"Boom-boom-boom," went the big drum like a challenge, and at that the Kungora dancers lined up in two bands facing each other and howled defiance and threats back and forth.
"What's going to happen?" whispered Ray clinging to Dick's arm. "Are they really going to kill each other?"
"Can't say. Ask the Mahatma. He knows this tribe."
"If they do slay a few warriors, it will be an accident," said Mahatma Sikandar. "This is a dance of battle and they sometimes forget it is not the real thing."
"How terrible!" cried Ray.
"Can't you make them be reasonable?" asked Dick as the Hindu watched the apparently enraged savages.
"Reasonable? What human being is ever reasonable?" asked the wise man. "Are your own people reasonable when they slaughter each other with guns and poison gas? No, the savages are on a low plane, but the civilized men are also far from the path of wisdom."
"Go it, Mutaba!" shouted Dan, clapping his hands.
The guide and chief warrior of the Kungoras was dancing in front of his own band, shaking his spear in the face of the rival leader. The pair rushed together furiously, leaped back and returned to the attack, while their rolling eyes and thick snarling lips expressed murderous hatred.
Behind each leader swept the warrior ranks, brandishing their weapons, guarding with their shields and pretending to attack and retreat in wild convulsive rhythms.