have gone inside, and the mask also.”
Senhor Tom, though nearly out of breath after his blind run between us, had not lost his voice.
“Aye, Tupahn!” he boomed. 'We come again—to tell the Bat his pajé is a vile liar. Stand aside and let us enter!”
Staring at us, peering beyond us to see whether their priest followed, they gave way.
Through the doorway we crowded and toward the chief's fire we strode. Tucunas in our way got shoved roughly aside. The clatter of voices ahead of us quickly died. By the time we had forced our way to the central space the whole big house was quiet.
The silence was broken by Pedro's shout.
“At last! The senhorita!”