Much excitement was created by the arrival of the two boys and their companion, and the hunters crowded round the chums while their guide explained with a wealth of gesture the incident of the killing of the lioness, and also the fact that the boys were very hungry.
Several of the men instantly filled wooden bowls with something from a pot that simmered over the fires and the bowls were thrust before the two ravenous boys. As there were no forks of course the boys used their fingers. But this did not interfere with their appetite and after they had put away two bowls apiece the savages' opinion of them evidently rose considerably. Among the West African natives a big eater is esteemed as a mighty man. Lathrop was considerably embarrassed, however, while he satisfied his hunger by the attention the hunters bestowed on his red hair. Several of them came up behind him and rubbed their hands in it as if they imagined it possessed some sort of medicinal value. Had any one at home dared to take such liberties with the boy's rubicund locks there would have been a fight right away, but Lathrop felt that the best policy to assume in the present situation was silence, and as the old ship captain said to his mate, "dem little of that."
"I say, Billy," whispered Lathrop suddenly, as, after eating the stew, they watched the hunters piling their belongings into their canoes, "you don't suppose they mean to fatten us up to eat us, do you?"
"Well, we can't starve even if that is the reason," replied the practical Billy, "but so far they seem friendly enough. They have not even taken my rifle away."
"That looks encouraging, certainly," replied Lathrop; "if only we knew where Frank and Harry and good old Ben were we might find this all very interesting, as it is though—"
"We've got to make the best of it," chimed in Billy, "come on. See old job-lots is signing to us to come down and get in a canoe."
"Whatever they mean to do with us they seem determined to make us comfortable," remarked Billy, as the boys took their seats in a canoe in which skins had been piled to make an easy seat.
For most of that afternoon they paddled steadily up the brown river, the savages singing from time to time an unending sort of chant, that sounded like nothing so much as a continuous repetition of:
"I-told-you-so. I-told-you-so. I—told-YOU-SO."
"Hum," commented Billy, "if anyone had told me so I'd have stayed in New York."