For days he remained secluded, subsisting on canned foods, cocoanuts,
_mei_ (or breadfruit), and an occasional boiled baby _feke_ (or young
devil-fish), a nest of which Mr. Pottle found on one furtive moonlight
sally to the beach.
Emboldened by this sally and by the silence of the woods, Mr. Pottle
made other expeditions away from his cave; on one he penetrated fully
five hundred yards into the jungle. He was prowling, like a Cooper
Indian, among the _faufee_ (or lacebark-trees) when he heard a sound
that sent him scurrying and quaking back to his lair.
It was a faint sound that the breezes bore to him, so faint that he
could not be sure; but it sounded like some far-off barbaric instrument
mingling its dim notes with those of a human voice raised in a weird,
primeval chant.
But the savages did not show themselves, and finding no cannibals by
night, Mr. Pottle grew still bolder; he ventured on short explorations
by day. He examined minutely his own cove, and then one morning crept
over a low ledge and into the next cove. He made his way cautiously
along the smooth, white beach. The morning was still, calm, beautiful.
Its peace all but drove thoughts of cannibals from his mind. He came to
a strip of land running into the sea; another cove lay beyond. Mr.
Pottle was an impulsive man; he pushed through the _keoho_ (or
thorn-bushes); his foot slipped; he rolled down a declivity and into the
next cove.
He did not stay there; he did not even tarry. What he saw sent him
dashing through the thorn-bushes and along the white sand like a
hundred-yard sprinter. In the sand of the cove were many imprints of
naked human feet.
A less stout-hearted man than Mr. Pottle would never have come out of
his cave again; but he had come eight thousand miles to see a cannibal.
An over-mastering desire had spurred him on; he would not give up now.
Of such stuff are Ohio barbers made.