"Oh, Carter, I plenty-too-much afraid. Presently I lib for die."
"Not you. If I see any signs of your starting to fade away, I'll whack you into life again with a piece of board with two nails in it. Wherefore, O feared of the uninitiated, buck up, and get a shovel, and cover that lead out of sight where it shows. Afterwards I'll show you the working of that early British contrivance, an office speaking-tube. That is, if we have time for a rehearsal, but by the extra big dot-dashing of those monkey-skin drums just now, it rather looks as if we shall have the next act of this play crowding down on us without much more interval."
The burned warriors had not, it appeared, retreated very far. Their spiritual advisers, the ju-ju men, had by King Kallee's orders been waiting not very far away down the several bush roads; and when presently fugitives began to come trotting in through the steamy forest shades, these ecclesiastics rallied them, and when enough were collected, they commenced a "custom" for the renewal of the soldier's bravery.
Savage superstitions, savage terrors, savage thrill at the raw smell of blood were all worked upon with a high dexterity. King Kallee had made a fine art of these incitements; he had gained a throne by their practice, and had handed them on to chosen ministers, who practised the cult of ju-ju with a single eye to advancing the interests of their king.
The black soldiers were wearily tired, and many of them carried wounds. They listened at first with a sullen torpor. They heard without interest that the white man's bullets were non-consecrate, and therefore the wounds they made would soon heal. They learned, with a little thrill of wonder, that the green tins which poured burning flame were not true ju-ju, since the King of Kallee's ju-ju men declared them unorthodox. And by degrees their dull nerves were worked up till at the proper moment sacrifice was made, and the screams and smells of the victim maddened them. Even the Haûsa officers, who were Moslem, and therefore contemptuous disbelievers in all pagan ceremony, were stirred up almost equally with their men, and when as a final exhortation they were bidden to return once more to the factory, and bring the red head and the white girl as presents for the King, they forgot their qualms and their burns, and led on with a new, fierce courage.