r
other of the air-voyagers, naught was seen to confirm the assertion made
by the younger Gillespie.

For the moment that fact or fancy dominated all other interests, for,
granting that Waldo had not been misled by a naturally fair Indian face,
there was room for a truly startling inference.

"Could it actually be they?" muttered Bruno, face pale and eyes
glittering with intense interest. "Could they have escaped with life
from the balloon, and been here ever since?"

"You mean--"

"The wife and child of Cooper Edgecombe,--yes! Who else could they be,
unless--I'd give a pretty penny for one fair squint at them, right now!
If there was only some method of--It would hardly do to venture down
yonder, uncle Phaeton?"

The professor gave a stern gesture of denial, frowning as though he
anticipated an actual break for yonder town, in spite of the odds
against them.

"That would be madness, Bruno! Worse than madness, by far! Look at
yonder warriors, all thoroughly armed, and eager to drink blood as ever
they were in centuries gone by! They are hundreds, if not thousands,
while we are but three! Madness, my boy!"

"Four, with Mr. Edgecombe, uncle."

"And that means a complete host so long as we are backed up by the
air-ship," declared Waldo, in his turn. "Those fellows!" with a sniff of
true boyish scorn for aught that was not fully up to date. "What could
they do, if we were to open fire on them just once?"

"Prove our equals, man for man, armed as they assuredly are," just
as vigorously affirmed the professor, inclined rather to magnify than
diminish the importance of these, his so recently discovered people.
"You forget how the Aztecans fought Cortez and his mailed hosts. Yet
these are one and identical, so far as valour and training and blood can
go."

"Huh! Scared of a runty horse so badly that they prayed to 'em as they
did to their own gods!" sniffed Waldo, betraying a lore for which he did
not ordinarily receive fair credit. "Why, uncle Phaeton, let you just
slam one o' those dynamite shells inside a chief--"

"Nay, Waldo, must I repeat, we are not here for the purpose of conquest,
unless by purely amicable methods. There must be no fighting, for or
against. Savages though most people would be inclined to pronounce
yonder race, they are human, with souls and--"

"But I always thought they were heathens, uncle Phaeton?"

The professor subsided at that, giving over as worse than useless the
attempt to en