The hut was perfectly empty, without an article of furniture; the walls were grimed with soot and smoke; upon the clay floor three rude stones formed a kind of fire-place which was filled with ashes and the refuse of some victuals. A cold drizzling rain penetrated the hole in the roof, and pattered down upon the ground below.
The men that had entered were elaborately covered with their war-paint. One of them had the head and skin of a bear drawn over his face like a mask, in the way that I have seen done by the Assyrians; another wore upon his shoulders the head and horns of an elk. A third, who carried a stick in his hand, ushered the other two into the middle of the hut, where they began dancing and making the strangest of contortions, but all without uttering a word. After this had gone on for some time, one of the two, who wore a necklace made of the teeth of wild animals, and who apparently was the chief, walked up to me, and stood gazing in my face. I noticed that he had my own sword in his hand. He began a long harangue of which I could not understand a word, but observed that he repeatedly said "Jono," and as often as he did so, all the others gave a loud shout. When his oration came to an end, the savage sprinkled us with some stinking liquor, which he poured from a horn; and having in chorus muttered some kind of refrain that ended in "Jono," they all quitted the hut, fastening the doorway securely behind them.
"No chance of making terms with such brutes as these," I indignantly exclaimed, when we were again alone.
"Patience!" said Hannibal; "only let me get my hands at liberty, and I'll guarantee to floor half-a-dozen of them, unarmed as I am."
Himilco avowed that he was burning for a chance to avenge himself for the filthy fish-oil; and Chamai protested that though the brutes should be as countless as the palms of Jericho or the fleas at Shechem, he would outwit them yet, and find his way back to Abigail.
While they had been talking in this strain, I had disengaged my hands, and very soon succeeded in freeing Bichri, who assisted me in liberating all the rest. Once again upon their feet, they stretched their stiff and weary limbs, and Hannibal, Chamai, and Himilco each armed themselves with one of the stones that formed the fire-place.
"Here's something that may smash a skull or two," said Chamai, as he poised his stone aloft.
"Not altogether a military-looking weapon," was Hannibal's remark, whilst he examined the cumbersome missile; "but our forefathers have done good execution with worse."
Picking up a few fragments of stone, Bichri was beginning to lament that he had not a sling, when Himilco in a moment produced the rope which he invariably wore, and tore off a piece of the goat-skin that had carried his wine, and with these materials the young archer was not long in putting together a sling which he hoped might do him good service.