sing screech of
diabolical fury blended with a swift succession of splashes back where
the cannibals were plunging headlong into the stream to reach the dead
or wounded men whom they vainly hoped to find on the farther shore.

"I told you to take this man and go!" McKay fumed. "By disobeying orders
you risked losing him."

"Oh, pipe down, Rod!" remonstrated Knowlton. "If they had, where'd we be
now? This was the last canoe."

"_Si._ It is so," added Lourenco, his voice hard edged. "As it is, the
man and the equipment and you also are here. And let me tell you this,
Capitao Makkay, whether you like it or not: Pedro and I would see this
wild man and a million others like him in a hotter place than this
before we would abandon fighting comrades."

To which McKay, finding no adequate answer, made none whatever.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE SIREN OF WAR

Like a fleet manned by sightless sailors the line of boats blundered on
through the blackness. With no guiding light, the canoes bumped the
banks and collided with one another in perilous confusion. Speed was
impossible, yet speed was imperative. Knowlton and his little flashlight
solved the problem.

"Say, fellows, let's take the lead," he suggested. "This little light
isn't much, but it's something, and there are some extra batteries in my
haversack when this burns out. We can see a little way ahead, and pass
back the word to the rest. What say?"

"_Na terra dos cegos quem tem um olho e rei_--in blindman's land he who
has one eye is king," said Pedro. "That little white eye in your box may
save us all. Lourenco, tell those ahead to let us pass."

Without question the preceding dugouts swerved, and the boat of the
white men slipped by. At the head of the line they found Tucu and his
crew struggling manfully to make progress without wrecking the whole
fleet at the turns. Vast relief and instant acceptance of the new
leadership followed Lourenco's explanation. At once the floating column
began to pick up speed. And it was well that it did.

Howls of baffled hate came faintly through the tree mass from the Red
Bone town. Some time later more yells of rage sounded, much nearer--back
at a place on the creek which the last boat had cleared only a few
minutes previously. Some of the Umanuh men had made torches and run
along one of the Red Bone trails to a bend in the stream, only to find
the water bare of everything but dying ripples.

Whether the enemy attempted to