A little after dark, all became silent in the village. I barred my little bit of a door as well as I could with my chest, and, lying down on that dreadful Fan bed, I placed my gun by my side, and tried hard, but in vain, to go to sleep. I wondered how many times human flesh had entered the hut I was in. I thought of all I had seen during the day, which I have related to you. The faces of those terrible warriors, and the implements of war, were before my eyes though it was pitch dark.
Was I afraid? Certainly not. What feeling was it that excited me? I cannot tell you. It was certainly not fear; for if anyone the next day had offered to take me back where I came from, I should have declined the offer. Probably I was agitated by the novel and horrible sights that had greeted my eyes, and which exceeded all my previous conceptions of Africa. Now and then I thought that as these men not only killed people, but ate them also, they might perhaps be curious to try how I tasted.
Hour after hour passed, and I could not get to sleep. I said my bed was a dreadfully bad one. It was a frame composed of half a dozen large round bamboos. I might as well have tried to sleep on a pile of cannonballs. Finally, I succeeded in going to sleep, holding my gun tightly under my arm.
When I got up in the morning, and went out at the back of the house, I saw a pile of ribs, leg and arm bones, and skulls, piled together. The cannibals must have had a grand fight, not long before, and devoured all their prisoners of war.
In what was I to wash my face? I resolved at last not to wash at all.
ENTRAPPING THE ELEPHANT.