"A close call! I have seen closer! I have stood so close to the brink
of death that the width of an eyelash would have damned me!"
"Piffle!" I answered rudely. "How can the already damned be damned
again?"
He laughed.
"You are sick still. You are petulant. Never mind. I was coming to
call on you. I watched you leave the camp from the top of that hill
behind you, and followed. It is better. We can talk here without
being overheard. Send those natives away!"
"Certainly not!" I answered, but I reckoned without the professor and
the fear his hairy presence instilled in them.
"Go!" he said simply in the native tongue; and although I ordered them
at once to stay by me they ran back to the camp as fast as their legs
could carry them.
"How do you feel now?" the professor asked.