Then the sumpitan rose slowly out of the field, and presently a large black bird tumbled down through the trees. The Dyak was on his feet in an instant, dashed through the thicket, and seized his trophy. Then he came back, holding it up triumphantly.
“Me catch’m new spec’men, Orang-kaya!” he announced, exuberantly. Gone was the dull, expressionless look in his eyes, replaced now by the sparkling zest of the primitive hunter.
“Boys, he’s got a long-tailed bird of paradise, by Jove!” cried the curator, excitedly. “Rarer than the superba! Great work, Sadok!”
They all ran to him and examined the prize. It was of glossy black, with bronze and purple glories of peacock-coal hues, making the feathers iridescent with changeable colors. A superb tail of feathers two feet long, and the side plumage brushed back, as it were, to form tufts of plumage along both sides of the back, completed the bird’s extraordinary ornaments.
“Almost makes you forget the pygmies, eh, Sadok?” grinned the curator, suggestively.
The Dyak’s face looked blank. Then his memory began slowly, painfully to work, and he put up his hand slowly and felt the bandage on his shoulder. Gradually his expression changed to comprehension, anger, disgust.
“Ugh!” he shuddered. “Me kill’m two—t’ree! Then me know nothing. Me come hit—arrow?” he asked.
“Yep. We found you. Carried you through the jungle for miles. Me cure’m upas [poison]. All well now!”
A kind of wonder grew in the Dyak’s eyes. It was the first time in his experience that any man had survived a poisoned arrow.
“Orang-kaya! him know everyt’ing!” he cried. “Him God—big-fellah!” He stooped down and embraced the curator’s knees adoringly.