Читать книгу Jaragu of the Jungle - Rex Beach - Страница 6

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Sunshine stared incredulously at the fallen figure of Captain Adams. It was the first time he had seen his employer unconscious.

“Hey!” he called to Jaragu. “Come he’p me get the cap’n up agin!”

Jaragu frowned. He missed in the dark boy’s pronunciation much of the familiar sound that he had recognized in the white man’s speech. Yet the words were still remotely like something he once had known. He realized that the black boy was asking for help—that was it, HELP.

“Yes,” Jaragu whispered. “Yes. I HELP.”

Saying the words was like a magic touch inside him. They warmed his inner being and gave him renewed pride and confidence. Energetically he drove his spear into the sand and bent to help Sunshine lift the unconscious white man. Together the two lads carried Captain Adams to the beached cayuca.

Putting the man into the boat, Jaragu pushed off while Sunshine sat in the bow.

About an hour later, Jaragu ran his light craft up on the beach close by the big house of Chief Chingana, in whose household the boy had lived since his mother’s death. The rain had stopped and the wind had blown itself out during their journey from the scene of the crash to the village on the south side of the cay.

The natives gathered quickly as the news spread that Jaragu had brought two strangers to the village and was leading them to the house of the chief. A runner meanwhile went ahead to bring word to the old chief that Jaragu of the fair hair was bringing strangers to speak with him.

Chief Chingana was an old man with shrunken skin and sharp, cunning little eyes peering out from their shriveled sockets beneath bushy eyebrows overgrown with the years. He awaited their coming in the large circular room of the Great House which was his palace. Behind him stood the old men of the tribe, his counselors. They had been hastily summoned to help decide the fate of the strange visitors.

Several young men stood around the sides of the room. They held burning torches aloft, for there were no windows. The flickering yellow light gave the interior of the Great House a menacing and forbidding appearance. The expressions on the faces of the Indians took on a sinister cast.

Jaragu, assisted by Sunshine, carried Captain Adams into the council room and laid him gently on a pile of matting. Sunshine eyed the silent group of natives and muttered something under his breath to Jaragu.

“Yo’ may be all right,” he whispered, “but yo’r frien’s looks to me like dey’d be mighty pleased to feed us foreign folks to de croc’diles, yes, suh.”

Jaragu puzzled over Sunshine’s words without understanding them. They sounded vaguely familiar, but he was unable to make any sense out of them.