He showed his teeth and pointed to the savage on guard, laying his hand upon my lips as if to stay me from making any sound. Then he looked at my wrists and ankles, touching them gently, after which he laid his hand very gently on the back of my head, and I knew now why it was that I was suffering such pain.
For, lightly as he touched me, it was sufficient to send a keen agony through me, and it was all I could do to keep from crying out.
The boy saw my pain, and looked at me half wonderingly for a few moments before stooping low and whispering in my ear.
I felt so sick from the pain that I paid little heed to his words; but whisper or shout it would have been all the same, I could not have understood a word.
So faint and strange a sensation came over me that all seemed dim, and when I once more saw clearly I was alone and the crowd of blacks had disappeared, taking with them Jimmy—if it had not all been a dream due to my feverish state.
Just then, however, a couple of blacks came up with the boy straight to the door of the hut, and while the latter stood looking on, the men applied a roughly made plaster of what seemed to be crushed leaves to my head, and then examined my wrists and feet, rubbing them a little and giving me intense pain, which was succeeded by a peculiar, dull warm sensation as they pressed and kneaded the joints.
While they were busy the boy went off quickly, and returned with a handful of plum-like fruit, one of which he placed to my dry lips, and I found its acid juice wonderfully refreshing.
They all left me soon after, and I saw the boy go and join a tall, peculiar-looking savage, who was marked with tattoo lines or paint in a way different to the rest, and these two talked together for a long while, gesticulating and nodding again and again in my direction, as if I was the subject of their discourse.
The effect of the attention to my injuries was to produce a sensation of drowsiness, resulting in a deep sleep, which must have lasted a very long time, for when I awoke it was in the dark, and I was not startled now on hearing the snuffling noise and feeling myself touched by Gyp, who, after silently showing his pleasure, lay down with his head upon my chest once more, and seemed to go to sleep.
I made an effort to raise my hand to stroke him, but the pain was too great, and soon after it was I who went to sleep, not Gyp, and when I awoke it was daybreak and the dog was gone.