"A close call! I have seen closer! I have stood so close to the brink of death that the width of an eyelash would have damned me!"
"Piffle!" I answered rudely. "How can the already damned be damned again?"
He laughed.
"You are sick still. You are petulant. Never mind. I was coming to call on you. I watched you leave the camp from the top of that hill behind you, and followed. It is better. We can talk here without being overheard. Send those natives away!"
"Certainly not!" I answered, but I reckoned without the professor and the fear his hairy presence instilled in them.
"Go!" he said simply in the native tongue; and although I ordered them at once to stay by me they ran back to the camp as fast as their legs could carry them.
"How do you feel now?" the professor asked.
I stared at him, wondering just what he meant.
"I mean, without a pistol!"
I saw the point. The rest-camp was not far away, but as far as I could judge we were quite out of sight from it, and unless there should happen to be some one hiding among the rocks at the foot of the hill behind me we were quite alone, unless, as was probable, he had placed one or two of his own hangers-on in hiding within call.