"THEY CAME CLOSER THAN EVER, TO WITHIN AN ARM'S LENGTH OF ME."
I saw now that I had nothing to fear from them, that it was a keen struggle in their untutored minds as to whether fear or curiosity should win. I did my best to smile.
It was a senseless, mirthless smile, forced upon lips that were dry and burning and eyes grown dim throughout long hours of watching and despair; and yet--by the grace of Providence--it achieved its simple purpose.
For, forthwith, like a tribe of monkeys, they set to talking among themselves; and never had I heard such gibberish. They waved their hands, and made mouths and faces at one another that were astonishing to behold. They touched me repeatedly, fingering my tattered clothes; and one tugged so violently at the sleeve of my shirt, which had been torn to ribbons upon the thorn trees in the forest, that he pulled it off almost from the shoulder--and then began the monkey-house again.
The very sight of my white skin, where it had not been tanned by the sun, set them jabbering for the space of half-an-hour; and all that time I kept my silence, fearing that, if I should speak, they would disperse like Sussex rooks at the sound of a farmer's gun.
I had read and heard of fierce savage black men, cannibals and the like, who regarded as their natural foes all of alien race, whom they put horribly to death. But these wild people were shy as antelopes; and though they might have been dangerous if handled wrongly, there was nothing to fear from them in the case of one placed at so great a disadvantage as myself.
I did nothing, then, but let them talk it out; and in the end, one of them took a bone knife with an edge like a saw, and cut through the fibre that bound me to the tree.
The others stood a little apart with their long blow-pipes, ready to riddle me with darts that I learned afterwards were poisoned. But no sooner were my hands freed than I pointed a finger straight down my opened mouth--a gesture which no one could mistake.
That set them talking once again; and when they were through with it, they took me with them back into the woods. In single file we wormed our way through the thick undergrowth of the forest, until at length we hit upon a footpath where they travelled fast and silently, these strange men of the woods. By then my strength was well-nigh exhausted. Both in mind and in body I was come to the end of my powers of endurance; and I could go no farther.
And so, thereupon, they carried me, taking it in turns among themselves to bear my weight, for they were not strong men, but thin of limb and short in stature.