"You swine!" I shouted at Schillingschen, trying to break loose and attack him. For answer he raised his cudgel in both hands and stood on tiptoe to get leverage. If that blow had landed it must have broken something, for he was strong as a gorilla; but somebody shouted—I recognized Fred's voice, and in another second he and Will charged down on us. Schillingschen turned about to strike Fred instead of me, but Will's fist hit him on the ear and split it. The professor staggered backward, and a moment later Fred had felled the Zulu. I reeled from weakness and excitement, and nearly fell down.
"Throw him to the crocks, you men!" I urged madly. "He threw Crinkle in. Throw him! Nobody'll ever know! He'd have dared throw me in! Nobody comes here! Throw him in and trust the crocks to leave no trace!"
"Shut up, you fool!" growled Fred.
"Did you see him throw that dog in?" I retorted.
"No," he answered, "but I saw him strike you. That's enough! I'll deal with him!"
I suppose Fred intended to knock the professor down and belabor him with the same stick he had used on me, but the plan died stillborn. Schillingschen bethought him of his hip-pocket, produced a repeating pistol, and leveled it.
"Any nonsense, and I shoot you all!" he announced.
That ended the battle as far as we were concerned. We had no firearms. Schillingschen wasted no time on explanations, but beckoned his Zulu and walked off, striding at a great pace and only looking back over his shoulder once or twice to make sure we were not in pursuit.
Fred and Will lent me an arm apiece and we followed slowly, I recounting as fast as I could all that had happened, and they trying to chaff me back into a sensible frame of mind.
"That was a decent dog!" I insisted. "He slept on my bed those nights when I had fever!"