"What is it?" asked Tom in surprise, for the boy had hitherto shown himself absolutely fearless.
"Bambute, sah!" he whispered; "little tiny people, berrah tiny small. Dey shoot poison, sah: one scratch, man dead."
And Mbutu pulled his master away, and did not quit his hold until he had led him half a mile farther into the forest. He then explained that here and there, in such small clearings as they had just traversed, there dwelt little communities of strange dwarf-like people, whose naked bodies were covered with a thin down, and who lived a sort of elfin life, stealing about from glade to glade, hardly ever visible, as difficult to discover as mice in a corn-field. They were skilled in woodcraft and the chase, agile and fleet of foot, and so well versed in poisons that with their toy-like bows and arrows they could kill fowl, and men, and even elephants, with a mere scratch. They could shoot three arrows so rapidly that the last sprang from the bow before the first had reached its mark. They fed on grubs and beetles, honey, mushrooms, and roots, besides coneys and hares and other spoils of the chase, and had a sweet tooth for the potatoes and bananas cultivated by their taller neighbours. Mbutu said that he was not afraid of ordinary negroes or Arabs, they could easily be avoided; but if he and his master stumbled into a nest of dwarfs, he feared they would not escape with their lives.
At noon Tom sat down upon a recently fallen trunk to rest. Mbutu went off by himself to find food, and luckily came upon a deserted clearing where bananas were still growing. He returned with a luscious bunch, and after eating and resting a while, the travellers again resumed their march. The heat of the afternoon had brought out myriad insects that buzzed about their heads, darting in every now and then to sting. Bees, wasps, and ticks innumerable sported hither and thither across their path; sometimes a flock of pigeons would clatter out of a tree, and high over their heads shrilled the mocking notes of parrots.
As the afternoon wore on, the heat became oppressive, suffocating. An ominous heaviness brooded over everything; the dimness deepened into darkness, and a feeling as of an approaching calamity crept over Tom. Suddenly he heard a faint rumble like artillery far away; through a narrow opening in the forest he saw a spear of white flame dart across from tree to tree; then the silent trees rustled, swayed, and smote their tops one against another like masts straining under heavy canvas in a hurricane. Then roared the thunder; forked lightning flashed pale-green across the tree-tops, and the massive trees bent and reeled like rushes, recovering themselves from the first blow, staggering forward, jerked back by the climbing plants around them, clashing, roaring, screaming like fierce savage warriors in mortal fight. Tom stood still, amazed at the wild warfare, deafened by the reverberating thunder-claps, blinded by the scathing flames of lightning, yet exhilarated as he watched the fray. Then out of the black sky poured a deluge of rain, sheet upon sheet, hissing like water poured on hot iron, every drop as large as a crown-piece, penetrating the cotton garments of the travellers, drenching them in a moment to the skin. For three minutes the torrents fell; then, as suddenly as it had begun, the storm ceased, its fury was extinguished, the sky cleared, the trees stood still, and there was nothing to mark the terrific elemental strife but the streaming foliage, the soaked ground, and two giant stems which, cleft by the lightning, had crashed down and overwhelmed many smaller trees beneath them.