[2] This German officer had no doubt rubbed his hands with quinine. A good idea when one visits cannibals.
"So, Gobolohlo he come back. Plenty fightee man yondeh in de bush."
Soothed by the baccy, Gobolohlo grew more communicative.
"Kill missionaly one day," he told the surgeon confidentially. "Missionaly fly in bush to hidee he'sef. But my walliols dey soon catchee he, and kill fo' rost. Ah dat Bleetish missionaly, he make fine pork. Yum! yum!"
McTavish was a man of quick action, when he saw his duty clear before him.
He hit that cannibal chief clean off the boulder on which he sat. And before he woke, our heroes had bound and gagged him.
"Leave that wild pig," said the doctor quietly, "and hoist this wilder pig on your broad back, Stormalong. Why, we've caught the very cannibal who killed poor Mr. Tain, just three years ago. And now, lads, let us to our boat. We may be attacked at any moment. Sly dogs those Germans! but they've played into our hands this time."
There was about half a mile of open country near the beach, with a village in its rear, a village of friendlies. If they could but reach this, they thought they would be safe.
However, Kep was sent off in front, to signal the ship for armed assistance. Poor lad, he never reached the shore, and it was not till an hour later that Captain Breezy noticed that there was mischief on shore.
The ship lay in deep water not far off, and the day was singularly quiet and still.
Both McTavish and Stormalong, carried two revolvers each, and the ringing of these, followed by the wild cries of the attacking cannibals, told its own terrible tale.
Never were boats manned and armed more quickly. Hardly three minutes had elapsed, before they were speeding shorewards.
They found the doctor and gunner besieged in the strongest house of the village, into which they had dragged their prisoner Gobolohlo.
A message from the ship, in the shape of a shell, that burst in the rear of the bamboo village, had startled the savages, who imagining they were being surrounded, fled into the forest.
Neither McTavish nor his companion were injured. They had fought with their clubbed rifles, and more than one dead cannibal lay out there on the street of sand to prove their prowess.