There was little timber close to the base of the cliffs, and so I was
forced to enter the wood some two hundred yards distant. I realize now
how foolhardy was my act in such a land as Caspak, teeming with danger
and with death; but there is a certain amount of fool in every man; and
whatever proportion of it I own must have been in the ascendant that
day, for the truth of the matter is that I went down into those woods
absolutely defenseless; and I paid the price, as people usually do for
their indiscretions. As I searched around in the brush for likely
pieces of firewood, my head bowed and my eyes upon the ground, I
suddenly felt a great weight hurl itself upon me. I struggled to my
knees and seized my assailant, a huge, naked man--naked except for a
breechcloth of snakeskin, the head hanging down to the knees. The
fellow was armed with a stone-shod spear, a stone knife and a hatchet.
In his black hair were several gay-colored feathers. As we struggled
to and fro, I was slowly gaining advantage of him, when a score of his
fellows came running up and overpowered me.
They bound my hands behind me with long rawhide thongs and then
surveyed me critically. I found them fine-looking specimens of
manhood, for the most part. There were some among them who bore a
resemblance to the Sto-lu and were hairy; but the majority had massive
heads and not unlovely features. There was little about them to
suggest the ape, as in the Sto-lu, Bo-lu and Alus. I expected them to
kill me at once, but they did not. Instead they questioned me; but it
was evident that they did not believe my story, for they scoffed and
laughed.
"The Galus have turned you out," they cried. "If you go back to them,
you will die. If you remain here, you will die. We shall kill you;
but first we shall have a dance and you shall dance with us--the dance
of death."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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