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We'll watch them a minute, then I'll brace up and speak to 'em." There were six half breeds in "store" clothes and moccasins squatting around the blaze. None of them was speaking. "They act as if they were waiting for some one," whispered Lydia, with some of the old thrill of pirate plays returning to her. "Kent, they've all got guns!" "Hush! There comes some one else. For the love of cats!"
She felt all about the flower with closed eyes, vibrating as if with the gauzy wings of a bee. Suddenly she opened her eyes and turned to a rigid statue of stone. On the flower was squatting a huge spider! She darted like an arrow to the farthest corner of the room.
Men gathered to it as primitive men gathered about the fire of the squatting place or the fire at the mouth of the cave. I reminded Charmian of the canoe houses from which she had been barred in the South Pacific, where the kinky-haired cannibals escaped from their womenkind and feasted and drank by themselves, the sacred precincts taboo to women under pain of death.
He tried to pronounce the name, but his lips were too dry. The dog crouched, frightened, some three feet distant. Donaldson, squatting there, watched him with straining eyes. Once again he tried to utter the name. It stuck in his throat, but at the inarticulate cry he made, the dog wagged his tail so feebly that it scarcely moved its shadow. Donaldson ventured nearer.
We pushed on, therefore; when, surmounting a rocky height and looking over the ridge, we saw down below us a party of dark-skinned natives, collected at a short distance from the shore, while three or four other prows were at anchor a little further on. Some of the people were squatting round a fire cooking, others were repairing a boat, and others lying on the ground.
A hideous squatting Chinese goddess, whose tongue, by a mechanical appliance, lolled from side to side, appeared to be panting for breath, and the cut flowers in numerous pompous vases hung their limp heads. It was a gorgeously hot day. Young Oldershaw bounded in, the picture of unrealized health. His tan was almost black, and his teeth and the whites of, his eyes positively gleamed.
Many of the warriors were squatting about the baggage wagon gnawing at hard bread or other unaccustomed luxuries, but those at the ambulance were chattering like so many monkeys and keeping up a hammering, the object of which Pike could not at first imagine, until he suddenly remembered the locked box under the driver's seat, the key of which was always carried by the captain.
But no Burton was to be seen. At last someone happened to look up the highest tree in the compound and there was the guest of the day high among the branches squatting like a monkey. He had got up there, he said, to have a little peace, and to keep on with the book he was writing about Brazil.
The Beluches, rushing through the passages of the palisaded village, suddenly burst upon the enemy, and fired and charged successively; to which the Wamanda replied with equal vigour, advancing with their frog-like leaps and bounds, dodging and squatting, and springing and flying in the most wild and fantastic manner; stabbing with their spears, protecting with their shields, poising with bows and arrows pointed, and, mingling with the Beluches, rushed about striking at and avoiding their guns and sabres.
Toward the front and the door he made his way when once his nose had assured him that Meriem lay within; but as he rounded the side and came within view of the entrance he saw a burly Negro armed with a long spear squatting at the portal of the girl's prison. The fellow's back was toward him, his figure outlined against the glow of cooking fires further down the street. He was alone.
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