"
"Young man," I replied, "do you wish to insult me? After your father
put you in my charge, too! If you two are going, I shall come also, if
I have to do so mother-naked. But let me tell you once and for all in
the most emphatic language I can command, that I consider you a brace
of confounded lunatics, and that if the Pongo don't eat you, it will
be more than you deserve. To think that at my age I should be dragged
among a lot of cannibal savages without even a pistol, to fight some
unknown brute with my bare hands! Well, we can only die once--that is,
so far as we know at present."
"How true," remarked Stephen; "how strangely and profoundly true!"
Oh! I could have boxed his ears.
We went into the courtyard again, whither Komba was summoned with his
attendants. This time they came bearing gifts, or having them borne
for them. These consisted, I remember, of two fine tusks of ivory
which suggested to me that their country could not be entirely
surrounded by water, since elephants would scarcely live upon an
island; gold dust in a gourd and copper bracelets, which showed that
it was mineralized; white native linen, very well woven, and some
really beautiful decorated pots, indicating that the people had
artistic tastes.
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