But Tootaker had been well instructed how to play his part, and forgot nothing.
The king was squatting on a daïs, from which he did not rise, but received Tootaker with great joy, and asked him question after question, while with bowed head Stransom stood before the throne. He smiled to himself though, when he heard this cannibal king telling Tootaker how his body was to be cut up, and what joints should be roasted for the royal table, and what apportioned to his under-chiefs and people. The king evidently intended that all the most toothsome and appetising portions of Stransom’s body should fall to his own share.
“Now,” cried the king, “bring him here that I may drink the white man’s blood.”
He seized an ugly knife as he spoke. But he certainly was not prepared for what followed. With a sharp kick Stransom struck the knife from the savage hand, and next moment he stood before him a free man armed with a revolver in each hand. Stransom spoke hurriedly now, but with excellent effect.
“One loud word, King Karoo, and you are a dead man.”
Their eyes met. The king cowered before his captive.
“Ah, you know me now? I am Stransom the blackbirder. How you came here I know not, but you were chief of the Luttoo Isles, five hundred miles to the west, and you and your fellows massacred every man of the brig Ranger. Don’t be afraid, old friend. I was her captain, and the only man saved.”
“I saved you!” cried the king, excitedly, as he glanced down the barrel of that revolver in evident dread that it might go off. “I saved you!”
“Yes, you thundering old scoundrel, you saved me, to be tortured and thus made more tender, and so to serve as a side dish for your own table. But, listen! I did not come here to have revenge and kill you! Your people did nothing wrong in massacring the blackbirders. They had come to drag you into bondage worse than slavery. I would have done the same had I been in your place. No, I don’t come now to take revenge, else I’d shoot you like a rabbit right off. I’m no longer a blackbirder.”
Then in far simpler language he told the story of the storm, the mutiny, and the desertion of the ship, and the wreck.