The savages were evidently not ill-disposed towards the wanderers. They laughed a great deal, and spoke to each other rapidly in what, to Glynn, was of course an unknown tongue. One who appeared to be the chief of the party passed his long black fingers through Ailie’s glossy curls with evident surprise and delight. He then advanced to Glynn, and said something like—
“Holli—boobo—gaddle—bump—um—peepi—daddle—dumps.”
To which Glynn replied very naturally, “I don’t understand you.”
Of course he did not. And he might have known well enough that the negro could not understand him. But he deemed it wiser to make a reply of some kind, however unintelligible, than to stand like a post and say nothing.
Again the negro spoke, and again Glynn made the same reply; whereupon the black fellow turned round to his comrades and looked at them, and they, in reply to the look, burst again into an immoderate fit of laughter, and cut a variety of capers, the very simplest of which would have made the fortune of any merry-andrew in the civilised world, had he been able to execute it. This was all very well, no doubt, and exceedingly amusing, not to say surprising; but it became quite a different matter when, after satisfying their curiosity, these dark gentlemen coolly collected the property of the white men, stowed it away in the small canoe, and made signs to Glynn and Ailie to enter.
Glynn showed a decided objection to obey, on which two stout fellows seized him by the shoulders, and pointed sternly to the canoe, as much as to say, “Hobbi-doddle-hoogum-toly-whack,” which, being interpreted (no doubt) meant, “If you don’t go quietly, we’ll force you.”
Again the young sailor’s spirit leaped up. He clenched his fists, his brow flushed crimson, and, in another instant, whatever might have been the consequence, the two negroes would certainly have lain recumbent on the sward, had it not suddenly occurred to Glynn that he might, by appearing to submit, win the confidence of his captors, and, at the first night-encampment, quietly make his escape with Ailie in his arms!
Glynn was at that romantic age when young men have a tendency to think themselves capable of doing almost anything, with or without ordinary facilities, and in the face of any amount of adverse circumstance. He therefore stepped willingly and even cheerfully into the canoe, in which his and his comrades’ baggage had been already stowed, and, seating himself in the stern, took up the steering-paddle. He was ordered to quit that post, however, in favour of a powerful negro, and made to sit in the bow and paddle there. Ailie was placed with great care in the centre of the canoe among a heap of soft leopard-skins; for the savages evidently regarded her as something worth preserving—a rare and beautiful specimen, perhaps, of the white monkey!
This done, they leaped into their large canoe, and, attaching the smaller one to it by means of a rope, paddled out from the bank, and descended the stream.
“Oh! Glynn,” exclaimed Ailie, in a whisper—for she felt that things were beginning to look serious—“what are we to do?”