They heard the strange staccato of the Bomongo tongue and wondered.
Lieutenant Tibbetts, helmetless, his coat torn, his lip bleeding, offered no resistance when they strapped him to the smooth high pole. Almost at his feet lay the dead Houssa orderly whom M'fosa had struck down from behind.
In a wide circle, their faces half revealed by the crackling fire which burnt in the centre, the people of the Akasava city looked on impressively.
N'gori, the chief, his brows all wrinkled in terror, his shaking hands at his mouth in a gesture of fear, was no more than a spectator, for his masterful son limped from side to side, consulting his counsellors.
Presently the men who had bound Bones stepped aside, their work completed, and M'fosa came limping across to his prisoners.
"Now," he mocked. "Is it hard for you this fetish stick which Sandi has placed?"
"You're a low cad," said Bones, dropping into English in his wrath. "You're a low, beastly bounder, an' I'm simply disgusted with you."
"What does he say?" they asked M'fosa.
"He speaks to his gods in his own tongue," answered the limper; "for he is greatly afraid."