“I don’t know,” said the doctor; “but hallo! Whom have we got here?”
“The pigmies!” cried Mark excitedly. “Oh, doctor, I hope they haven’t come to tell us that your little patient is dead!”
“Well, it’s plain enough that they have not,” replied the doctor. “I say, you mustn’t talk of their being animal-like and not far removed from the apes. Why, boys, they take me for a real surgeon, and have come to bring me my fees.”
For to the surprise of all, the little party of their find of the previous day marched boldly up to where their white friends were standing, two of them walking in front with their little spears over their shoulders, and bows in hand, while they were followed by four of their companions, each pair of the latter bearing a fair-sized buck slung from a spear which rested on their shoulders.
There was a half-shrinking, timid look upon their sombre countenances, but they came close up, lowered down the bucks at Mark’s feet, slipped out the spears, and then turned and fled, plunging in amongst the bushes, and then under the pendant boughs of the outer lines of the trees, and were gone.
“Here, hi! Hi! Hi!” cried Mark, as he ran after them; but he came back at the end of a few minutes, out of breath. “Never got another sight of them,” he said.
“Good job!” cried Dean. “I was afraid you’d get lost again amongst the trees.”
“Were you?” said Mark. “You see, I knew better: I wanted my breakfast too badly. I say, doctor, think of this! Where’s that Dan? Hot steaks for breakfast! But did you know that little pigmy again?”
“No. Which one?”
“One of those that came in front with a spear over his shoulder. I knew him again by the brass rings on his arms, and—I didn’t notice it yesterday—he’d got them on his ankles too.”