Captain Jinks, Hero by Ernest Howard Crosby (story read aloud txt) 📕

“How can you explain that? It’s most surprising!” cried Sam.

“Well, they’re more impressible, for one thing. You can work them up into any kind of passion you want to. Then they’re more submissive to discipline; they’re used to being ordered about and kicked and cuffed, and they don’t mind it. Besides, they’re accustomed from their low social position to be subordinate to superiors, and rather expect it than not. They are all poor, too, and used to poor food and ragged clothes and no comforts, and of course they don’t complain of what they get from us.”

“You mean,” said Cleary, “that the lower a man is in the scale of society the better soldier he makes.”

“Well,” answered the colonel, “I hadn’t ever put it just in that light, but that’s about the size of it. These darkies are great hands at carrying concealed weapons, too. If it isn’t a razor it’s something else, and if there’s a row going on they will get mixed up in it, but they’re none the worse as soldiers for that.”

“Let’s go up to that point there and take the moonlight view before we turn in,” suggested Cleary.

The others agreed, and they began to climb a path leading up to the right. It was much more of a climb than they had expected, and when they had become quite blown they sat down to recover their breath.

“I think we’d better go back,” said Colonel James. “We may lose our way, and it isn’t safe here. The Moritos are known to be thick in these mountains, and they might find us.”

“Oh, let’s go a little farther,” said Cleary, and they set out to climb again.

“The path seems to stop here,” said Sam, who was in the lead. “This must be the top, but I don’t see any place for a view. Perhaps we’d better go back.”

Cleary did not repeat his objection, and they began to retrace their steps. For some time they went on in silence.

“The path begins to go uphill here,” said Cleary, who now led. “I don’t understand this. We didn’t go downhill at all.”

“I think we did for a short distance,” answered Sam.

They went on, still ascending.

“There doesn’t seem to be any path here,” said Cleary. “Do you see it?”

His companions were obliged to admit that they did not.

“We’d better call for help,” said Sam, and the three men began to shout at the top of their voices, but there was no reply. An hour must have elapsed while they were engaged in calling, and their voices became husky, but all in vain.

“Hist!” said Cleary at last. “I think I hear someone coming. I heard the branches move. They have sent out for us, thank fortune! I didn’t like the idea of sleeping out here and making the acquaintance of snakes and catching fevers.”

The words, were hardly out of his mouth when three shadowy figures sprang out of the bushes and grasped each of the three men from behind, holding their elbows back so that they could not use their arms, and in a moment a veritable swarm of long-haired, half-clad Moritos were upon them, pinioning them and emptying their pockets and belts. It was quite useless to make any resistance, the attack had been too sudden and unexpected. Cleary cried out once, but they made him understand that, if he did it again, they would stab him with one of their long knives. When the captives were securely bound, the captors began to discuss the situation in their own language, which was the only language they understood. There was evidently some difference of opinion, but after a few minutes they came to some kind of an agreement. The legs of the prisoners were unbound, and they were made to march through the jungle, each one with two guards behind him, who pricked him with their lances if he did not move fast enough. Their only other arms seemed to be bows and arrows. The march was a very weary one, and through a wild, mountainous country which would have been impassable for men who did not know it thoroughly. Occasionally they seemed to be following obscure paths, but as often there was no sign of a track, and the thick, tropical vegetation made progress difficult. For an hour or two they climbed up the half-dry bed of a mountain torrent, and more than once they were ankle-deep in swampy ground. The Moritos passed through the jungle with the agility and noiselessness of cats, but the three white men floundered along as best they could. Their captors uttered never a word and would not allow them to speak.

The sun was just rising over a wilderness of mountains when they came to a small clearing in the woods, apparently upon a plateau near the top of a mountain. In this clearing there were a number of isolated trees, in each one of which, at about twenty feet above the ground, was a native hut, looking like a huge bird’s nest. A small crowd of natives, including women and children, ran toward them shouting, and now for the first time the men of the returning party began to talk too. Some of them tied the legs of their prisoners again and sat them down on the ground, while the others rehearsed the history of their exploit. It was a curious scene to witness. The men as well as the women wore their long, coarse hair loose to the waist. Some of the men had feathers stuck in their hair, and all of them were grotesquely tattooed.

“I wonder if they’re cannibals?” said Cleary, for there seemed to be an opportunity now for conversation.

“I don’t think there are any in this part of the country,” said Colonel James. “Here comes our breakfast anyway.”

All the inhabitants of the village had been inspecting the captives with great interest, especially the women and children. Two women now came running from the group