"Not much. Seems to me that if the lion's blind there ought to be some way of fixing him without any danger. We're safe enough from the pigmies while we're here with Ta-En-User, but not from the lion. Dust your brain off! Think!"
"All right," responded Critch briskly. "Here goes for the first thing." Without ceremony he got up and pulled over the mummy-case. "We got to fix Mbopo sure, ain't we? Well, take hold o' this—don't bust it!"
"What you doing?" exclaimed Burt as his chum began to pry open the mummy-case with the edge of the little axe obtained from Mbopo. Critch paused to reply.
"It's a pipe, Burt! We'll just upwrap Ta-En-User here, see? I guess he ain't in extra good condition but he'll do for a while. Then we'll fill up the case with leaves and the wrappings. These pigmies have never seen inside the case, remember. They don't know a mummy from a goat. Soon's we get him unwrapped an' laid out in his nightie, out go the lights and you get back in the corner.
"When Mbopo comes I'll tell 'em you did this to the ankh." Critch raised his axe and cut a deep gash on the cross arm in the soft gold. "Then I'll say that Pongo dried you up for insulting him. Get the point? That'll scare 'em stiff. We'll take the ankh, the stuffed case and the mummy back to the village."
"Yes you will!" cried Burt hastily. "S'pose I'm going to stay here?"
"Sure you are!" grinned Critch. "I'd do it only I reckon the mummy won't have red hair an' it wouldn't work. You've got to do it!"
"But what for?" persisted Burt. "What's the use? S'pose the lion comes?"
"If he comes you can throw some blazing oil at him just like Cap'n Mac. That ought to scare him away. Soon's I get to the village I'll see if I can't locate some o' that poison. The whole tribe'll be scared stiff when they see the mummy, 'specially if he's kind of spoiled. You hide out here till morning and then I'll come back with what weapons I can get. I'll warn the dwarfs away from here first. That's the only way I see of gettin' what we need. We can't make Mbopo understand very well."
"It wouldn't be a bad idea if you was going to stay here 'stead of me," assented Burt dubiously. "S'pose we kill the lion. How'll you account for me coming back to life?"