“Soon go sleep—sleep. Find Mass Joe fader, and go away fast. All top here Jimmy go see.”
I quite shared with the doctor the feeling of helpless annoyance at having to depend so much on the black; but I felt that he was far better able to carry out this task than we were, so stood listening to the buzz of voices, that seemed now to arise on every hand.
From where we stood we could see a group of the savages standing not thirty yards from us, their presence being first made plain by their eager talking, and I pressed the doctor’s arm and pointed.
“Yes,” he whispered; “but we are in the shadow.”
From huts to right and left we could hear talking, but that in front of us was silent, and I began wondering whether it was the one that had been my prison. But it was impossible to tell, everything seemed so different in the faint light cast by the stars. I could not even make out the tree where Jimmy had been tied.
All at once a sensation as of panic seized me, for the group of blacks set up a loud shout, and came running towards where we were.
I was sure they saw us, and with a word of warning to the doctor I turned and should have fled but for two hands that were laid upon my shoulders, pressing me down, the doctor crouching likewise.
At first I thought it was Jimmy, but turning my head I found that it was Ti-hi, whose hand now moved from my shoulder to my lips.
I drew a breath full of relief the next moment, for in place of dashing down upon us the blacks rushed into the hut behind which we were standing, crowding it; and there was nothing now but a wall of dried and interwoven palm leaves between us and our fierce enemies.
Here a loud altercation seemed to ensue, angry voices being heard; and several times over I thought there was going to be a fight. I could not comprehend a word, but the tones of voice were unmistakably those of angry men, and it was easy to tell when one left off and another began.