Part 26 (1/2)
”Not yet It does not pay to hurry business with these people After the feast is out of the way I will talk further with hied at ease, sniffing the savory odors arising from the reddish clay pots and pans in which fruit, fish, or foas frying in tapir lard, or th a number of tall, shapely women, apparently the handsomest of their sex in the tribe, laid a nuround before the chief, and placed thereon a stea array of edibles Furs were placed outside the line of mats From somewhere appeared all four of the subchiefs, acco nod to his guests, squatted within the arc Forthwith the visitors advanced in a body, disposed themselves coor that brought a delighted grin to the face of their barbaric host
Fried bananas, tender fish, broiled parrot which was not so tender, a thick stew of so herbs, roast wild hog, and other things at whose identity the whites could not even guess, all were chewed and washed doith generous draughts of a rather sour liquid rese, each ht any portion of the , whether it pleased the palate or not
Throughout the feast the tall wo fresh supplies whenever a dearth of any edible appeared to threaten And when at last the feasters were full to repletion Monitaya hinated what he considered titbits to tempt them further
”Gosh!+ if I eat any ed if I'll bust jest to satisfy this guy,” asserted Tim Wherewith he put one hand under his jaw and patted his sto that he was filled to the throat Pedro lifted his elbows, dropped his jaw, and rinned widely The grin beca when Tith on his rug and begged soarette
”Guess I'll have to follow Tim's example,” confessed Knowlton And he too stretched out Pedro and Lourenco also sprawled back McKay, after glancing around, co on one elbow
The subchiefs and Yuara, with slight smiles, relaxed in various postures Monitaya alone arose--not without soot into his hammock, where he beamed down at them
”Suppose this is a compliment to the chief,” smiled McKay ”He thinks he has eaten us helpless”
”Speakin' for li'l old Tiivin' us the laff Who are therub? Waitresses or somethin'?”
”Those are the chief's wives,” Lourenco explained
”Huh? Gosh!+ he's one brave guy, that feller! Two--four--six--eight--nine of 'em! Swell lookers, too I s'pose he has his pick o' the whole crowd here”
”He does not have to pick them Senhor Tim They pick him He and the subchiefs are the only ones who can take irl wishes to becoreat chief or of a subchief, she works forfeather dresses and necklaces and haives theifts and allows her to be a wife to him”
”Yeah? And she's flattered to death, I s'pose Wisht they'd start somethin' like that up hoet an even break Way it is now, a feller blows in every dollar he's got, and then when he's fixin' to git the ring the girl leaves hih yet Yo-ho-huht there on the table Wake me up, somebody, when the next mess call blows”
And with no further ado he shut his eyes and drowsed
His co the fa now and then to so the irls Monitaya hi nonchalantly aers, cleared away the re them Then they carried off the clay vessels
For another hour all hands rested Then Monitaya sat up, stretched his big arms, looked casually around the house to see that all ell, and san a new conversation After a while he turned to McKay
”The Red Bones and the Mayorunas are neither friendly nor hostile toward each other, and there is little communication between them,” he reported ”From those _malocas_ to the town of the Red Bones is a journey of five long days, so the o there
”The Raposa e seek is known to the men of Monitaya, but he never has come here to the tribal houses Hunters fro the wild forests, and sole The Mayorunas believe in two spirits or deood and one bad, and the bad one is said to roa lone wanderers, whom he kills and eats; the people soht in the dark of the ht be this deood to try to kill a demon, and it would only make their own deaths more sure and horrible
”But the older men do not believe this They say the wild man is of the Red Bone people, and that the reason why his bones arebody is that he is neither alive nor dead If he were dead his body would be thrown into the water and left there until his bones were stripped by those cannibal fish, the piranhas, and then the bones would be dyed red and hung up in his hut, as is the custo those people If he were alive like other men he would not have those marks on his body, but would wear only the tribal face paint The bone paint on hin to all the _Ossos Vermelhos_ that he is alive, but dead, and is not to be treated like other men”
”Crazy!” exclaimed Knowlton
”Yes I think that is it His body lives, but his mind is dead Death in life”
”Has he been seen lately?”
The Brazilian repeated the question in the Indian tongue The chief looked toward a certain hammock some distance off, called a nae came forward To him the chief spoke, then to Lourenco, who, as usual, relayed his inforo while following a wild-hog trail far out in the bush toward the Red Bone region He cas, and later he caught up with that man It was the red-boned wilda hurt foot They stood and looked at each other, and then the wildhim closely and ready to shoot with his bow After he disappeared in the forest this hunter heard a long, shrill laugh and words that sounded like 'Podavi'”