He breathed more freely when he saw that the men who led the villager forward had coils of rope in their hands and nothing else. In a trice the man was bound to the cross, his arms at full length, his body firmly lashed to the upright.
The half-caste now beckoned to Jack.
"Come down the slope," said Saya Chone. "I want you to look at this man now. You will see him again in the morning. Perhaps you will find it useful to note the difference."
Jack was led down the descent and brought face to face with the native. The English lad saw at once that the man bound to the cross was stupefied with an extremity of terror. His brown skin was a frightful ashen shade, his eyes were wide, distended with horror, and fixed on the swamp, his mouth open, his jaw hanging limp.
"You will see him again in the morning," repeated the half-caste; "and you will see, I assure you, another kind of man."
"Yes," said Jack, "after you have practised your brutal devilries on him."
"No, no, oh no," laughed Saya Chone in his soft, cunning tones. "We shall do no more to him. His whole punishment consists in remaining here in bonds from sunset to sunrise. Then we shall loose the ropes, and he will be free."
"Yes," said Jack, who thought now that he saw daylight, "with every vein full of the fever and malaria that haunt this swamp."
"Fever," laughed Saya Chone, "this fellow is absolutely safe against fever. You could no more give him jungle fever than you could make him ten feet high. A night here would give you a fever that would kill you in ten days, never him."
Jack was puzzled once more, and said nothing. He resolved to ask his father what it all meant.