He leaped backward so quickly that he stumbled and fell sprawling over the stool upon which he had been sitting.
The blow to his dignity had a bad effect upon his temper,—none too good at best. He came to his feet fairly bubbling with rage and angrily demanded that the boys remove their clothing and don the rags that had been brought them.
"Hang on to your knife as long as you can," admonished Doc. "I think I can save 'em both when I get my new minus-fours wrapped around me. How do you put this stuff on, anyway?"
"Ask Bulala," advised Dick. And that worthy showed the boys how to wrap the cloth about their hips and carry the end between their legs so that a little apron fell down in front and another behind.
All this time the two boys had managed to conceal their knives, but, at last, Galla Galla again demanded them. Doc was desperate.
"We mustn't give them up, Dick," he said, "they're the only useful things we have. By Jimminy crickets! I won't give 'em up!" He turned to Bulala. "Tell that fat boy that if anyone takes this medicine away from us, it will kill him; but that if he doesn't want us to keep them, we will send them away. Watch!" He exposed his own knife and repeated the mystic signs and words that he had used before—and the knife was gone. Then he took Dick's knife and did the same things. Galla Galla shook his head.
"He wants to know where they are," said Bulala.
Doc looked about in an effort to gain time, while he conjured some reply that would put an end to Galla Galla's search for the knives. His eyes fell upon the same youth who had attempted to brain him the previous day, while Zopinga had been escorting them into the village. Doc never could account for the idea that popped into his head as he beheld again the hideous features of the young imp who had come so near killing him, but he always admitted that it was a good idea—for him and Dick, if not for the black youth. He stepped suddenly close to the youth and pointed into his ear.
"Tell Galla Galla," he said to Bulala, "that our big medicine has hidden itself inside this fellow's head and that it won't come out until we are with our own people."
