Tip Top Library: Frank Merriwell in the South Seas — page 30: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

28 As is always the case in the tropics, light came with remarkable suddenness. Almost before they were aware of it, the party on the /rzcess could distin- guish not only trees and stretches of open land, but moving figures that were pres- ently made out to be human beings. Through the glass they could be seen gathering in a crowd nearthe shore. It was evident they were excited by the presence of the yacht and that they were preparing for some kind of action. “Tet me take the glass a moment, please, uncle,’’ said Maud. ‘Wait! he answered, rather oruffly, keeping the glass to hiseye. ‘‘Frank!’’ he exclaimed shortly afterward, ‘‘we must go on shore at once.”’ He put the glass in its case and strode aft to where sailors were making ready to lower a boat from the davits. Maud looked after him regretfully. She was more than ever convinced of his un- fairness. In an undertone Mr. Gillette said to Frank: | ‘‘T have seen the high priest. It is my brother!” Frank made no reply to this, but after another glance at the shore he remarked: ‘ST wouldn’t be in a hurry, Mr. Gu- lette. I think they’re coming out to us, and probably they mean to attack us.’’ Again Mr. Gillette raised the glass to ‘his eye. | ‘Wes? he said. ‘‘They’re shoving out a boat—two boats, and pretty much all the blacks are getting in. Hello!”’ ‘What now??? ‘The high priest was looking this way through a spyglass! Well; why not?, Harry might have taken any number of such things with him. Ah! he’s leaving the shore after some words to the men in the boats. He’s gone under cover of the trees. Well, they’re coming out-to us. Will it be fight?” “Tt looks so,’? answered Frank, who was also looking through a glass. Unknown to them, Maud had obtained S a glass from the skipper’s room and she was looking also. She, too, had seen the white high priest and she recognized him! | ) FRANK MERRIWELL IN THE SOUTH SEAS. CHAPTER VIII. IN THE VOLCANO’S CRATER. Mr. Gillette ground his teeth together at Frank’s fast remark. | ‘*T don’t want unnecessary bloodshed,’’ he muttered. ‘‘Perhapsit would be better to hoist anchor and steam away until nightfall. Then we might make a land- ing unobserved.”? Oo ‘T can’t think you really mean that, Mr. Gillette,;’’ responded Frank. ‘“‘If the savages are bold enough to make an open fight of it, what wouldn’t they do if we should come at them in the dark? See through it now, I say, and we'll get along without bloodshed, too, I’m think- ing.” “How will you manage it? Not with that.’’ Mr. Gillette referred to Frank’s revol- ver, which the boy had produced, and which he was examining to see whether its charges were in condition for use. ‘SVes, with this. You'll see.”’ For several minutes, then, they watched in silence. The two boatloads of savages came nearer and nearer, und when they were within a hundred yards of the Princess they set up a shouting and wild gesturing that could not be mus- taken. plainly as if English words had been spoken, that the yacht must be put about. The rude weapons they brandished and the cries they uttered showed that, trust- ing to their superior numbers—for there was not Jess than forty men in each boat— they expected to overcome all resistance and set the yacht afire! | “The fiends!’? cried Mr. Gillette. They are driven mad by their heathen religion.’ ‘““That’s about it,’? Frank responded as he aimed his revolver at one of the boats. ‘“‘If there was any sign that they came on a peaceable errand I wouldn’t do this, but they mean business, so here oes.”? , He fired. The report was followed by shrill cries of contempt from the savages. They cared not for bullets. Excited by their high priest into believing that their sacred mountain was in danger, they were willing to die in defense of it. ) But Frank’s bullet was not meant -to EOMNICLDOS Wr c¢ Their waving: arms, implied as: (CO