The Dutchman yawned.
"Ja, we better go. I hafe a hole in my belly."
CHAPTER XVI
IN HOMOLOBI
Wiki made no comment when I announced our acceptance of his offer of hospitality—if that was what it was. He merely turned on his heel and strode off, and I was forced to extend myself to catch up with him. Kachina elected to accompany Tawannears and Peter. The remaining white-kilted men straggled back to resume the occupations they had abandoned when the girl's whistle blew. Nobody paid any more attention to the Awataba, whose smokes were rising all along the northern cliffs. A party of young girls were rounding up the scattered flock of sacred turkeys, and the river-bank was dotted with women washing clothes. The agricultural work in the fields was going on as if there had been no interruption.
Both banks of the river for a league or more were lined with open gardens, and immediately beneath the Breast on which Homolobi was built were a series of fenced gardens and stone storehouses, easily defensible. The nearer we approached the village, the more remarkable it became. Access to it was had by means of ladders and a trail which one man could hold against an army. Its houses, solidly constructed of stone blocks laid in mortar, were three and four stories in height, joined together and surrounded by a wall that was strengthened with round and square towers. It crowded the top of the Breast and was protected from assault from above by a bulging protuberance in the cliff overhead.
"Have your people lived here long?" I asked Wiki.
"Since the beginning of time," he returned sententiously.
"Have you many other villages?"
He eyed me askance a moment, then answered: