When I turned up again among my fellows, like the penny which cannot be lost, they were nearly knocked dumb with astonishment. Hungry, disgusted and weary, I limped off to bed as soon as I had indicated the need of sentries throughout the night. Such a war as this made me snort with contempt.
Sometime during the night the fog disappeared, as mysteriously as it had come. I had rested badly, having been kept awake by the pain in my foot, so that I arose before morning and sat by the fire. There, after bathing the ankle in water from the spring of brine, I bound it up with strips of squirrel skin, fastened on with cord made of divided creepers. This treatment gave me much relief. The only luck I had in the accident was that the sprain was not so serious as my facial contortions (when alone) might have indicated to a keen observer.
The morning broke clear as glass; one could feel that the day meant to be hot before it finished. In our settlement we were all somewhat cross, from lack of food, myself in particular, because this game of starving us out seemed so nonsensical, and also because my relief expedition had fizzled out to such a miserable end. I began to be anxious to try results with our cunning besiegers. If they delayed the fight for the day again, I meant to carry the issue into their own headquarters, for we had to eat!
Thinking I might enrage them to the point of starting the battle, I carried the gold-nugget club from my shelter and planted it, nugget end uppermost, on our ramparts, directly in line with their camp and the mine of bombs below. Then I induced old Fatty to beat the drum, while I got up on top of the wall and paraded, somewhat after the top-loftical style of the American Indians, beating my breast with my fist, shouting derisively and pointing with maniacal glee to the gleaming club which we had taken, as a token of victory worthily won.
This bit of vanity produced an immediate effect, for a score of the fellows down in the trees appeared from the cover, sufficiently furious to suit the most exacting mind. They screamed shrilly to express their wrath, they beat the unoffending earth with their clubs, and they danced about as if the soil were hot. Nevertheless they advanced hardly as much as a stone-toss up the slope, being evidently under some powerful restraint. I executed the most aggravating evolutions, limping about on the wall, but to no apparent purpose. What was the game which the creatures played with such assurance that they could wait with this remarkable patience? I was angry to think they would not attack; I was annoyed to be obliged to admit that their warfare threatened to be subtle and effective. I hated to be starved into retreat, which would certainly be disastrous, or into a charge, down hill, against an ambush, which charge would doubtless prove to be an insupportable calamity.
“Come up, you cowards!” I bawled in a sneering tone of voice. “Lay on, you black McDuffers—we can wipe you off the map!”
My only answer was an echo of the cries I had heard the morning before, away in the jungle. This puzzled me again; it made me impatient. My Links had surged about me, wrought to a fine frenzy of excitement, eager to eat up the whole nation of Blacks—as splendid a pack of starving wolves as one could find. They also heard the cries, where the enemy appeared to be scouring through the forest, and I noted that many grew silent and worried. They reminded me of animals which have an instinct that warns them against the dangers which a human being cannot see nor feel.
The chief stood a little away, aloof from the others, leaning as ever on his club. What a brilliant, coruscating spot was made by the great, deadly crystal which he wielded so terribly in the fight! His mate, the indignant albino, stood beside him, eyeing myself with scorn and hatred. Her round, pink eyes were as nervous as quicksilver; her whole demeanour expressed the jealousy she nourished against me for pushing aside the chief, and the undisguised desire she felt to avenge herself for my former repudiation of her serene regard.
I gave her only a glance, and to the chief a nod of recognition. Below me little Tike was looking up in my face; near him old Fatty was standing, his quick, bright eyes upon me, his arms akimbo and the battered old skull on his head pushed aside, revealing hairless spots where, by rubbing, it had worn the growth off his leather-covered pate.
“Animals or primitive men—what are you all?” I muttered, and I shook my head and gave it up.