These eyes literally shone like fire;
indeed, at times they seemed positively to blaze, as I have seen a
lion's eyes do in the dark. I confess that the aspect of the creature
terrified and for a while paralysed me; to think that it was human was
awful.
I glanced at the others and saw that they, too, were frightened.
Stephen turned very white. I thought that he was going to be sick
again, as he was after he drank the coffee out of the wrong bowl on
the day we entered Mazitu-land. Brother John stroked his white beard
and muttered some invocation to Heaven to protect him. Hans exclaimed
in his abominable Dutch:
"/Oh! keek, Baas, da is je lelicher oud deel!/" ("Oh! look, Baas,
there is the ugly old devil himself!")
Jerry went flat on his face among the Pongo, muttering that he saw
Death before him. Only Mavovo stood firm; perhaps because as a witch-
doctor of repute he felt that it did not become him to show the white
feather in the presence of an evil spirit.
The toad-like creature on the platform swayed its great head slowly as
a tortoise does, and contemplated us with its flaming eyes.
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