Most of the women stared, an’ the kids scampered away when they seen me look toward ’em; but that was all. The men took me for granted.
Chapter 3
Guardians of Gold
The girl took me to a hut. In one corner was a frame of wood with animal skins stretched over it. There were all kinds of skins. Some of ’em I knew, more of ’em I didn’t.
She squeaked out some words an’ then there was some more jabberin’ in a quaverin’ voice, an’ an old woman came an’ brought me fruits.
I squatted down on my heels the way the natives did, an’ tried to eat the fruit. My stomach was still pretty full of salt water an’ sand, but the fruit tasted good. Then they gave me a half a coconut shell filled with some sort of creamy liquid that had bubbles comin’ up in it. It tasted sort of sour, but it had a lot of authority. Ten minutes after I drank it I felt my neck snap back. It was the delayed kick, an’ it was like the hind leg of a mule.
“Come,” says the jane, an’ led the way again out into the openin’.
I followed her, across the openin’ into the jungle, along a path, past the shore of a lagoon, and up into a little canon. Here the trees were thicker than ever except on the walls of the canon itself. There’d been a few dirt slides in that canon, an’ in one or two places the rock had been stripped bare. After a ways it was all rock.
An’ then we came to somethin’ that made my eyes stick out. There was a ledge o’ rock an’ a vein o’ quartz in it. The vein was just shot with gold, an’ in the center it was almost pure gold. The quartz was crumbly, an’ there were pieces of it scattered around on the ground. The foliage had been cleared away, an’ the ground was hard. There was a fire goin’ near the ledge an’ some clay crucibles were there. Then there was a great bellows affair made out of thick, oiled leather. It was a big thing, but all the air came out of a little piece of hollow wood in the front.
I picked up one of the pieces of quartz. The rock could be crumbled between the fingers, an’ it left the gold in my hand. The gold was just like it showed in the rock, spreadin’ out to form sort of a tree. There must have been fifty dollars’ worth in the piece o’ rock that I crumbled up in my fingers.
I moved my hands around fast an’ managed to slip the gold in my tom shirt. The girl was watchin’ me with those funny, liquid eyes of hers, but she didn’t say a word.
There was a great big pile of small sticks between me an’ the ledge of gold. I figured it was kindlin’ wood that they kept for the fire. But finally my eyes got loose from the ledge of gold an’ what should I see but the sticks movin’. I looked again, an’ then I saw somethin’ else.
It was a big ant heap made outa sticks an’ sawdust. Some of those sticks were eight or ten inches long and half an inch around. And the whole place was swarming with ants. They had their heads stickin’ out of the little holes between the sticks.
They must be big ants, I thought; but I was interested in that gold ledge. There must have been millions of dollars in it. I took a couple of steps toward it, an’ then the ant heap just swarmed with life.
They were big ants covered with sort of a white wool and they came out of there like somebody had given ’em an order.
The girl shrieked somethin’ in a high-pitched voice, but I didn’t know whether it was at me or the ants.
The ants swarmed into two columns of maybe eight or ten abreast in each column, an’ they started for me, swingin’ out in a big circle as though one was goin’ to come on one side, an’ one on the other.
An’ then they stopped. The girl ran forward an’ put her arms on my shoulders an’ started caressin’ me, pattin’ my hair, cooin’ soft noises in my ears.
I thought maybe she’d gone cuckoo, an’ I looked into her eyes, but they weren’t lookin’ at me, they were lookin’ at the ants, an’ they were wide with fear.
An’ the ants were lookin’ at her. I could see their big eyes gazin’ steadylike at her. Then somethin’ else must have been said to ’em, although I did not hear anything. But all at once, just like an army presentin’ arms in response to an order, they threw up their long feelers an’ waved ’em gently back an’ forth. Then the girl took me by the arm an’ moved me away.
“I should have told you,” she said, “never to go past the line of that path. The ants guard the yellow metal, and when one comes nearer than that they attack. There is no escape from those ants. I took you to them so you could help me with the feed. Now we will feed them.”
That all sounded sorta cuckoo to me, but the whole business was cuckoo anyway.
“Look here,” I tells this jane. “I’m willin’ to be the slave of a chief’s daughter — for a while. But I ain’t goin’ to be slave to no ant hill.”
“That is not expected,” she said. “It is an honor to assist in feeding the ants, a sacred right. You only assist me. Never again must you come so near to the ants.”
I did a lot of thinkin’. I wasn’t hankerin’ to come into an argument with those ants, but I was figurin’ to take a closer slant at that gold ledge.
She took me away into the jungle where there was a pile of fruit dryin’ in the sun. It was a funny sort of fruit, an’ smelled sweet, like orange blossoms, only there was more of a honey smell to it.
“Take your arms full,” she said.
Well, it was my first experience bein’ a slave, but I couldn’t see as it was much different from bein’ a sailor, only the work was easier.
I scooped up both arms full of the stuff. The smell made me a little dizzy at first, but I soon got used to it. The girl picked up some, too, an’ she led the way back to the ant pile.
She had me put my load down an’ showed me how to arrange it in a long semicircle. I could see the ants watchin’ from out of the holes in the ant pile, but they did not do anything except watch.
Finally the girl made a queer clicking sound with her tongue an’ teeth an’ the ants commenced to boil out again. This time they made for the fruit, an’ they went in order, just like a bunch of swell passengers on one of the big ocean liners. Some of ’em seemed to hold first meal ticket while the others remained on guard. Then there must have been some signal from the ants, because the girl didn’t say a word, but all of the first bunch of ants fell back an’ stood guard, an’ the second bunch of ants moved forward.
They repeated that a couple of times. I watched ’em, too fascinated to say a word.
After a while I heard steps, an’ the old goldsmith came along, puffin’ his pipe regular, a puff for every two steps. He reminded me of a freight engine, boilin’ along on a down grade, hittin’ her up regular.
He didn’t say a word to me, nor to the ants, but the ants heard him comin’ an’ they all formed into two lanes with their feelers wavin’ an’ the goldsmith walked down between those lanes an’ up to the gold ledge. There he stuck some more wood on the fire, raked away some ashes, an’ pawed out a bed of coals.
Then I saw he had a hammer an’ a piece of metal that looked like a reddish iron. He pulled a skin away an’ I saw lots of lumps an’ stringers of pure gold. It was a yellow, frosty-lookin’ sort of gold, and it was so pure it glistened.
He picked up some of the pieces an’ commenced to hammer ’em into ornaments.
“What do yuh do with that stuff?” I asked the girl, wavin’ my hand careless like so she wouldn’t think I was much interested.