Their ears were pierced and distended to
accommodate wooden plugs and sticks, pipes, and all manner of barbaric
ornaments. Their faces and bodies were tattooed or scarred in hideous
designs. In their sickness they wore no clothing, not even loin-cloths,
though they retained their shell armlets, their bead necklaces, and their
leather belts, between which and the skin were thrust naked knives. The
bodies of many were covered with horrible sores. Swarms of flies rose
and settled, or flew back and forth in clouds.
The white man went down the line, dosing each man with medicine. To some
he gave chlorodyne. He was forced to concentrate with all his will in
order to remember which of them could stand ipecacuanha, and which of
them were constitutionally unable to retain that powerful drug. One who
lay dead he ordered to be carried out. He spoke in the sharp, peremptory
manner of a man who would take no nonsense, and the well men who obeyed
his orders scowled malignantly. One muttered deep in his chest as he
took the corpse by the feet. The white man exploded in speech and
action. It cost him a painful effort, but his arm shot out, landing a
back-hand blow on the black's mouth.
"What name you, Angara?" he shouted. "What for talk 'long you, eh? I
knock seven bells out of you, too much, quick!"
With the automatic swiftness of a wild animal the black gathered himself
to spring.
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