“Enough!” exclaimed George, with a look of surprise, “why, zat is not enough to scare a weasel with, much less a elephant or a—a platzicumroggijoo.”
George was ignorant of South African zoology, and possessed inventive powers.
“Bring ten times as much,” he added; “we shall have to keep a blazin’ bonfire agoin’ all night.”
Scholtz re-shouldered his axe, and went off to the jungle with a broad grin on his broader countenance.
He was a man who did not spare himself, yet of a temperament that kicked at useless labour, and of a size that forbade the idea of compulsion, but George Dally could have led him with a packthread to do anything.
Before he had reached the jungle, and while the smile was yet on his visage, his blood was curdled and his face elongated by a most appalling yell! It was not exactly a war-whoop, nor was it a cry of pain, though it partook of both, and filled the entire family with horror as they rushed to the tent on the mound from which the cry had issued.
The yell had been given by Junkie, who had been bitten or stung by something, and who, under the combined influence of surprise, agony, and wrath, had out-Junkied himself in the fervour and ferocity of his indignant protest.
The poor child was not only horrified, but inconsolable. He wriggled like an eel, and delivered a prolonged howl with intermittent bursts for full half an hour, while his distracted nurse and mother almost tore the garments off his back in their haste to discover the bite or the brute that had done it.
“It must have bin a serpent!” cried the nurse, agonising over a knotted string.
“Perhaps a tarantula,” suggested Gertie, who only clasped her hands and looked horrified.