A band of men numbering over a hundred, stood in groups or tramped
around the car, silent, all intently watching the windows.
Great, swarthy fellows, of magnificent physique, delicate-featured as
the East Indian. What made Saxe. doubt they were men?
Enormous horned dogs were harnessed to many odd-looking conveyances. In
one, seated among luxurious furs, a man rested whose piercing eyes never
wandered from the car. Occasionally he gave an order, and from the alert
attitude and obsequious manner of the others, I judged he was their
chief. Suddenly he raised his eyes to the ventilator and gazed straight
into mine; he seemed to smile; I caught a flash of white teeth as I sank
from view. Sheldon laughed at my precipitancy.
“One of them spied me!” I gasped.
“That’s nothing,” he assured me; “that fellow in the sleigh has spied
every one of us in turn; you’re the last; by this time I guess he’s
aware of the number of our band.”
Then he buoyed us up by elegantly expressing his belief that “we’d about
reached the last coil,” and advised us to “wiggle around,” and find out
what the “tribe” outside wanted. He couldn’t understand why the
“savages” didn’t attack us.
Saxe. braced up and declared he would step out and inquire what he could
do for the “dusky boys.” To avoid argument he unbarred the door at once
and we all trooped out to the platform.
Our sudden appearance startled the strangers who stared in round-eyed
wonder, while the man in the sleigh sprang out and hurried forward,
scanning us with the liveliest interest. We were not behind in that
matter but nodded, he responding with a sweeping bow. Saxe. held out his
hand, the other grasped and shook it heartily, then glanced smilingly at
us. We nodded again in our friendliest manner. The whole band saluted.
“By George! the Relief Party after all,” Sheldon muttered.
The leader indulged in graceful pantomime, pointing to the north,
indicating he knew we came from there, and apparently he considered we
had accomplished a wonderful feat. He pressed his hand to his heart and,
saluting, waved toward the south, from which we inferred he had
appointed himself our escort; and if everything was as agreeable as
appearances, then we had struck clover.
Saxe. thanked the gentleman—in English. The chief threw out his hands
and looked anxious. Saxe. tried again in German, then Italian, French,
Spanish, and finally in Latin. Our dusky friend listened attentively,
seeming to catch at a word or two of the Latin, then replied in the most
musical language I ever heard, similar to Latin; but we were all Latin
scholars and could not understand a word. We invited him to enter the
car. He complied graciously, first giving orders to his men, which they
obeyed with alacrity, and sleighs and dogs were prepared for action.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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