"Good idea."
With that the talk ended and all sought their hammocks, dog tired from the day's travel. No watch was kept, for, as Pedro quaintly phrased it, "We now are in the hands of God and the cannibals." Nor was any watch needed.
Daybreak brought sunlight. While the breakfast coffee was being boiled the four wild men appeared silently and simultaneously, one bringing a red howling monkey and another a large green parrot as their contributions to the morning meal. Neither bird nor animal showed any wound except a slightly discolored spot surrounding a skin puncture no larger than if made by a woman's hatpin—the marks left by poisoned darts from the ten-foot blowguns. When the meat was cooked they offered portions to the whites, of whom Tim alone refused.
"I'd as quick eat a rat killed with Paris green," he growled. "No poisoned meat gits into my stummick if I know it."
"Bosh!" scoffed McKay. "It's perfectly wholesome—though it's tough as a rubber boot."
"And I might tell you, senhores, that among these people it is an insult to refuse any food offered you," added Lourenço. "I advise you to forget about the poison hereafter and eat what is put before you, even if it stinks."
His advice was emphasized by the evident displeasure of the tribesmen, who, though saying nothing, looked rather grimly at the man who had despised their provisions. But Lourenço then smoothed over the matter by telling them that the red-haired man was sick at the stomach that morning—which, at that particular moment, was not far from the truth.
Soon the triglot column was once more on its way across the hill country, which hourly grew higher and rougher—a constant succession of ridges and ravines. Lourenço, pointing out the absence of water marks on the trees of the uplands, said that now the land of the great annual floods had been left behind; for even the sixty-foot rise of waters in the rainy season could not reach to these hilltops. With the entry into this terra firma the travelers had also found the sun again, the dank mist of yesterday having vanished. Nevertheless, the going was fully as hard as on the previous day, because of the density of the bush and of the labor of crossing the narrow but deep streams flowing at the bottom of nearly every clove. Few words were exchanged, every man needing his breath for the work of walking.
As before, the keen machetes of the Brazilians opened a direct route through all opposing undergrowth. When a brief halt was called at noon the Mayorunas, who seemed to know exactly where they were despite the fact that they had never before followed this straight course, informed Lourenço that much circuitous traveling had already been saved, and that by tramping hard until sundown they might succeed in reaching the tribal maloca that night. But McKay vetoed the idea of a forced march.
"This gait is fast enough and hard enough," he declared. "No sense in exhausting ourselves to save a few hours' time. Also, we don't want to go staggering into the Mayoruna village with our tongues hanging out and our knees wabbling. First impressions are lasting with such people, and they might get an idea we were weaklings."