“They’ve another word here. All over Papua, mostly, it means the same—sorcery. He’s got a bit of her waist-belt to make a spell of, and she thinks she’s going to die in consequence. Of course she won’t, but she’s badly scared.”
“Flint, he has the power of life and death—that man,” said the Marquis. “What can we do?”
“Rats, he hasn’t power of life and death!” I said. “We can give him a talking to and keep him from scaring the poor little soul any more, or she might really die of fright. Don’t go talking to her—it would only make things worse.”
“The first thing in the morning we must talk to him, isn’t it?”
“First thing. We might as well have our tent, Marky; I think it would be more healthy than the marea, somehow.”
We had, and slept in it—part of the night. About the small chill hour that comes near dawn we were roused out by a wild crying from one of the houses near at hand—a house into which we had seen the little maiden creep, still sobbing, before we turned in ourselves, for, needless to say, the Marquis and I had been keeping as much of a lookout over her as we could. But this was not the girl’s crying; it was horrified yells from the other inmates of the house—yells of such dismay that we wasted no time in catching up our arms and running in.
The house was nothing but a brown thatch roof set on a sago-palm floor. It was dimly lighted by a fire; in the short interval before I could get my hurricane lantern alight I saw a dozen or two brown naked forms, moving about distractedly, and howling. Something was visible on the floor among their feet.
I got the lantern alight, and held it up. There lay the pretty little girl, dead and stiff. She had not a wound or a mark on her, but she seemed to have been cold for hours. Probably the growing chill of her small body was what had attracted the attention of her companions.
“Flint, my friend, she is dead, the little beautiful, and I have been her murderer, by gum!” said the Marquis, in a low, shocked whisper.
“You haven’t anything of the kind, Mark; don’t be morbid.... Poor little girl!” I said, looking at her again, as the women, howling loudly, picked her up and carried her away.