Besides, he was born to it. He has but been eaten
out of the same trough from which he himself has eaten."
Joan looked at him with lips that trembled on the verge of speech.
"And don't forget," Sheldon added, "that he is the son of a chief, and
that as sure as fate his Port Adams tribesmen will take a white man's
head in payment."
"It is all so ghastly ridiculous," Joan finally said.
"And--er--romantic," he suggested slyly.
She did not answer, and turned away; but Sheldon knew that the shaft had
gone home.
"That fella boy he sick, belly belong him walk about," Binu Charley said,
pointing to the Poonga-Poonga man whose shoulder had been scratched by
the arrow an hour before.
The boy was sitting down and groaning, his arms clasping his bent knees,
his head drooped forward and rolling painfully back and forth. For fear
of poison, Sheldon had immediately scarified the wound and injected
permanganate of potash; but in spite of the precaution the shoulder was
swelling rapidly.
"We'll take him on to where Tudor is lying," Joan said. "The walking
will help to keep up his circulation and scatter the poison. Adamu Adam,
you take hold that boy. Maybe he will want to sleep. Shake him up. If
he sleep he die."
The advance was more rapid now, for Binu Charley placed the captive
bushman in front of him and made him clear the run-way of traps.
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