“Oh, yes,” they replied; “that will be easy enough.”
“But there must be some reason,” said the doctor, “for Mak wanting to go back. Perhaps he’s afraid of our being attacked.”
“No, sir,” said Buck, “it arn’t that. I know what these fellows are better than you do, perhaps. If there had been any chance of a fight he would have stuck to you.”
“Unless he was afraid of numbers,” said the doctor.
“No, sir; that wouldn’t make him turn tail. These Illakas are brave enough for anything. But Mak’s a bit scared, all the same.”
“But you said they were brave,” cried Mark.
“So they are, sir, over anything they can see; but when it’s anything they can’t, then they are like so many children as are afraid to go in the dark. I believe he’s got an idea in his head that there’s a something no canny, as the Scotch people call it, as lives in that there hole in the rocks, and nothing will make him go in for fear he should be cursed, or something of the kind.”
“Very likely,” said the doctor. “All about here has some time been a town, or towns, and it may bear the reputation of being haunted by the spirits of the dead.”
“Yes, sir; that’s something what I meant to make you understand,” said Buck. “It’s very babyish, but you see these Illakas are only savage blacks, and we can’t say much about it, for there’s plenty of people at home—country people—as wouldn’t go across a churchyard in the dark to save their lives.”
“Well,” said the doctor, “I may understand by this that you wouldn’t be afraid to go into some dark cavern?”