“Um Bone Crusher’s men say Mikalwa great fighter. Bone Crusher gone, so they want Mikalwa for chief.”
“What? Who’s Mikalwa? Me?”
Wimba nodded. And the tall leader approached Bob and bowed low before him.
“Fine,” shouted Bob, leaping to his feet. “Then there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll just order you fellows set free.” And he turned toward Jack and Frank.
But Wimba shook his head.
“Mikalwa to be chief,” he said. “But others must die. Mikalwa can’t save them.”
Bob struck an heroic attitude, arms folded across his chest. The fact that he was in pajamas, and that the pants were slipping down while the jacket hung together by only one button, rather spoiled the effect. But nobody laughed. The situation was too serious for Jack and Frank, whose anxious gaze roved from Bob to Wimba to the leader of the raiders and back to Bob again.
“Tell them, Wimba,” cried Bob, “tell these rascals that Mikalwa prefers to die with his own people. If he cannot set his friends free, he will not become their chief. They must treat him as one of their prisoners.”
“Bob, Bob,” begged Frank, in a broken voice, “don’t throw away your only chance.”
At the tone employed by his closest friend, big Bob began to weaken. Poor Frank’s feelings had been harrowed sufficiently, and Jack’s, too, he thought, to atone in full for the playing of that snake trick on him the night before. However, he was nearing the end of the little drama which he had concocted with Wimba, and so he decided to play it out.