men who had
been unfortunate enough to fall into their hands.

But I was not going to allow myself to be frightened or discouraged by
dwelling upon stories of that kind; I was feeling so far better that the
desire to live had returned to me. I even experienced some slight
sensation of hunger, and there was no doubt at all as to the fact that I
was parched with thirst. I therefore turned to the savage who was
flourishing the steering paddle and, first pointing to my open mouth,
went through the motions of raising a vessel to it and drinking. The
man evidently understood me, for he shouted a few--to me quite
unintelligible--words, whereupon one of the paddlers about the centre of
the canoe laid in his paddle for a few moments, did something dexterous
with a spear and a brownish-grey object the size of a man's head, and a
minute later my lips were glued to a luscious cocoa-nut, the extremity
of which had been deftly struck off with the blade of the spear,
disclosing the white-lined hollow of the cup within brimming with a full
pint or more of the delicious "milk," which I swallowed to the last
drop. Then, breaking off a strip of the husk and using it as a spoon, I
proceeded to scrape out and hungrily devour the soft creamy fruit that
lined the shell, and thus made the most satisfying and enjoyable meal
that had passed my lips for many a day. Shortly afterward, the strength
of the ebb current increasing so greatly that we were able to make
scarcely any headway against it, our steersman headed the canoe in
toward the western bank of the river, and we presently entered a narrow
creek up which we passed for a distance of about a quarter of a mile
until we reached a practicable landing-place, when the canoe was secured
to a stout mangrove root, and all hands stepped out of her, the
steersman taking the precaution to draw my attention to the spears and
bows and arrows with which his party were armed, as a hint, I suppose,
of what I might expect should I be foolish enough to attempt to escape.
We pushed our way through the thick bush for a distance of about a
hundred yards, and then reached a small open space, where we bivouacked;
a party of ten disappearing into the bush, while the rest remained to
kindle a fire and, evidently, to look after me and make sure that I did
not give them the slip. At length, after the lapse of about half an
hour, the party who had vanished into the bush returned, singly or by
two's and three's,