"But do you think that they understand it now?" I asked.
"To a certain extent, yes. But it is an utterly new idea to them, and all the better for us that it is so. It is so much the more mysterious; so much the more effective with the imagination. But this is not the end of it; they will want to know more—especially Ala—and now that Juba has broken the ice, it will be comparatively easy to fortify the new opinion which they have conceived of us."
"But Ingra nearly wrecked it all," I remarked.
"Yes, that was a stunning surprise. How devilish cunning the fellow is; and how inexplicable his antipathy to us."
"I believe that it is a kind of jealousy," I said.
"A kind of natural cussedness, I guess," put in Jack.
"Why should he be jealous?" asked Edmund.
"I don't know, exactly; but you know we are not simple barbarians in their eyes, and Ingra may have conceived a prejudice against us, somehow, on that very account."
"Very unlikely," Edmund returned, "but we shall find out all about it in time; in the meanwhile, do nothing to prejudice him further, for he is a power that we have got to reckon with."
The conversation then turned upon the mysterious language that had been employed at what we called the trial. I expressed the admiration which I had felt for such a means of communication when I had observed the effect that Juba had been able to produce.