“But what’s it for?” whispered the Captain, fretted by the long silence and the whole uncanny exhibition, as batch after batch of athletes submitted themselves to the ordeal.
“They reckon it makes them more limber for to-morrow’s performance,” explained the agent. “They’re the ‘ball’ team, you know.”
Captain Hall had seen enough for one day, but early the next morning he rode further into the forest with his guide, towards the playing ground, some six miles away. This turned out to be another clearing—a space two hundred yards by twenty, at either end of which were two large green boughs stuck six feet apart in the earth, evidently meant to act as some sort of goals.
Here was the ground, right enough, and batches of spectators were continually adding themselves to those already in attendance. But where were the players, and what were they going to play?
“They go to meet the other team,” said the agent; “and they usually take their time over getting here, for there’ll be a score or two of private fights, that have been carried over from last year, to settle by the way.”
When the white men had waited for more than two hours, they lost patience and rode further into the forest in search of the rival companies, guiding themselves more or less by the warlike howls that proceeded from the distance. And presently they came upon the bulk of the missing men, some walking in twos and threes, others stopping to adjust private grievances with the strangers or their own people (they did not seem particular), and a third contingent lying in the rank grass, singing war-songs, sleeping, smoking, or bedizening themselves. These latter, who had left the putting on of their bravery till the eleventh hour, were painting their eyelids (one black and the other yellow) and adorning their persons artistically with feathers and the tails of monkeys or wild cats. Clearly it would be idle to suggest their hurrying themselves; and the Captain and his conductor rode back to the field very much at their leisure.
Shortly after midday, however, both teams arrived, and having inspected the ground for a bare minute, made a sudden stampede, each side for its own goal.
“There’s one thing, they don’t waste any time about beginning, when they do get here,” said Hall relievedly, at which remark the agent only grinned.
In another moment an appalling chorus of yells arose from the neighbourhood of either goal, and both teams began to dance like madmen, waving over their heads the sticks with which they were going to play.