“That’s right enough, gentlemen. I believe the little beggar could tickle you on one side and make you turn over, thinking it was a fly, while he helped hisself on the other and went off again like a monkey.”
During the latter part of the examination Mark’s father and the doctor joined them, full of satisfaction that their forebodings were false, and glad to welcome the friendly blacks again. They too learned that Mak and the pigmy had kept up their watch till the last night, when they had come upon two of the Illakas stealing into the camp. But one of them got away, and the manner of his escape was explained in pantomime by Mak, who made his little companion show how it occurred; and this, it seemed, was by his being pursued right up to the top of one of the further walls and then right along it in the darkness till he could get no further and had to jump, the Pig making it all clear as daylight, to use Buck’s words, for he took them to the place, and while they stood below watching, the little fellow mounted to the top, then ran right along and dived right off.
“Good heavens!” cried the doctor. “The poor fellow must be killed!”
“Yes,” said Mark’s father, and he involuntarily took out his handkerchief to wipe his moist hands.
“Here, quick!” said the doctor. “He must be lying somewhere below there;” and he made for the imagined spot close by, followed by the rest, evidently to Mak’s delight, for he began to grin hugely and raised up suspicion in the boys that their sympathy was being wasted, for all at once Pig hopped back on to the top of the wall, baboon fashion, to perch there like one of the hideous little beasts, none the worse for his leap down into the tree top that he had selected.
“Confound the fellow!” muttered the doctor. “He gave me quite a scare! But look here. You, Dunn, I don’t understand. Make them tell us what became of the other.”
Dunn turned to Mak and spoke a word or two to him in his own language, when the black stared at him stolidly and then turned away.
“What does that mean?” said Mark. “Wouldn’t he tell you?”
“No,” replied Dunn sadly; and he gave the boy a very meaning look.
“Why, you don’t mean to say—that—”