The mountain savages were in full retreat now, back to the recesses of their own land. Kep, bound hand and foot, was carried on a litter in the vanguard, for even savages have some method in their military madness.
The cannibals kept up their march until nearly midnight, and at last lit fires, and huge ones they were.
Kep, who knew a little of their language, lay for a time in a kind of apathetic stupor. He did not even feel afraid. He had been terribly frightened at first, but knowing what his end must be, and that, as soon as he was bludgeoned, he would be cooked and eaten, all fear had fled. He only hoped it would all be over quickly. He even found himself wondering apathetically on which of the fires the rude gridiron of hard wood would be placed to receive his body.
Then two of the very wildest and most grotesquely tattooed savages approached the spot where he lay. Each had an ugly naked knife in his belt, and one carried a large wooden bowl.
"Then two of the very wildest and most grotesquely tattooed savages approached the spot where he lay."
They were coming to kill him. And a knife is so much more awful than a bludgeon.
He closed his eyes, and shuddered a little.
They murder their victims with coolness, too, these cannibals. They are as pitiless, as merciless, as a butcher slaying a lamb. They made him sit up now.
"Be quick, be quick," cried the poor lad. "Oh God, be quick!" But Kep was mistaken.