“At last we struck the shade and sure enough found a broad avenue between the trees, just as the boatswain had mapped out. Then came another level stretch, only not so long as the first, bounded by a slight rise. It was just beyond this that the village was located. We approached as slyly as we could and cautiously gained the top without being interrupted. Just below us was the encampment, consisting of several scores of low huts. They were arranged like the spokes of a wheel, with broad streets radiating from the centre. The voters were having a big powwow, and they made so much noise that they had failed to catch the sound of our steeds or wheels.
“‘Now, children, list,’ commanded Tib. ‘I’m going to drive straight ahead. Billy will wend his way to the right and pick up the first spoor, followed by Simon Legree, who takes the second trail. Uncle Tom takes the first left aisle, followed by young Add Six and Carry Two. And we’ll form a cluster, God willing, in the centre of the exposition, where there seems to be a commodious green. Attention! Cutter bars down! Forward, trot!’
“And we five chauffeurs dashed into the hippodrome in the most ridiculous fashion. Tib bounced up and down like a rubber ball, and to fall from the seat meant a badly sliced up white man. But the effect was stupendous. I reckon the brunettes never before gazed on such wags as we must have appeared to be. Bang! Smash! we rode through their rotten village, and the machines needed oiling. Of all the rasping, clattering noises you ever heard, sir! Black nightmares rushed to get out of the way as we cleaned out the lanes.
“Snip! snip! and Tib had shaved off the corner of a mud villa. Crunch! and Simon picked up a totem pole. Every tooth in those five cutter bars was working and the collateral we chewed up didn’t do ’em a bit of good. But, as Tib said, it was only a one-night stand and our game was to sell tickets and ramble away. So on we careened, the horses wild with fright, now and then the shears picking up a brown toe as some devotee fell prostrate in his flight and babbled a cast-iron prayer to some burglar-proof god. It simply swept them off their feet, sir. Before they woke up we had entered the middle square.
“And if there wasn’t Her Lordship, trussed up between two poles, white as death!
“‘If you’ll pardon the bucolic style of my turnout, dear lady, I should be felicitated to have you accompany me back to the ship,’ cried Tib cheerily as he slashed her free and held her so she would not fall. And during it all he was apparently oblivious to the frescoes of black faces staring in stupid awe in the background.
“‘Can it be I’m saved!’ she whimpered, brushing back her twenty-two-carat hair with an uncertain gesture.
“‘Tut, tut,’ cried Tib heartily as he took her hand and tripped a merry morris toward his chariot. ‘I guess there’s no danger. These people are simply crude in their deportment and evidently believed you some wandering goddess and would detain you awhile.’
“‘You are a brave and a good man,’ she choked.
“‘I guess your hosts think me the devil. Excuse me, lady,’ salaamed Tib.