The noise in the village redoubled, and, as night came down and the tents and hammocks were slung, it seemed that every man, woman, and child in it was coming to visit them in a mob. A singing chorus of the wild little hill men came marching toward them through the jungle paths.
“That’s bad!” exclaimed the curator, anxiously. “If there was only some way we could show our power, without hurting them! We can’t let a mob get to close quarters with us.”
“I think I’ve got a scheme, sir,” ventured Nicky. “There are a few flashlights in my vest-pocket camera. Suppose I run out and explode one in the path, about thirty yards off?”
“Well—get it ready, anyhow,” hesitated the curator. “They don’t seem to be hostile. Dwight and Sadok will cover you, while I will step out in front of the log and try to act like a peaceable human being.”
The pygmies came on in a crowd through the dark, torches here and there shining through the bush. They did not seem to be sending out flanking parties, which was reassuring, and the main body came on down the trail. Nicky dashed out, lit the fuse of his flash, and had just gotten back to the tree when it went off. A blinding glare lit up the scene. It showed at least a hundred pygmies diving frantically for cover. The whites noted with relief that the men were decorated with flowers and carried no arms. A party bearing a pig trussed up on a pole had suddenly set down their burden and decamped.
“They’re friendly!” cried the curator, relievedly. “I’d give a million dollars for the word ‘friend’ in Tapiro!” Instead, he put his hand over his heart and bowed his thanks for the pig, like any after-dinner orator. Sadok threw a pile of grass on the fire and its flames lit up the scene. The moment hung in the balance.
“Sing, boys!—something plaintive!—for God’s sake, sing!” barked the curator, hastily.
On such sudden notice Nicky could think of nothing but the old campfire ditty, “Sweet Adeline.” He poured it out, at the top of his voice, the others chiming in on the refrain. All over the world, in lonely campfires from the Arctic to the Equator, that plaintive song has unburdened the hearts of hunters and explorers, as a wolf bays the moon. It did not fail them now. Where words lacked, music got across. That remote something in the plaintive chimes of “Adeline” that satisfies the white hunter had reached over into the souls of this tribe of the most ancient of all hunters. One or two old men came out, quaking, from their hiding places, the leader of the original four one of them.
“Yow-nata-u; kema-kema!” he quavered, indicating the pig.
“Thanks!” called out the curator, desperately. “Go get him, Sadok and Baderoon. We’ve got to do the polite. I never knew music to fail with savages yet!”