He called into the forest and three other old men came unwillingly forth. They advanced, unarmed, to the edge of the clearing, stooping down and pouring sand on their heads in token of abject submission, but that was as far as they could be coaxed to come.
“It is well,” called the curator, at length, for he had no wish to risk any undue familiarity with them. “Shoot something, Sadok. I want them to fear you, too.”
Sadok looked around for a mark, and his eyes lit on a wandering pig under one of the huts. He poised his sumpitan and the dart flew out of its muzzle. The pig squealed and twitched his tail, and then went on rooting. In another moment he sighed and laid over, dead.
A shiver and a rustling of leaves ran through the underbrush.
“Ye have seen the silent death, also,” said Baderoon, raising his voice at the curator’s prompting. “Do not eat the pig; it is taboo.”
One of the old men took off his boars’-tusk breastplate and stepped forward and laid it on the ground. He testified that it was a present. At a sign from the curator Baderoon fetched it. The scientist examined it curiously. The white tusks were laid in rows, one atop the other, and their ends were bound with fiber network, thickly ornamented with polished red beads. The curator started with astonishment as he looked closely at them.
“Ask him where they get those red beads, Baderoon.”
There was some talk and waving of arms, and then Baderoon turned to the curator. “Him get’m big mountain—down there,” he said, pointing to the south. “Mus’ fight litty hill men for him. Prenty too-much trophy.”
“Tell him the white man is pleased, and will give a present, too.”
The curator undid his red-silk bandanna, and Baderoon bore it over ceremoniously and laid it before the chief. The latter grinned, for the first time, and they could see that he was dying to handle it. He nodded at the curator with beaming eyes and made the pantomime of rubbing noses.