Boy's Cinema (1930-31)

fflassos. Tell us what witch doctor is doing.'' The black giant; took the field-glasses and held them to his ejxs as he had often seen the professor do. He focused them on the tattooed medicine man, and watched him .solemnly for a full minute ere turning to the white men again. "Owando, witch doctor, ho tell his people their god angry," he said slowly. "He tell them go out and kill white men." "Give me those glasses again," Pro- fessor Adams rapped out, and, peering through them once more, he again riveted his attention on the witch doctor Owando. As ho followed the medicine man's antics a, new sound was heard. Louder than the drums, louder than the roar of any lion, it broke over the entire island, and must have been audible far out to sea—a deep rumbling that seemed to belong to those primeval days when the earth was in the making. Profe.s.sor Adams and his companions knew well enough what it was. It was the voice of a volcanic mountain to the north, whence they had come, and during the last day or two they had heard it at frequent intervals. But if it did not impress the white men and Cebu, its etfect on Owando and his warriors was marked. For they ceased their capering for an instant and gazed with superstitious awe towards the distant, smouldering pinnacle of the mountain. "Fire-god talks, baas," Cebu muttered uneasily. "Owando, he say black man's Fire-god tell bush people to kill whites." Professor Adams was scarcely listen- ing. Through the glasses he now saw Owando snatch up a black object twice the size of a man's fist, a tarry substance with a peculiar lu.stre, and as the witch doctor held this aloft the warriors danced towards him and struck their weapons of war against it in accordance with some ancient rite. "The old devil!" Adams ejaculated. "He's got a piece of pitchblende in his hands. No doubt it contains enough radium to save hundreds of human lives with its healing properties. And here's I his black i-uffian using it to incite his men to kill !" Even as he spoke the bushmen began to rush to and fro, abandoning the clear- ing to plunge into the jungle veiling fiendishly as they ran, and shaking assegai, club and bow with unmistakable significance. "They're scattering in all directions!" gasped the professor. "There's a body of them coming this way. We've got to make our way to the coast and find some means of leaving the island. Cebu— Cebu—you've brought us this far, can you guide us out of this accursed jungle?" Cebu pointed to a track that branched from the one they had been following. The giant negro's face was an impassive mask that concealed the terror he must have felt. "Try this way," he said. "Gomel" Flight Through the Jungle. THE bush seemed alive with sound and movement, voices chanting a chorus of doom, black forms flit- ting hither and thither like hell-fiends. Professor Adams, Ramage and Cebu stumbled forward doggedly, the horror of pursuit at their very heels. Alone, Cebu might have made good progress, but the two white men were handi- rajjped by the weight of thick-.solcd boots. Meanwhile, Owando's warriors were drawing ever nearer, travelling hot-foot with the rapidity of a people bred to the jungle. "They're close behind," Ramago kept November 28th, 1931. BOY'S CINEMA saying over and over again. "They'll sight us any moment." And those words were on his lips when a party of half a dozen savages burst into a patch of open ground across which the fugitives were running. A yell went up, and Adams and his companions half-turned. The blacks had checked, and one had fitted an arrow to his bow. Even as Cebu and the white men were in the act of wheeling to con- tinue their flight into the bush the shaft sped on its mission of death, and the heavy blade of the arrow tore into the professor's breast. A sharp ciy of agony broke from the scientist's lips, and he pitched to the groutrd. Ramage and Cebu immediately stopped and bent over him, the former haggard with anxiety. "They've got me," the professor moaned. " They've got me " With a strong, firm pull, Ramage wrenched the arrow from the old man's body. Then, with Cebu's assistance, he raised him. At the other side of the little clear- ing another of the savages had fitted an arrow and was preparing to send it on its way. But Ramage caught sight of him, and, throwing aside the missile that had struck the professor, he plucked a revolver from a holster at his belt. He fired, and the blast of the gun challenged the exulting howls of the bushmen. The bullet thudded into the dusky chest of the savage who was in the act of drawing bow, and with a giamt the warrior staggered back. The arrow leapt from his fingers as he fell heavily, but it flashed harmlessly towards the shimmering blue vault of the sky, and when it had spent itself dropped somewhere into the heart of the jungle. A shriek of execration burst