the watching men
had seen that the face, though half masked by long dark hair and a thick
beard, was much lighter than that of any Red Bone savage. And in the
hair above one ear was a white streak.

CHAPTER XX.

THE RAPOSA

McKay and Lourenco, in a broad, low, musty-smelling room, faced a man
who stood and a man who sat. The man who stood was the old savage who
could talk in the Mayoruna language. The man who sat was the chief of
the Red Bones.

In his first words to the visitors the old interpreter revealed that the
name of the Red Bone ruler was Umanuh. Later on Lourenco informed McKay
that in the Tupi _lengoa geral_ of the Amazonian Indians (which,
however, was not spoken by this tribe) the word "umanuh" meant "corpse."
And whatever the name may have signified in the language of the Red
Bones, its Tupi definition fitted with disagreeable precision. For
Umanuh was a living cadaver.

Gaunt, gray skinned, lank haired, hollow of cheek and eye, with thin,
cruel lips so tight drawn that the teeth behind seemed to show through,
ribs projecting, clawlike hands resting on bony knees, his whole frame
motionless as that of a man long dead, the head man of the bone-dyeing
tribe was the antithesis of both the piggish Suba and the herculean
Monitaya. Only his eyes lived; and those eyes were cold and merciless as
those of a snake or a vulture. A man who ruled by ruthless cunning, who
would gaze unmoved on the most ghastly tortures, who would devour human
flesh with ghoulish relish--such was the creature who sat in a red-dyed
hammock and contemplated the impassive face of McKay.

"Umanuh, great chief, eater of his enemies, with fangs of the jaguar and
wisdom of the great snake, awaits the greeting of the one-whose-hair
grows-from-his-mouth," droned the old mouthpiece of the chief.

"Makkay, leader of the fighting men of the Blackbeards, whose voice is
the thunder and whose hand spits lightning and death, gives greeting to
Umanuh," responded Lourenco in a like droning tone.

A pause. Umanuh gave no sign of life. McKay, straight and cold, met the
unwinking stare of the chief with his own chill gray gaze. Between the
two who spoke not was a testing of wills.

"Makkay brings with him none of the Blackbeard warriors," pointed out
the interpreter, who seemed to know his master's thought. "He comes with
only the jungle men of light skins."

"Makkay needs none of his own warriors when he comes in peace. If he
came in wa