Chapter XIII. On an Elephant Trail

"Get ready with your guns, everybody!" cried the old elephant hunter, as he prepared to leave the cabin of the Black Hawk. "Tom Swift, don't forget your electric rifle. There'll be trouble soon!"

"Bless my cartridge belt!" gasped Mr. Damon. "Why? What will happen?"

"The natives," answered Mr. Durban. "They'll attack us sure as fate! See, already they're getting out their bows and arrows, and blowguns! They'll pierce the gas bag in a hundred places!"

"If they do, it will be a bad thing for us," muttered Tom. "We can't have that happen."

He followed the old elephant hunter outside, and Mr. Anderson, Ned Newton and Mr. Damon trailed after, each one with a gun, while Tom had his electric weapon. The airship rested on its wheels on some level ground, just in front of a large hut, surrounded by a number of smaller ones. All about were the natives, tall, gaunt black men, hideous in their savagery, wearing only the loin cloth, and with their kinky hair stuck full of sticks, bones and other odd objects they presented a curious sight.

Some of them were dancing about, brandishing their weapons--clubs spears, bows, and arrows, or the long, slender blowguns, consisting merely of a hollow reed. Women and children there were, too, also dancing and leaping about, howling at the tops of their voices. Above the unearthly din could be heard the noise of the drums and tom-toms, while, as the adventurers drew up in front of their airship, there came a sort of chant, and a line of natives, dressed fantastically in the skins of beasts, came filing out of the large hut.

"The witch-doctors!" exclaimed Tom, who had read of them in African travel books.

"Are they going to attack us?" cried Ned.

"Bless my hymn book! I hope not!" came from Mr. Damon. "We wouldn't have any chance at all in this horde of black men. I wish Eradicate Sampson and his mule Boomerang were here. Maybe he could talk their language, and tell them that we meant no harm."

"If there's any talking to be done, I guess our guns will have to do it," said Tom grimly.

"I can speak a little of their language," remarked Mr. Durban, "but what in the world are the beggars up to, anyhow? I supposed they'd send a volley of arrows at us, first shot, but they don't seem to be going to do that."

"No, they're dancing around us," said Tom.

"That's it!" exclaimed Mr. Anderson. "I have it! Why didn't I think of it before? The natives are welcoming us!"

"Welcoming us?" repeated Ned.

"Yes," went on the missionary seeker. "They are doing a dance in our honor, and they have even called out the witch-doctors to do us homage."

"That's right," agreed