“Why, hello, Naddie, old boy—glad to meet you!” said Mr. Perkins, advancing as far as his captors would let him and holding out one of his broad, fat hands.
The king regarded him silently. It was the first time he had had an opportunity to inspect this addition to our former party. But he paid no attention to the outstretched hand.
“Know your daughter well,” continued Uncle Naboth, unabashed at the marked coolness with which his friendly advances were met; “she’s a fine gal, Nalig; oughter be proud o’ her, old chap!”
With this he began to chuckle and poked the king jovially in his royal ribs, causing the stern visaged monarch to jump backward with a cry of mingled indignation and rage. This so pleased my uncle that his chuckle increased to a cough, which set him choking until he was purple in the face.
The king watched this exhibition with amazement; but when his prisoner recovered with startling abruptness and wiped the tears of merriment from his eyes, the barbarian gave a disdainful grunt and walked away to his palace. He was followed by his band of attendant chiefs, whom I recognized as his former counsellors.
I looked around for Ilalah, but she had disappeared the moment we rushed into the enclosure, having doubtless been dragged away by her attendants as soon as she had served the purpose of luring us into the trap.
We were now taken to one of the huts built against the wall and thrust through a doorway with scant ceremony. It was merely a one-roomed affair with thick walls and no furniture but a clay bench at the back. The only aperture was the doorway. Several stout warriors, well armed and alert, ranged themselves before this opening as a guard.
We were not bound, for having lost all our weapons, including even our pocket-knives, we were considered very helpless.
“I don’t like the looks of this thing,” I remarked, when we had seated ourselves quite soberly in a row on the mud bench.
“Bad box, sure ’nough, Mars’ Sam,” said Bryonia, with a sigh.