The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island | Page 6

be other tribes on the island," he answered.
"Why do you infer that?"
"Well, where would they get the victims?"
"From their own people," answered John.
"What! eat their own people?" asked George.
"That is not at all strange. Many people are known to sacrifice their own, and among the most degraded, they are known to kill and eat their own."
"That is the first time I have heard of such a thing."
"Don't you remember that the Bible tells about Abraham about to offer up his own son as a sacrifice?"
"Yes; but not to eat him."
"Of course not; but it is not an uncommon thing for tribes in Africa to sell their own children for this purpose. One of the greatest sacrificial rites of the ancient Mexicans, was to offer up the most handsome youth each year, as a propitiation to the gods."
"So they do not always depend on their enemies to furnish the feast?"
"By no means. Many of the tribes have a superstition that if they eat a brave enemy it will impart to them his spirit of valor, and the fact that they are to have sacrifices here does not mean that there are various tribes on the island; but that is something we shall have to investigate. It is my opinion that we shall find other tribes, but that, I am inclined to think, depends upon the size of the island."
* * * * *
The preceding volume, "Adventures Among Strange Islands," states the conditions under which the two boys, Harry and George, found themselves on a strange island, in the southern Pacific. Accompanying them were John L. Varney, and about sixty natives from Wonder Island, together with the two Chiefs Uraso and Muro.
Nearly three years previously the boys, George Mayfield and Harry Crandall, who were members of the crew of a school-ship, the Investigator sailed from New York, and while on board, met a professor, who, when the ship was blown up at sea, became their companion in the life boat in which they sought refuge. Together they finally were stranded upon an unknown island, less than a hundred miles from the island which was the scene of the adventures with which we are now concerned.
On this island they discovered five or six savage tribes, from some of which they rescued seven of their former boy companions. Here also they met Mr. Varney, who had escaped from the savages. The Professor succeeded in reconciling all the warring tribes, and the natives were now engaged in agriculture, and in various other pursuits, and the boys had the great pleasure and satisfaction of being able to build their own vessel and return home. The trip to the Wonderful island, with which this volume deals, was for a double purpose, as will presently be shown.
John, as Mr. Varney was familiarly known to them, was not only a well educated man, but a great adventurer, and had traveled all over the world in pursuit of scientific knowledge. He was particularly interested in the history of the men who first went to the western world, and scattered civilization to the benighted countries.
Like many men of his character, he did not consider the question of money. He tried to acquire knowledge and information for the love of the quest, and in order to be of service to his fellow man, so it was purely by accident that he became a member of a crew that sailed for the southern seas at the same time that the boys left New York on their trip.
While his companions undertook the mission solely for the sake of the money which might be acquired, John engaged thinking it might offer the means of laying bare many of the early legends and vague historical accounts with which that region of the South Seas abounds, and he knew that if any records were in existence, they could be preserved only in such secure places as caverns, which the Spanish buccaneers invariably selected as the safest places to conceal their treasures.
While the boys, together with the Professor and John, had found a vast amount of treasure, as stated in the first six volumes containing the history of Wonder Island, they found not a single scrap of historical value, excepting a few traces, which have been referred to, and certain inscriptions which all pointed to the same depositary, somewhere in the South Seas.
The last inscription was found by John, shortly before they left Wonder Island, and which, though its full meaning was wrapt in mystery, pointed, as did the others, to another island than the one on which it was found. What made the matter still more interesting, was the knowledge that some one, by the name of Walters, either had prepared the inscription, or had some knowledge of what it meant.
This man was not known to any