Lieutenant Tibbetts went on:
"Hear," said he in fluent and vitriolic Bomongo—for he was using that fisher dialect which he knew so much better than the more sonorous tongue of the Upper River—"O hear, eater of fish, O lame dog, O nameless child of a monkey!"
M'fosa's lips went up one-sidedly.
"Lord," said he softly, "presently you shall say no more, for I will cut your tongue out that you shall be lame of speech ... afterwards I will burn you and the fetish stick, so that you all tumble together."
"Be sure you will tumble into hell," said Bones cheerfully, "and that quickly, for you have offended Sandi's Ju-ju, which is powerful and terrible."
If he could gain time—time for some miraculous news to come to Hamilton, who, blissfully unconscious of the treachery to his second-in-command, was sleeping twenty miles downstream—unconscious, too, of the Akasava fleet of canoes which was streaming towards his little steamer.
Perhaps M'fosa guessed his thoughts.
"You die alone, Tibbetti," he said, "though I planned a great death for you, with Bosambo at your side; and in the matter of ju-jus, behold! you shall call for Sandi—whilst you have a tongue."
He took from the raw-hide sheath that was strapped to the calf of his bare leg, a short N'gombi knife, and drew it along the palm of his hand.
"Call now, O Moon-in-the-Eye!" he scoffed.