"The men will obey your orders to the letter? You see, we are in a box here!"
"They will obey," said the officer. "What do you make of the mummery now going on?"
The "mummery" consisted in slow, gliding motions, in whirlings about intended to be graceful, in slow liftings of the hands upward, and in the beating of the drums.
"I don't make anything of it," Ned replied. "I take it they are waiting for time. Perhaps they got us in here with less trouble than they had figured on, and are waiting for confederates."
"What a land!" mused the Captain. "What a way to seek the destruction of any enemy! An Italian would have stabbed us in the back on the way in here, a Frenchman would have set a band of bullies upon us in the grove, an American would have walked up and made observations with his bare fists!"
"This is Oriental!" smiled Ned. "I wish we were well out of this hole in the ground!"
"I see," began the man with the star on the breast of his dirty gown, "that you are in trouble of mind concerning the loss of two companions."
"Correct!" shouted the irrepressible Jimmie. "Come across with them— right soon, old hoss!"
"I see," continued the other, not noticing the interruption, "that you are here in a weighty matter—a matter affecting the peace of nations."
Jimmie was primed for another outbreak of conversation, but Ned caught him by the arm and ordered him to remain silent.