"I've had mine out—I was just going to tell you to get yours out."
They sat very still as the two forms crept toward them on all fours and presently they saw that one was a very large negro and the other either a very small one, or a child.
"Tell 'em to keep away, or we'll stick 'em with our knives," said Doc.
"They wouldn't understand if we did tell 'em," replied Dick, and then, in pidgin English that they could barely understand, one of the blacks announced that he spoke excellent English.
"Gee!" exclaimed Doc, with a sigh of relief, "I could almost kiss him."
The boys asked questions that the black understood only with the greatest difficulty and equally arduous were their efforts to translate his replies; but, at least, they had found a medium of communication, however weak and uncertain, and they were slowly coming to a realization of the predicament in which their foolhardy venture into the jungle had placed them.
"What they going to do with us in here?" asked Dick.
"Make us fat," explained the black.
"Make us fat? What for?" demanded Doc.
"Gee, I'm too fat already."