The interpreter put a question, and the witch-doctor screamed out a long reply, and then stooped and felt the captive over with his fingers, as men feel cattle at a fair.
"Well?" said Kettle impatiently; "if he doesn't get back the wooden god, let's hear what the game is next?"
"Me no sabbey. He say you too small and thin for chop."
Captain Kettle's pale cheeks flushed. Curiously enough it never occurred to him to be grateful for this escape from a cannibal dinner-table. But his smallness was a constant sore to him, and he bitterly resented any allusion to it.
"Tell that stinking scarecrow I'll wring his neck for him before I'm quit of this village."
"Me no fit," said the linguister candidly. "He kill me now if I say that, same's he kill you soon."
"Oh, he's going to kill me, is he?"
The interpreter nodded emphatically. "Or get dem big ju-ju," he added.
"Ask him how Cappie Nilssen can be cured."
The man with the yaws put the question timidly enough, and the witch-doctor burst into a great guffaw of laughter. Then after a preliminary dance, he took off a little packet of leopard skin, which hung amongst his other charms, and stuffed it deep inside Kettle's shirt.