“Yes,” cried Carey; “let’s have some.”
The black said something to his companions, two of whom took off their plaited hair girdles, joined them together, and then the band was passed round a likely tree, knotted round one of the wearers’ loins, and the next minute he was apparently walking like a monkey up the tree, shifting the band dexterously and going on and on till he reached the crown of leaves and the fruit, which he began screwing off and pitching down into the sand, where they were caught up, the pointed end of a club-handle inserted, and the great husk wrenched off. Then a few chops with a stone axe made a hole in the not yet hardened shell, and a nut with its delicious contents of sweet, sub-acid milk and pulp was handed to the boy, the giver grinning with satisfaction as he saw how it was enjoyed.
The blacks were soon similarly occupied, each finishing a nut, and then Jackum led the way inland.
“Are you going to the river?” asked Carey.
“No, walk, kedge fis’,” said Jackum, shaking his head. “Bully-woolly dar.”
“Bully-woolly?” said Carey, wonderingly.
Jackum threw himself on the ground, with his legs stiffened out behind, and his hands close to his sides. Then with wonderful accuracy he went through the movements of a crocodile creeping over the sand, and then made a snap at the boy’s leg with his teeth, making believe to have caught him, and to be dragging his imaginary prey down to the water, ending by wagging his legs from side to side like a tail.
“I see,” cried Carey. “Crocodiles. Yes, I know.”
“Big, big. Mumkull black fellow, white boy. Come ’long.”
Jackum started off, followed by Carey and the rest in single file, their leader with his head down and eyes reading the ground from right to left as if in search of something lost. He made straight for the forest, but selected the more open parts where the undergrowth was scarce, so as to get quickly over the ground, stopping suddenly by a great decayed tree, about which his companions set to work with the sharp ends of their club-handles, and in a very short time they had dug out of the decayed wood some three double handfuls of thick white grubs as big as a man’s fingers, and these were triumphantly transferred to the grass bag one man had hanging to his girdle.