He had taken a leaf of the raw tobacco and adding a pinch for filler was trying to twist the spill. And he could not. It became evident to them that he could not. The fingers moved painfully, trembling.... Curious fingers he had, stumpy and thick and clumsy as if covered with ragged gloves, wholly unequal to the delicate task.
Slowly Nivin levered his lank frame out of the chair and moved a pace like a somnambulist and stood staring at those fingers. He straightened and transfixed De Haan. "Where's your police?" he whispered. "Guns—soldiers—something—!"
"What? What is it?"
Nivin stood braced like a man at the edge of a precipice.
"To hold this place."
De Haan looked around over the patch of lighted garden into the banks of shrubbery and further dim tree shapes.
"I hold zis place," he said simply, bulking big and broad. "I am here. None of my people will harm us now, whatever zey may haf done, whatever you may mean. And zen—?"
Without a word Nivin stepped into the circle about the palm, stepped up to the crouching, sinister captive, flung an arm about him and seemed to wrestle. A knife wrought swiftly in his hand with little flashes.
"N-n-not—not—not monkeys!" burst a broken voice, sobbing with eagerness to top the phrase.