but the plan is good.
It would not be good if you followed it exactly as he laid it out, but
things have changed; and what you could not do with Peruvian companions,
or alone, you perhaps can do with us. I will show you.

"It happens that I have been twice among the cannibals living in a
certain _maloca_ which I can find again. Perhaps you know that those
people live in scattered _malocas_, each ruled by its own chief--"

"Yes, we know about that."

"Good. Now if we went to any _maloca_ where we were not known we might
be killed at once. But at that _maloca_ of which I speak I am known to
the chief and all his fighting men, for I once led them on a raid into
Peru. So they will remember me--"

"What's that?" Knowlton interrupted, in amazement. "You led a cannibal
tribe on the warpath?"

"Just so, senhor. It is a long story, but these are the facts:

"There was in Peru a gang of killers, robbers--and worse--who called
themselves the Peccaries. They raided one of the coronel's camps where I
was in charge, killed all my gang except myself and one other, and used
us two as slaves and beasts of burden.

"The other man died from poison. I lived only to revenge myself on those
foul outlaws. There was much rubber of the coronel's, worth much money
at that time, in the camp they had raided. So, after driving me like a
beast to their stronghold in the hills of Peru, they came back with
boats and Indian porters to get out that rubber.

"On that return journey I tried to kill the leader, who was called El
Amarillo--yellow-skinned. I failed, and he had me nailed with long
thorns to a tree where I might hang in torment for days, dying slowly.
See. Here are the marks."

All three of the Americans had noticed on the previous day that each of
Lourenco's hands was disfigured by a scar which looked as if a spike had
been driven through. Now he held those hands forward for their
inspection. Then he pulled off his loose shirt and rolled up his
trousers. They saw other scars in the big muscles before the armpits, in
the soft flesh under the ribs, in the thighs and calves.

"The dirty Hun!" Tim grated.

"That was not all, Senhor Tim. They also put fire ants on me, which bit
so cruelly that I nearly lost my mind from pain. Then they went on,
intending to have more sport with me when they came back with the
rubber. But after they left me two hunters of the cannibal tribe who had
been following a tapir's track found me and took me do