“The face of the fellow was purple, but it seemed as if Lynch’s assurance had robbed him of speech. He stood glowering like a great Guernsey bull, while Lynch went back and forth about him as if he had been an obstructing tree.
“‘You see, we are naturalists,’ Lynch began, talking as he worked. ‘Some of these boxes contain trade-stuffs, but most of them are full of heads—skulls, you know, very interesting—I will show you some if you like. I suppose your people are honest? I fancy this stuff will be safe right here where it is. Hi!’—he relapsed into the dialect, and before I knew what was going on two of the boys had me up the bank.
“‘Permit me to introduce Dr. Leyden; I am Mr. Lynch,’ said this extraordinary lieutenant of mine; ‘and now, sir, if you will lead the way——’
“‘Ye’re takin’ a deal for granted,’ began the man in a surly voice.
“‘I’m taking it for granted that you are the missionary,’ said Lynch, calmly. ‘If you are not, it really makes no difference. No white man could help being glad to accommodate two other white men in a place like this, and, although you do not keep a tavern, perhaps we can render you some service in return for your hospitality. We have more firearms than we will need——’
“‘Ye’re verra kind,’ growled the man, but I saw his pale, swinish eye lighten a bit, and guessed that Lynch, with his usual tact, had touched him. ‘Of course, I’ll gie ye a lodgin’ for the night, though I’ve little to offer strangers.’ He walked sullenly ahead, Lynch following him, and I noticed that, although my companion was a tall, well-built man, the other topped him by half a head and the breadth of a hand across the shoulders. I do not think that I have ever seen a more powerful brute—all bone and muscle, and something in the shiftiness of his pale, cunning eye told me that he was not without a corresponding share of guile.
“As we drew near to the stockade I saw that it was quite new, and then Lynch reached behind him and pinched my foot as I lay on the stretcher, and, would you believe it, Doctor, on every sharpened stake that formed the front of the stockade there was a human head! They had been there varying lengths of time, I judged, but the—eh—evidences of the recency of some were quite apparent.
“‘I see that you go in for heads a bit yourself, Mr. Cullen,’ said Lynch, in his pleasant voice, but hardly was the name between his lips when this hairy giant of ours wheeled on him like a boar. You know the stiff, muscle-bound motion, Doctor: the swift sling of the rigid body all on one axis, the great, brutish head swung on its thick neck, the mean little eyes slanting up evilly. That is what this hairy brute was, a boar, with all of the cunning and surly moroseness of this animal. There was something horribly brutish in the swing of his shock head between the hulking shoulders as he turned on Lynch, and something horribly sinister in the yellow glint of his teeth between the bristling, red mustache, which seemed to roll upwards like that which one sees on the headpieces of ancient Japanese armor. If he had turned to me like that I would have presented him with the muzzle of my pistol—Ach!—and very possibly the bullet as well, for the secret of long life in my profession is to take no chances. I could not see, however, that Lynch moved a muscle, except to smile.
“‘Where got ye that name?’ snarled the man. His beard was thrust almost into Lynch’s face, and I could see the twitching of his thick fingers.
“‘On the collar of your pajamas,’ said Lynch, calmly. ‘Do you observe, Doctor,’ he continued, turning to me, ‘that some of these skulls are quite different from any we have secured? Possibly our host might be willing to exchange——’ He turned to survey the exhibit with interest. ‘What a Golconda it is, to be sure!’ cried my New York lawyer, enthusiastically. ‘You are to be complimented on your collection, Mr.—eh—eh——’