CHAPTER XVIII
THE NATIVE BATTLE
"By Jove, Tom, here they come!"
"From over by that drinking pool?"
"Yes, just as the spies said they would. Wow, what a crowd of the black beggars there are! And some of 'em have regular guns, too. But most of 'em have clubs, bows and arrows, blow guns, or spears."
Tom and Ned were standing on the forward part of the airship, which was moving slowly along, over an open plateau, in the jungle where the native battle was about to take place. Our friends had left the town where the missionaries lived, and had hovered over thé jungle, until they saw signs of the coming struggle. They had seen nothing of their English rivals since coming away, but had no doubt but that the Britishers were somewhere in the neighborhood.
The two forces of black men, who had gone to war over a dispute about some cattle, approached each other. There was the beating of
158
