Carrambo held his head a little to one side and both open palms out in front of him.
As, however, the question was too philosophical in its nature, Duncan made no reply.
"'Scuse me one moment, sah."
He hurried away, and presently afterwards reappeared from behind a hut, dragging a poor little naked girl by one hand.
"You take lifel and s'oot de chile," he said. "She foh de king's dinner. Dis will make one good implession on dese pore ignolant savages."
This might have been true, but Duncan nevertheless did not see his way to become the king's executioner.
He shot a fowl, however, and at the flash and report the savages, who had never seen white men before, and never heard the sound of a gun, screamed wildly, and rushed off with such precipitation, that they seemed to be all a mist of long black scraggy legs and arms.
But Carrambo's voice recalled them, and they returned awed and terror-struck.
The dead fowl, moreover, was evidence of the terrible power possessed by these great "children of the air".
What might they not do next?