“No; him a cowardly beast. Him come at mans when sleepin’ or dyin’, but not at oder time. ’Oo like see me catch um?”
“Why, yes, if ’ee can do it,” answered Disco, with a slight look of contempt at his friend, who bore too much resemblance in some points to the hyena.
“Come here, den.”
They went together into the jungle a little distance, and halted under the branch of a large tree. To this Antonio suspended a lump of raw flesh, at such a height from the ground that a hyena could only reach it by leaping. Directly underneath it he planted a short spear in the earth with its point upward.
“Now, come back to fire,” he said to Disco; “’ou soon hear sometin’.”
Antonio was right. In a short time afterwards a sharp yell was heard, and, on running to the trap, they found a hyena in its death-agonies. It had leaped at the meat, missed it, and had come down on the spear and impaled itself.
“Well, of all the fellers I ever know’d for dodges,” said Disco, on reseating himself at the fire, “the men in these latitudes are the cleverest.”
By this time dancing was going on furiously; therefore, as it would have been impossible to sleep, Disco refilled his pipe and amused himself by contemplating the intelligent countenance of Kambira, who sat smoking bang out of a huge native meerschaum on the other side of the fire.
“I wonder,” said Harold, who lay stretched on a sleeping-mat, leaning on his right arm and gazing contemplatively at the glowing heart of the fire; “I wonder what has become of Yoosoof?”
“Was ’ee thinkin’ that he deserved to be shoved in there?” asked Disco, pointing to the fire.