"I'm not joking, Naomi." His tone was serious, his face unsmiling.
"Do you mean to say that you expect me, Naomi Madison, to peel potatoes, wait on tables, and wash dishes! Don't be ridiculous—I shall do nothing of the kind."
"Be yourself, Naomi! Before Milt Smith discovered you you were slinging hash in a joint on Main Street; and you'll do it again here, or you won't eat." He turned and walked away.
During breakfast Naomi Madison sat in haughty aloofness in the back seat of an automobile. She did not wait on table, nor did she eat.
Americans and Arabs formed the advance and rear guards when the safari finally got under way; but the crew that cut trail was wholly American —the Arabs would fight, but they would not work; that was beneath their dignity.
Not until the last kitchen utensil was washed, packed, and loaded did Rhonda Terry go to the car in which she and Naomi Madison rode. She was flushed and a little tired as she entered the car.
Naomi eyed her with compressed lips. "You're a fool, Rhonda," she snapped. "You shouldn't have lowered yourself by doing that menial work. We were not employed to be scullery maids."
Rhonda nodded toward the head of the column. "There probably isn't anything in those boys' contracts about chopping down trees or fighting cannibals." She took a paper-wrapped parcel from her bag. "I brought you some sandwiches. I thought you might be hungry."
The Madison ate in silence, and for a long time thereafter she seemed to be immersed in thought.
The column moved slowly. The axe men were not accustomed to the sort of work they were doing, and in the heat of the equatorial forest they tired quickly. The trail opened with exasperating slowness as though the forest begrudged every foot of progress that they made.
Orman worked with his men, wielding an axe when trees were to be felled, marching with the advance guard when the trail was opened.
"Tough goin'," remarked Bill West, leaning his axe handle against his hip and wiping the perspiration from his eyes.
"This isn't the toughest part of it," replied Orman.
"How come?"
"Since the guides scrammed we don't know where we're goin'."
West whistled. "I hadn't thought of that."
As they trudged on an opening in the forest appeared ahead of them shortly after noon. It was almost treeless and covered with a thick growth of tall grass higher than a man's head.
"That certainly looks good," remarked Orman. "We ought to make a little time for a few minutes."
The leading truck forged into the open, flattening the grass beneath its great tires.
"Hop aboard the trucks!" Orman shouted to the advance guard and the axe men. "Those beggars won't bother us here; there are no trees to hide them."
Out into the open moved the long column of cars. A sense of relief from the oppressive closeness of the forest animated the entire company.
And then, as the rearmost truck bumped into the clearing, a shower of arrows whirred from the tall grasses all along the line. Savage war cries filled the air; and for the first time the Bansutos showed themselves, as their spearmen rushed forward with screams of hate and blood lust.
A driver near the head of the column toppled from his seat with an arrow through his heart. His truck veered to the left and went careening off into the midst of the savages.
Rifles cracked, men shouted and cursed, the wounded screamed. The column stopped, that every man might use his rifle. Naomi Madison slipped to the floor of the car. Rhonda drew her revolver and fired into the faces of the onrushing blacks. A dozen men hurried to the defense of the car that carried the two girls.
Some one shouted, "Look out! They're on the other side too." Rifles were turned in the direction of the new threat. The fire was continuous and deadly. The Bansutos, almost upon them, wavered and fell back. A fusillade of shots followed them as they disappeared into the dense grass, followed and found many of them.
It was soon over; perhaps the whole affair had not lasted two minutes. But it had wrought havoc with the company. A dozen men were dead or dying, a truck was wrecked, the morale of the little force was shattered.
Orman turned the command of the advance guard over to West and hurried back down the line to check up on casualties. O'Grady was running forward to meet him.
"We'd better get out of here, Tom," he cried; "those devils may fire the grass."
Orman paled. He had not thought of that. "Load the dead and wounded onto the nearest cars, and get going!" he ordered. "We'll have to check up later."
The relief that the party had felt when they entered the grassy clearing was only equaled by that which they experienced when they left it to pull into the dense, soggy forest where the menace of fire, at least, was reduced to a minimum.
Then O'Grady went along the line with his roster of the company checking the living and the dead. The bodies of Noice, Baine, seven other Americans and three Arabs were on the trucks.
"Obroski!" shouted O'Grady. "Obroski! Has any one seen Obroski?"
"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Gordon Z. Marcus. "I saw him. I remember now. When those devils came up on our left, he jumped out of the other side of the car and ran off into that tall grass."
Orman started back toward the rear of the column. "Where you goin', Tom?" demanded West.
"To look for Obroski."
"You can't go alone. I'll go with you."
Half a dozen others accompanied them, but though they searched for the better part of an hour they found no sign of Obroski either dead or alive.
Silent, sad, and gloomy, the company found a poor camping site late in the afternoon. When they spoke, they spoke in subdued tones, and there was no joking or laughing. Glumly they sat at table when supper was announced, and few appeared to notice and none commented upon the fact that the famous Naomi Madison waited on them.
8. THE COWARD
WE are all either the victims or the beneficiaries of heredity and environment. Stanley Obroski was one of the victims. Heredity had given him a mighty physique, a noble bearing, and a handsome face. Environment had sheltered and protected him throughout his life. Also, every one with whom he had come in contact had admired his great strength and attributed to him courage commensurate to it.
Never until the past few days had Obroski been confronted by an emergency that might test his courage, and so all his life he had been wondering if his courage would measure up to what was expected of it when the emergency developed.
He had given the matter far more thought than does the man of ordinary physique because he knew that so much more was expected of him than of the ordinary man. It had become an obsession together with the fear that he might not live up to the expectations of his admirers. And finally he became afraid —afraid of being afraid.
It is a failing of nearly all large men to be keenly affected by ridicule. It was the fear of ridicule, should he show fear, rather than fear of physical suffering, that Obroski shrank from, though perhaps he did not realize this. It was a psyche far too complex for easy analysis.
But the results were disastrous. They induced a subconscious urge to avoid danger rather than risk showing fear and thus inducing ridicule.
And when the first shower of arrows fell among the cars of the safari Obroski leaped from the opposite side of the automobile in which he was riding and disappeared among the tall grasses that hemmed them in on both sides. His reaction to danger had been entirely spontaneous—a thing beyond his will.
As he pushed blindly forward he was as unthinking as a terrified animal bent only upon escape. But he had covered only a few yards when he ran directly into the arms of a giant black warrior.