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Updated: May 11, 2025
Before she could speak, and at the moment Ashman turned his head, a giant figure was seen to rise as if out of the very earth, directly behind the miscreant. He held his prodigious javelin poised over his bead. He was seen to make a sudden onward movement and then the weapon vanished.
The lank jaws were still parted and dripped foam, as the lion continued his cavernous growls, while his ears lying flat on his head in the manner peculiar to the feline species, the bristling spine and the lashing of the tail gave the beast the appearance of a bundle of concentrated fury, as indeed he was. Fred Ashman was struck almost breathless by what followed.
"I don't believe it," Ashman hastened to say, hopeful that such was the case; for, with two white men and their firearms, the peril of his friends must have been greatly increased. "Why do you seek to enter our country?" asked the dusky giant, after a brief pause. "We want to learn about your people; but I pledge you we wish not to harm a hair of their heads."
Ashman turned to his companion with the question, what course he should take, and, without speaking, she pointed to the rock which she saw had attracted his attention. Very slight effort was required to propel the delicate craft, which seemed to become sentient, and to move forward in obedience to the wishes of its occupants.
He paused, however, at a point where he had a full view not only of the camp but of the river and dark shore beyond. The sight which met his gaze was not calculated to soothe his nerves. From some cause Bippo, Pedros and Quincal seemed to have been seized with a panic, hardly less than that produced among their countrymen by the discharge of the firearms of Ashman.
It was enough that they had found it, and were now pressing forward along the very ridge on which they had halted, and stood gazing back in amazement and horror, unable for the moment to divine what could be done to help themselves. But Ashman needed but a few seconds to decide his course. He held his Winchester and revolver and was ready to die in the defence of the idol of his heart.
"Same ones same ones; don't know how cross riber, but allee same do so," repeated Bippo, with a grin. By this time the swiftly moving canoe was well on the way to the camp which it had left so abruptly, and, a minute later, Ashman sprang out and grasped the hand of each of his friends in turn.
As he did so, he found himself face to face with a white man, who, stepping from the shadow, held his Winchester leveled at him in an exceedingly suggestive fashion. If Fred Ashman had been astonished before, what words shall describe his amazement when the dusky Hercules, calmly staring at him for a moment, said in unmistakable English, "I surrender."
Such an eternal conflagration must have an outlet for the vast quantity of vapor generated, and Ashman wondered that he had not noticed the ascending smoke on his way thither. He recalled that when he and his friend were coming up the Xingu, far below the last rapids, they observed a dark cloud resting in the western horizon.
Both were nearly exhausted, for they had had a tiresome tramp, during all of which they were under a severe mental strain. They felt that, at last, they could sit down and rest themselves before resuming their journey. "The next thing to be done," said Ashman as he imprisoned the hand of Ariel and drew her head upon his shoulder, "is to find some boat in which we can float down stream.
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