He burst out into a string of profanity. The slave owner in him had come uppermost, and the news that his blacks were going to attack us aroused his anger at their presumption more than his fear that they might succeed. He stirred the dead figure with his foot.
"They dare to threaten me!" he rasped. "I'll shoot one man in every four of them! I'll whip the rest until they can't stand. I'll——"
My old dislike of the man returned, I could not doubt his courage, but I had never been particularly fond of the servaçal system and had their effort not imperiled the lives of the four of us, I would have had the best of wishes for the natives in their attempt to liberate themselves.
"We'd better decide how we're going to stand them off before we decide how we're going to punish them," I remarked. "There are three of us. There are at least six hundred of them."
Arthur suddenly turned with a start.
"Alicia's in the casa," he said sharply, "and the beast may come back."
He started for the house on a run. We heard his voice as he called to Alicia and heard her answer. Evan and I followed more slowly, discussing methods of protecting ourselves against the coming attack.
"There's one thing," I observed thoughtfully, "with the bush about the clearing full of natives, the gorilla will either keep a safe distance away—as is most likely—or else will have to fight his way through to get to us."
"Perhaps," said Evan gloomily, his voice still full of anger toward the blacks. "We'll worry about him when we have to. The important thing is the siege we'll have to stand. If we can stop the first rush, I think we'll be all right."
"We're all right for ammunition?" I asked.