"Cheer up, old man," said the Baker, and they shot out on the gloomy water, just there some thirty yards across, and with about ten strokes, they reached the other side.
The Baker landed easily, and the other men helped Smith, a bit roughly, but not unkindly. They went up the bank, and going about fifty yards, came out on an open space in which was a large camp and some native-looking gunyahs, or leaf and branch huts.
And then Mandeville could see his hosts, or his captors, whichever they might turn out to be, and his heart sank within him, for they were nearly all big, and one was gigantic, and their whole appearance was that of the dead man whom they had seen. It was like a nightmare truly to see them clad in skins, rough and hairy, and burnt as black as white men can ever get. But their features were English, if strangely altered, and very few appeared to have traces of black blood in them. Those who had were the smaller, and apparently the less considered.
And he saw the women, too. They did not at first lessen his fear of the men. But he had no time just then to speculate ignorantly; Smith called for his attention. He seemed absolutely dying; he lay quite unconscious, and only moaned a little every now and again.
"Can you give me somethin' for my mate?" he asked, and the chief nodded and spoke to one of the women. She disappeared into the largest gunyah, and brought out a dish with some boiled or stewed meat in it.
"I 'opes to God it ain't man," said the Baker. But when he took the dish from the savage woman, whose matted hair hung to her bare knees, he nearly let it drop. It was heavy truly, but it was of pure gold!
"I'm done," said Mandy, going on his knees by Smith. "I'm fair beat. This cooks my goose. When did I die?"
And he fed Smith with his fingers until the same woman who had given him the dish snatched it away from him, and taking Smith's head on her lap, she fed him with a rudely-fashioned spoon of the same metal as the dish.
Then another woman, who was younger and fairer to look on, brought Mandy some food, which he ate too ravenously. But when he nearly choked, he put the brake on, and forcing himself to stay, he took out his pipe, and lighted it with a hot coal.
This proceeding was curiously, not to say anxiously, watched by every one of the twenty or thirty people, young and old, who composed the camp. But when he took a deep inspiration, and then blew out the smoke, there was a stampede among the little boys and girls. But the men were intensely interested.