"How you find out?" demanded Dick, and then, as a sudden thought popped into his mind: "Golly! You don't mean--"

"How you find out what's in a nut?" retorted Galla Galla. "You crack it!"

"But you'd kill him," cried Doc, horror stricken.

"And if we do not find the big medicine there, we kill you," said Intamo, who would have liked nothing better than to get rid of the white boy whose big medicine had had a bad effect upon Intamo's reputation as a witch-doctor, since he had been unable to duplicate Doc's exhibition of wizardry.

"You come now," he continued. "We find out!"

And accompanied by Galla Galla and the boys, Intamo led the way toward the center of the village where, in an open space before the chief's hut, all the ceremonies of the tribe were conducted.

While Paabu was being searched out and dragged, resisting and screaming, to be sacrificed upon the altar of ignorance and superstition, word ran rapidly through the village that a bit of delicious entertainment was about to be staged, and there resulted a rush for grand stand seats. A ring of savage warriors kept a circular place cleared; in the center of this clearing stood Galla Galla and Intamo. To them Paabu was dragged.

Dick and Doc stood shoulder to shoulder in the front rank of spectators, their tanned faces blanched with horror. Two warriors held the half fainting Paabu while Intamo, armed with a knobkerrie, made mystical passes in the air and mumbled a weird incantation that was supposed to weaken the strength of the white boy's big medicine, in the event that it should actually be found within the unfortunate Paabu's head.

"Golly!" whispered Dick, "can't we do something to stop them before Intamo breaks that boy's head open with his club?"

"Makes me feel like a murderer," groaned Doc.

"You will be a murderer--almost--if they go through with this thing," said Dick. "But if you tell 'em the truth, they'll kill us."

"When they don't find the knives inside his coco, they'll kill us anyway," replied Doc.

"Then you better tell 'em," advised Dick. "There's no use lettin' 'em kill that poor kid."

"I've got it!" cried Doc. "For the love of Mike! Quick! Slip me your knife! Don't let anyone see it. Here! That's it! Now watch my smoke?"

Slipping Dick's knife inside his loin cloth beside his own, Doc stepped forward into the circle. "Wait!" he commanded, advancing toward Intamo, but addressing Galla Galla. "You need not kill Paabu. I can prove that the big medicine that belongs to my friend and the big medicine that belongs to me are both inside Paabu's head. I am great witch-doctor and do not have to crack Paabu's skull open to get the medicine out, the way Intamo does. See!"

And before Intamo could prevent, Doc stepped close to the unfortunate victim of Intamo's jealousy and Galla Galla's curiosity, and with two swift movements of his right hand appeared to withdraw the knives from Paabu's ear. Turning, he exhibited them upon the palm of his open hand to Galla Galla and the assembled Bagalla.

Perhaps Doc's Bagalla had been lame and halting, but there was no one there who did not perfectly understand the wondrous powers of his great magic, nor fail to see that his medicine was much stronger than that of Intamo, for it is very true that we are all convinced by what we think we see, quite as surely as by what we actually do see.

Galla Galla was nonplussed. Intamo was furious. Being an unscrupulous old fakir, himself, he was convinced that Doc had done no more than play a clever trick upon them all--a trick by which he, for one, did not intend to be fooled. But now he knew that Doc had beaten him at his own game and perhaps in the bottom of his ignorant, savage brain there was enough natural superstition to half convince him that perhaps, after all, here was a real, genuine witch-doctor who commanded demons and controlled their supernatural powers. His fear and hatred of Doc were increased a hundred fold by the happenings of the past few minutes and within his evil heart there crystalized the determination to rid himself as quickly as possible of this dangerous competitor.

Had he known what was coming, he would have used his knobkerrie to that end upon the instant, for Doc had been smitten by another of those brilliant ideas that had made him famous and feared at school as a practical joker--though it is only fair to record that his jokes had always been harmless and good-natured ones until he had met Intamo. He wheeled suddenly toward that portion of the ring where the greatest throng was gathering, and held the two knives out upon his open palm.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" he cried. "We have here two ordinary pocket knives." The fact that he spoke English and that none of his auditors understood him, but added to the impressiveness of his words, since all the tribe was quite convinced that he was about to make big medicine.

"Step right up and examine them! Feel them! Bite them!"

Some of his hearers began to show evidences of growing nervousness.

"You see that they are gen-u-ine. You will note that I have no accomplices. Now, ladies and gentlemen, watch me closely!"

As upon the other occasions, he placed his left palm over the knives, clasped his hands, blew upon them, raised them above his head.

"Abacadabra!" he screamed with such sudden shrillness that his audience fell back in terror. "Allo, presto, change cars and be gone!" He turned slowly about until he had located the exact position of Intamo and then before the unsuspecting witch-doctor could guess his purpose Doc sprang quickly to his side and placed both palms over the old villain's ear. "Now you see 'em! Now you don't!" he concluded, and turned with outspread, empty palms toward Galla Galla.

He stood thus in impressive silence for several seconds, while the true meaning of what he had done sank into the muddy brains of his audience.

Then he addressed Galla Galla.

"You saw me take the big medicine from the head of Paabu and place it on the head of Intamo," he said in the language of the chief. "If you want to make sure that it is in Intamo's head, it may be that he will loan you his war club."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Later that same afternoon, while Dick and Doc were chatting beside their hut with Bulala and Ukundo, they heard a great racket at the village gates. Thither from all directions were running men, women and children and presently the prisoners saw a great company of strange natives surging into the compound. They were greeted with laughter and shouting that proclaimed them to be friends of the villagers.

"The guests are coming to the feast," said Ukundo, grimly, and thereafter the four sat in moody silence, each wrapped in his own thoughts. The actuality of their fate had never seemed more than a bad dream to the boys, but now, at last, it was borne in to them as something very real, and very terrible, and very close.