"Can't we go on?" Jack asked.
"Not on your life. We've been gone nearly half an hour and uncle'll be worried if we don't get back pronto."
"All right, then, let's beat it."
Bob got to his feet and they were about to start back when, without the least warning, a dozen men seemed to rise from nowhere all about them. They were small brown men dressed in nothing except a wide fringe of some kind of grass about the waist. Their faces and the upper part of their bodies were profusely painted with grotesque figures, making them appear most hideous. They were unarmed save for a thin reed about six feet long which each man carried in his right hand. But both boys had read accounts of the dreaded blow-pipes and recognized them as the most formidable of weapons. One slight prick from their tiny darts and they knew that it was death.
"Mind your step," Bob whispered.
For a moments the brown men had stood still gazing at them as though undecided what to do. Then one, a man slightly larger than the others and evidently their leader, advanced a few steps and said something in a language they were unable to understand. Bob shook his head and smiled although, as he afterward declared, it was the last thing he felt like doing. The native repeated his statement this time in louder tones and seemed angry when Bob again shook his head.
"Reckon he wants us to go down the hill," Jack said in low tones.
Bob smiled again at the man and pointed down the hill away from the boat.
"Ugg," the man grunted.
"I reckon he understands and means yes," Bob said. "So, come on and be careful and don't do anything to make them mad. You know what those tubes are."