In between two great plateaux they stopped and the chief that led them gave two bird-like calls among the hills, and presently the bush parted gently and out poked frizzly heads. More of them to attend that feast! One was a terrible-looking fellow; his head looked like a huge coco-nut with fat lips on it and a tuft of quills on the top. He glared at me and spoke viciously to the others. How my heart thumped! I felt my face turn grey and my lips go dry as I gave a sickly smile to that awful man to let him see that I was perfectly agreeable to all that they were doing and to all that they might do, and in an inspiration I started to play the fiddle and laughed hysterically. I do not mind telling you that I was in a terrible funk and to this day I do not like the look of men who have coco-nut-shaped heads, so horrified and cowed was I by that chief who muttered to the others and swayed his club to and fro and several times half lifted it as though to brain me! And all this I am telling you is so terribly true that I don’t know how to proceed with all that happened, whether to describe my feelings or what my eyes saw. But there, whoever you are, you can place yourself in my predicament, and if you have a good imagination feel a faint echo of my despair of that night of long ago.
Overhead hung the bright moon in the vault of night as the busy hands of that fierce tribe gathered and piled up the wood fire as in the hot embers frizzled the “Long Pig.” There are some details of cooking odours which I must leave out. I cannot describe all, it was too hellish to describe. Round and round that terrible fire they whirled like some ghastly nightmare of the dead in hell, lifting their chins skywards and chanting thanksgiving to their ancient gods, and I heard the rattle of the threaded shells that adorned the bodies of the wild women as they too sang in shrill voices. I played away as fast as I could on my violin the repeated intervals of those minor strains, keeping time to that terrible dance, the perspiration pouring down my face as I tore away at the only two strings on my instrument. There they were, a ring of swarthy faces around me, as they suddenly stopped all hushed as the nightbird in the forest said “Wail-wail-tu-tu-wail-wail,” and they started on their haunches to devour their “meal.” And as the forest wind blew the dying, flickering firelight over their faces I thought I would presently awake from some ghastly nightmare, so terrible was the sight and so unreal-looking were the surroundings conjured up in my own brain by the knowledge of what that big dish joint consisted of, for they themselves as they sat there swallowing away looked quite innocent and peaceful, and they even offered up a prayer to their gods in devoted thanks for that supper, just the very same as tiny white children who put their hands together and thank God for their feast of the poor murdered four-legged creatures of the field. I pretended to join in the prayer and muttered out some noises, but I could not under any pretence eat. I really think that I would have died sooner than eat of that joint. How I got out of it I don’t know, but I did, and I put down my escape to the quantity of diners at the festivity and their greediness.