“You needn’t pretend that you can’t hear me,” he called again. “You’re within a few yards: so answer: don’t play the giddy goat.”
Hi’s heart was thumping in his throat, yet he smiled at this order, it was so like the call of a cross seeker, in hide and seek, in the shrubs at Tencombe, bidding the hiders to call “Cuckoo again.”
“Now cheese it, chum: come off with this kidding: where are you? Cut this right out.”
There was a pause after this, while Letcombe-Bassett listened, not so much for an answer, as for some sound, which would show him where Hi was. Hi kept still as a stone, which was not easy, for he had fallen into an uneasy posture, in a thicket which was the breeding or roosting place of minute scarlet midges. These things surveyed him for a few seconds, then, having decided that he would be good to eat, they settled upon him. There were perhaps fifty of them, each with the theory that the nearer the bone the sweeter the meat. Their bite was by far sharper than the bite of the spotted-winged marsh-midge at home. But far worse than the bite was the pertinacity with which they thrust down his neck, into his ears, up his nostrils, or down to the roots of his hair, before they bit. Hi longed to beat them from him and scratch as he had never scratched. Letcombe-Bassett listened, making no sound.
“Chuck it, chum,” he called at last. “I know you’re there. You won’t kid this nigger: I’m not that sort. You’d better come out. If I come in to fetch you, you’ll sing a different song, my lad.”
Seeing that threats had as little effect as persuasion, he tried again, with an appeal to reason. “Look here, kid,” he said, “I’m only speaking for your own good. You’ll never find your way out of this. You’ll get bushed to a dead cert, just as you were before. And if you get bushed in this part, God help you. There’ll be no kind white man to give you chow; don’t think it. If a snake doesn’t do you, a tiger will. Or if a woods Indian finds you, he’ll eat you: to say nothing of the fever. Come on out of it, like a sensible kid and turn-to at the temple. . . .
“If you think I’m not offering you enough, you’ve only to say the word. I’ll go you an honest half, share and share alike, in all we find: I can’t say squarer. I wouldn’t do it for many people; but I like you, because you’ve got guts, and so I tell you straight.”
“That’s why Doll Tearsheet loved Falstaff,” Hi thought, not stirring. “An odd taste, but love is blind. What will be his next move?” Letcombe-Bassett paused to consider and to listen.
“All right, chum,” he called at last. “I’ll remember this. You needn’t pretend to me that you’ve got clear away. I’m not so easily fooled as you may think. You’re within earshot and very well within range; kindly remember that. Are you going to come along and bear a hand?” He waited for ten seconds for an answer, then said,
“I’ll give you while I count seven: if you don’t come before then, I’ll come in and fetch you. I know where you are. As a matter of fact I can see you from here.” This was thrilling hearing, though Hi believed (and earnestly hoped) that it was not true. The man gave it a few seconds to work upon his victim’s mind; then he began to count.