Book Two—Chapter Ten.
A Brush with the Somalis—the Derelict.
All along the Somali coast was Tandy’s “chief market ground,” as he called it. Here he knew he could drive precisely the kind of bargains he wished to make; and as for the Somalis, with their shields, spears, ugly broad knives, and grinning sinister faces, this bold seaman did not care anything. Nor for the Arabs either. He soon gave both to understand that he was a man of the wide, wide world, and was not afraid of any one.
He had come to trade and barter, he told the Arabs, and not to study their slave-hunting habits; so if they would deal, they had only to trot out their wares—he was ready. And if they didn’t want to deal, there was no harm done. He even took Ransey with him sometimes, and once he took Nelda as well.
The savages just here were a bad, bloodthirsty lot, and he knew it, but he had with him five trusty men. Not armed—that is, not visibly so.
But on this particular day there was blood in those natives’ eyes. Tall, lithe, and black-brown were they, their skins oiled and shining in the sun. But smiling. Oh, yes, these fiends will smile while they cut a white man’s throat.
Every eye was fixed hungrily on the beautiful child. What a present she would be for a great chief who dwelt far away in the interior and high among the mountains!
The bartering went on as usual, but Tandy kept his weather eye lifting.
Leopards’ skins, lions’ skins and heads, ostrich feathers, gum-copal, ivory tusks, and gold-dust. The boat was already well filled, Nelda was on board, so was Tandy himself, and his crew, all save one man, who was just shoving her off when the rush was made. The prow of the boat was instantly seized, and the man thrown down.