“Eh?”
The savage must have seen us from the first, but he looked up, then down, then turned himself and gazed in every direction but that in which we were; and I shouted again, but still he would not look our way.
“He is shamming, Nat, like a very bashful boy,” said Uncle Dick. “He wants us to ask him to breakfast. Hallo! Get my rifle, Nat; I can see a lot of heads in the trees there. No, sit still; they are only boys.”
The savage evidently saw them at the same moment, for he made a rush towards the dark figures that were stealing from tree trunk to tree trunk, and we saw them dash away directly out of sight, after which the savage came sidling in our direction again.
“Hi!” I shouted, as the childish pantomime went on, and the savage stared in all directions as if wonder-stricken at a strange noise coming he knew not whence, and ending by kneeling down and laying his ear to the ground.
“Hi!” I shouted again; but it was of no use, he could not possibly see either us, our chest, our fire, or the hut, but kept sidling along, staring in every direction but the right.
“Go and fetch him, Nat, while I toast another bloater. We’ll give him some breakfast, and it will make him friendly.”
I got up and went off, wondering what Uncle Joe and Aunt Sophia would have said to see me going to speak to that great spear-armed savage, and for a moment I wondered what would happen if he attacked me.
“Uncle Dick would shoot him dead with his rifle,” I said to myself by way of comfort, and I walked boldly on.