from the other blacks, but in face of the " thun- derstick " in Ramage's fist they hesi- tated. While they stood there wavering, Ramage and Cebu seized the oppor- tunity of dragging the professor into the bush. The tangled vegetation swallowed them, and at the same moment the party of blacks at the other side of the clearing were joined by another and larger body of tribesmen. Howling murderously for blood, the savages swept forward. Carrying Professor Adams between them, Ramage and Cebu reeled on. But they realised the folly of keeping to the beaten tracks, as they knew that they must speedily be overtaken with their burden, and so they swerved aside and crashed through a mass of jungle fronds and creepers. Tree-apes chattered at them from lofty boughs, but the fugitives had no ears for those animal voices. They were on the alert for sounds of piu-suit, and it was with indescribable relief that they heard their enemies surging in full cry along the path which they had aban- doned. Ramage and Cebu toiled through the thickets with a dead weight hangmg on their arms. It was an appalling trek, this blazing of a new trail through the dusky jungle—for two encumbered men, a titanic endeavour that sapped the strength even from the giant negro's magnificent physique. Fibrous creepers tripped them, and thorny tendrils whipped and tore their flesh. Time and again they had to lay the professor down and tear a pathway with their bare hands. Sometimes they were confronted with impenetrable barriers of giant flora that might have resisted an axe, and were forced to change their course. They paused at last, from very exhaus- tion, and lowered Professor Adams to the ground. Ho was conecious, and his Every Tuesday eyes were open, but a mass of blood had congealed on his shirt and he waa veiy weak. The jungle was still, and the sound of savage cries came but faintly tp their °ars, cries in which a baffled tone was distinguishable. For the time being, at least, the pursuers had been thrown off the scent. "They've lost track of us," Ramage breathed hoarsely. "We'd better keep going as long as we can." "Wait," Adams pleaded, as they made to lift him again—" wait " He reached inside his shirt, and, stifling a groan, drew out a faded paper, which proved to be a chart when ho opened it with trembling fingere. It was a map of the island on which so many of his companions had met their doom, and wrapped in it was a frag- ment of that same lustrous black sub- stance that the witch doctor, Owando, had used to incite the bushmen. " Ramage," the professor said, speak- ing with difficulty, "this chart—already stained with the blood of my ancestors— must go back to civilisation—whatever happens to me. It must be—pre- served " "I understand, professor," Ramage answered, urging him with a gesture to thrust both map and pitchblende back inside his shirt. "But we must get out of here." " This chart," the old man persisted— "this chart and this piece of pitchblende —must go to my daughter Bonnie— Bonnie " "Yes, yes, professor; I'll attend to it." Ramage turned to Cebu, and: "Come on," he added, "give me a hand with him. We've got to get him out of here!" They raised the old man, and once again pushed on through the eternal gloom of the bush. Bound for Danger Island. AT the other side of the world, a group of people whose lives were linked up with Professor Adams' enterprise were gathered in the drawing- room of the scientist's New Jersey home. They included Bonnie, the professor's blonde and lovely daughter, and Dr. Adams, his brother. There were two others in the room, a man and a girl, both in the late twenties. The man, tall, dark, and in some respects handsome, was Ben Arnold, who had formed a friendship with the Adams family some time prior to the professor's departure on his. ill-fated expedition to Africa. The girl, Arlene Chandos, was a pale, slender brunette, who had for the last year or so acted as a companion to Bonnie. . They were standing around a globe that represented the world, and Ben Arnold was turning it on its pivot. " You see, Bonnie," he was saying, "the island we think your father is on is not charted on this map. But it lies about here." He laid his finger on a point just off the coast of Angola, where the barbarous Congo River empties its sluggisli waters into the sea. " And it is known as Danger Island." Bonnie, nodded, and bent her blonde head over the globe. "Captain Drake, my new skipper," Ben Arnold continued, " knows eveiy inch of that coast. With him in com- mand we're sure to find your father—if he's alive." Bonnie looked up swiftly, and just for , an instant an expression of dismay was written on her lovely face. "Oh, he must bo alive, Ben!" she said, with more hope than convictioii in her voice. "Don't you think so. Uncle Anthony?" she added, tuitiing to Dr. Adams. "Oh, I'm convinced my brother is