Apparently the magic touch of gold reconciled the farmer to these hasty proceedings, for he made no more ado, but took the lamp and bade the three men to follow him.
"What's wrong, mister?" asked Rodier. "You look as if you had been shocked."
Smith drew the paper from his pocket, gave it to Rodier, and then, striking a match, showed him the paragraph, and lighted more matches while he read it.
"Mon dieu!" ejaculated the Frenchman, when he was halfway through. "It is your father!"
"Yes; my brother is with him. I must get home; it will kill my mother if she sees this."
Rodier read the paragraph to the end.
"My word, it is bad business," he said. "These cannibals!... And they have no arms. What horror!"
Smith left him abruptly and walked to the fence to see how the work of dismantling it was proceeding. Rodier whistled, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, sat down on a bag of straw and appeared to be deep in a brown study. Sounds of hammering came from the fence; a light breeze was scattering the mist, and he could now see clearly the three men under the farmer's direction carefully removing the fencing beneath the aeroplane. Rodier watched them for a few minutes, but an onlooker would have gathered the impression that his thoughts were far away.
Suddenly he sprang up, muttering, "Ah! On peut le faire, quand même. Courage, mon ami!" and hastened to rejoin his employer.
"What distance, mister," he said, "from here to there—to the cannibals?"