Had they been able to see, they would have understood the situation well enough without the aid of language.
Two of the natives, who were dark-skinned and almost naked savages, had come to the place where the track had been broken away. They gazed at the profound depths on the left and the inaccessible cliffs on the right, and then glanced at each other in solemn surprise.
No doubt the creeping plant would in a few seconds have attracted special attention, had not an incident turned their minds in another direction. While the foremost savage was craning his neck so as to see as far round the projecting cliff as possible, the piece of rock on which his advanced foot was dislodged, and he had the narrowest possible escape from plunging headlong after the rock, which went bounding and crashing into the gulf below.
Instantly the faces of the two men gleamed with intelligence; they nodded with energy, grinned with satisfaction, and pointed to the abyss in front of them with the air of men who had no doubt that their enemies were lying down there in quivering fragments.
Something of this James Ginger did indeed manage to see. Curiosity was so powerfully developed in that sable spirit, that, at the imminent risk of his life, he reached out by means of a branch, and so elongated his black neck that he got one of his brilliant eyes to bear for a moment upon his foes. He appreciated the situation instantly, and drew back to indulge in a smothered laugh which shut up both his eyes and appeared to gash his face from ear to ear.
“What’s wrong with you, Ebony?” whispered Mark Breezy, who was in anything but a laughing mood just then.
“Oh! nuffin’, nuffin’, massa; only dem brown niggers are sitch asses dat dey b’lieve a’most anyting. Black niggers ain’t so easy putt off de scent. Dey tinks we’s tumble ober de precipis an’ busted ourselbes.”
“Lucky for us that they think so,” said Hockins, in a soft tone of satisfaction. “But now, what are we to do? It was bad enough clamberin’ up here in blazin’ excitement to save our lives, but it will be ten times worse gettin’ down again in cold blood when they’re gone.”
“Time enough to consider that when they are gone,” muttered Breezy. “Hush! Listen!”
The sounds that reached their place of concealment told clearly enough that a number of the savages had descended the cliffs, presumably to look at the place over which the white men had fallen. Then there was much eager conversation in an unknown tongue, mingled with occasional bursts of laughter—on hearing which latter the huge mouth of our negro enlarged in silent sympathy. After a while the voices were heard to retire up the narrow track and become fainter until they died away altogether, leaving no sound save the murmur of the rushing river to fill the ears of the anxious listeners who stood like three statues in a niche on the face of that mighty precipice.