“Go back,” shouted Adams.
“Tick-tick,” replied Papeete. It was the only English the creature knew.
It stood frying in the sun, grinning and glistening, till Adams, with an assumption of ferocity, made for it, then back it went, and Adams, laughing, plunged under the veil of leaves.
Berselius, seated at his tent door, looked at his watch. Meeus, seated beside Berselius, was smoking cigarettes.
“Give him an hour,” said Berselius. “He will be far away enough by that. Besides, the wind is blowing from there.”
“True,” said Meeus. “An hour.” And he continued to smoke. But his hand was shaking, and he was biting the cigarette, and his lips were dry so that he had to be continually licking them.
Berselius was quite calm, but his face was pale, and he seemed contemplating something at a distance.
When half an hour had passed, Meeus rose suddenly to his feet and began to walk about, up and down, in front of the tent, up and down, up and down, as a man walks when he is in distress of mind.
The black soldiers also seemed uneasy, and the villagers huddled closer together like sheep. Papeete alone seemed undisturbed. He was playing now with the old tomato tin, out of which he had scraped and licked every vestige of the contents.
Suddenly Meeus began crying out to the soldiers in a hard, sharp voice like the yelping of a dog.