“Look here, boys,” he said, “why should we overstrain our limbs and muscles here, when a little way to the north there is a capital spot to rest? We can learn nothing here, and by floundering about like top-heavy goblins we shall improve neither our minds, nor our morals, nor our garments. At any rate, I am going back; I am not going to make an Amazon of myself.”
Sooner or later, the most inattentive of readers will be struck with admiration at the artifice which Charles displays in working on the feelings of his comrades.
In this instance, though George had actually turned back, he paused irresolute on hearing Charles exclaim sarcastically, “George, I’m afraid you will never become an explorer. Why, if you only knew it, we are penetrating a jungle now! Think of that! We in a jungle!”
Though coaxing would not have influenced the sage, this happy expression did. He cast a sweeping glance in search of Charley’s “jungle,” and then went on with the others.
Charles was satisfied, for he knew that however much the boy might grumble, he would not turn back again.
A certain word George had spoken, excited Steve’s curiosity. False pride never restrained Stephen from asking for information, and he said eagerly, “George, what’s a namazon?”
George’s smiling face discovered that the right cord had been struck at last, and, always willing to enlighten the ignorant, he answered benignly, “Steve, an Amazon is a West African woman warrior, who fights instead of men. And she fights with a vengeance—harder than a sea-serpent that I read about the other day. Why, she wears a sword called a razor, and it’s so strong and heavy that she can chop off an elephant’s head at one blow with it!—At least” truth obliged him to add, “I guess she could, if she chose. And she will scale a rampart of briers and thorns,—no, brambles the book said,—of brambles, all in her bare feet, and come back all covered with blood and chunks of bramble, but with her arms full of skulls!”
Steve’s look of horror only encouraged George to make greater exertions. But he was forced to pause for want of breath, and his hearer inquired in alarm, “Where do they get the skulls? Do they kill folks for them?”
Now, it was very inconsiderate, very disrespectful, very wrong in Stephen to put such a question. George was wholly unprepared for it; and it rather befogged his loquacity. After a doubtful pause, he began blunderingly: “Why, as I told you, they scale a rampart of bri—brambles,—sixty feet high, sometimes—and come off with those skulls. I—I believe they are put there beforehand; and the feat is to pounce on them.—I mean, the feat is to scramble over the brambles barefooted. It is a valiant achievement!”
Then a bright idea occurred to him, and he continued impetuously, “Why, Steve, you must be crazy, crazy as an organ-grinder! You don’t know what a skull is; you don’t know a skull from a dead-head. Why, I’m astonished at you!”