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Updated: June 10, 2025
Billy raised his rifle to his shoulder and the next minute would have been the savage scout's last had not old Sikaso sternly seized and lowered the weapon, saying in a tense whisper: "The time is not yet ripe, my brother. To fire now would be unnecessarily to give the alarm. Wait until they are massed thick and then fire into the bodies of the Arab dogs."
Hearken to the words of Sikaso, the elephant in his rage is not more merciless, the serpent not more cunning, the crocodile not more savage in onslaught than this other. He is Muley-Hassan, the Arab, and the deeds he has done, my brother, when recounted turn strong men's blood to water." Small wonder that Billy, as he hastily roused Lathrop, felt a shudder run through him.
He said no more, but as Frank remarked to Harry when the former recounted his conversation to his brother later: "I shouldn't much like to be that man when Sikaso meets him."
With a few rapid strokes they were in midstream and paddling up the river with powerful strokes while Sikaso raged impotently on the shore. "Oh for one of the white men's fire-tubes!" he sighed, and even as he spoke a sharp reminder of the efficiency of these same "fire-tubes" whizzed past his ear in the shape of a bullet from Diego's revolver.
"Why could you not show us more smoke pictures Sikaso?" asked Harry eagerly. "I have no more of the powder left," replied the old Krooman bending over his beloved axe and feeling the edge with a critical thumb. "Moreover, the smoke does not reveal the future." There was, naturally enough, no thought of sleep that night, and so excited were the boys that they did not even feel the want of it.
To the great joy of old Sikaso, who regarded it as a personal vindication of his powers, every detail of the trip through the subterranean river and the subsequent peril into which they had fallen was substantiated by Billy and Lathrop as having occurred exactly as it did in the smoke pictures. But there was a note of sadness amid all their joy in the death of the old explorer.
In a few steps the old black was beside his young leader and with a couple of strokes of his keen blade had set him free. "Quick, Sikaso; the canoes we must pursue him. Call the boys and Ben while I cast off the canoes. Quick, we have not a minute to lose."
"How can I ever thank you," he said. "Um white boys keep away Pool of Death, Sikaso much pleased," replied the Krooman turning slowly away with a sad expression on his face. "His own son was drowned in it several years ago," said M. Desplaines briefly.
To find it they would have to trust to persistence and a modicum of luck. Old Sikaso, who had, of course, never seen anything even remotely resembling an aeroplane, stood apart from the excited group clustered about the big craft and gazed at it with astonishment, not unmixed with awe.
Harry looked abashed and said nothing. If old Sikaso had heard any of this colloquy he made no sign, but with the face of a graven image went about his preparations. Slowly he struck the sparks from his never-failing flint and steel, and a few seconds later the little fire was sending up a blaze. "Do you see anything?" asked Frank.
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