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among his grey hair; while close to him lay Maybury on his back, quite dead, with a long spear driven right through his heart. "The blacks turned the skipper over, examined him closely, and then, finding that he was not dead, held some sort of consultation in their own language, the purport of which of course I could not gather; but the end of it was that they hoisted both of us upon their shoulders, carried us back to the village, and thrust us into one of the huts, where we lay untended for the remainder of the day and practically the whole of last night. Then some time--about the small hours I think it must have been--a girl, who proved to be the same who had flung the garland of flowers round my neck, stole into the hut as silently as a ghost, laid her finger upon my lips--to indicate, I suppose, that I was not to talk--and deftly proceeded to cast adrift my bonds; after which she proceeded vigorously to chafe my ankles and wrists, in order to restore the circulation, which had been practically suspended by the tightness with which the ligatures had been bound. And look here, Temple, if you should ever chance to have an enemy, and have a fancy to torture him, just bind his wrists and ankles tightly together and leave him for a few hours--that's all! "Well, when the feeling had come back into my limbs a bit, and I could move them without screaming, the girl produced some food and drink, and, although I don't in the least know what they were, I ate and drank freely. Then, in the curious `pidgin' lingo that these people use when conversing with white men, the girl gave me to understand that my life and that of the skipper was in the greatest jeopardy, and that if I did not want particularly to die I must buck up and save myself and the skipper. Then, taking command, she bade me lift the old man by the shoulders while she took his feet; and in this fashion we slipped out of the hut, seeing nobody, and made our way slowly through the wood until we emerged upon a little beach just on the other side of that headland. Then she drew out from among the bushes a small canoe, in the bottom of which she helped me to place the skipper; after which, with a warning to me to be exceedingly careful and to make no noise, she handed me a paddle, thrust the canoe afloat, and vanished. And--and--well, that's all! And now you may as well pitch me the yarn of your share of the night's doings. If one may venture to judge by appeara
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