The Professor saw the bulbs and picked up one of them and glanced about the room, and then looked at John in a questioning way. The boys noted this. Nothing was said at the time, but as the Professor passed out George followed him.
"What was that bulb you picked up?"
"It is the root of the plant called Amarylla, and it is in the juice of this plant that certain savages dip their arrow-heads for poisoning them."
This information was not a little startling and disquieting to George, who rushed back and quietly called out the boys. "Do you know what Chief has been doing? Did you see the peculiar bulbs he had? The Professor picked up one of them, and what do you suppose it is? It is the root from which they make the poisons for arrow-heads."
Harry could not believe that the savage had any designs on them. "I suppose he will bear watching, so let us see what he intends to do with them!"
When Chief had admired himself sufficiently he took the bulbs to the kitchen and placed them in the oven, as the boys called it, and when George came in he was smiling, as he thought, in a very peculiar way. George did not disturb the bulbs, and when the meal was brought in Chief was on hand and went to the kitchen. He soon returned with the roasted bulbs and deposited them at the table.
The boys looked at the Professor, and he and John exchanged smiling glances, and both of them took the bulbs and began the meal with them in the most nonchalant manner. The boys could not understand the Professor's defiant manner in eating a poisonous bulb, and George cried out: "Didn't you say that the bulb was poisonous?"
"Yes, it is, for some things."
"Well, how can it be poisonous for some things and not for others. Don't the savages use the poisons of the arrows to kill people with?"
"Certainly; but it is used in that case as a blood poison. A blood poison is not necessarily a stomach poison. In truth, there are few poisons that are fatal to both the blood and stomach."