fire them off if loaded, with a sharp click, click, as the hammers fell.
“That’s bad, sir,” said Bostock, in his sourest growl. “It means fighting, and we aren’t got no tools.”
“It is horrible to be taken by surprise like this,” replied the doctor; “but it only means giving them presents; they were afraid we meant to shoot them.”
“Mumkull white fellow, baal, lie still,” cried the principal man, fiercely.
“All right, you dirty thick-headed black rough ’un,” growled Bostock. “Now then, what do you want? Give it a name. Tobacco or sugar, isn’t it, or both?”
“What’s that?” said Carey, quickly, for the sharp sound of a match being struck in one of the cabins came up. “There’s someone down below, getting a light.”
The attention of the blacks was taken too, and they stood as if listening, till there was the sudden glow of a lamp seen in the cabin entry, and directly after a fierce-looking ruddy-brown visage appeared, the swollen-veined, blood-shot eyes looking wild, strange, and horrible as the light the man carried struck full upon it and made the great ragged beard glisten.
Carey stared at him in wonder, taking in at a glance his rough half-sailor-like shirt and trousers and heavy fisherman’s boots. He noted, too, that the man wore a belt with holsters which evidently contained small revolvers.
The question was on his lips, “Who are you?” with its following, “What are you doing there?”
But the words were taken out of his lips by the doctor, who asked the questions angrily.