“Ah, bah! Did you think to escape without even a scratch?” Johannes asked. “If only half of us reach the Chinese sea we may think ourselves lucky indeed. In real fact no one of us is safe.” “Your predictions are certainly far from reassuring,” Wienersdorf said. “He is always prophesying something horrible,” La Cueille muttered. “This ugly fellow tries to make our lives more insupportable than they already are.” “You will have to take life as it comes, and to face its trials fearlessly. Our position, however, is not quite so bad after all; we certainly have to lament the loss of one of our companions, but fortunately no one of us four has fallen yet. Wienersdorf’s wound received from the boa has nearly healed, and since La Cueille is not quite dead yet we may laugh at his pin pricks. What a noise our Walloon made about it, did he not?” Johannes laughingly remarked. “Since I am not dead yet you may enjoy your fun,” La Cueille said. “But was I really in danger?” “I did not entertain much hope for your life when I saw that arrow. Those weapons usually act very rapidly indeed. First, you are taken with a shivering fit, then your teeth begin to rattle, you talk at random and with the vehemence of a drunkard; and then all is over within half an hour. Since you have survived all these symptoms you may consider yourself out of danger.” The Walloon gave a sigh of relief. “But Wienersdorf will have to be careful of that bottle of nasty smelling liquid,” Johannes continued, “he has done wonders with it indeed.” “Dalim swears that his salt saved La Cueille.” “Not a bit of it,” Johannes replied. “I have watched the Colonel at Kwala Kapoeas in his experiments with arrow poisons on dogs, monkeys and fowls. The salt antidote always failed; the poor animals invariably died after it, while those treated by the application of the foul smelling liquid were all cured.” Wienersdorf was sitting, lost in thought, supporting his head with his hand. “It is still a riddle to me,” he said at last, “how those men came to leave a head behind them on the ground. I always thought that the head-hunter seized his victim by the hair before giving the fatal blow.”