—monkeys so tame that I might have procured one if I had had a blow-pipe, in spite of my never having practised shooting with that weapon.
It interested them to hear about the abundance and tameness of the monkeys, although it was scarcely news: but how tame they must have been when I, the stranger not to the manner born—not naked, brown-skinned, lynx-eyed, and noiseless as an owl in his movements—had yet been able to look closely at them! Runi only remarked, apropos of what I had told him, that they could not go there to hunt; then he asked me if I feared nothing.
"Nothing," I replied carelessly." The things you fear hurt not the white man, and are no more than this to me," saying which I took up a little white wood-ash in my hand and blew it away with my breath. "And against other enemies I have this," I added, touching my revolver. A brave speech, just after that araguato episode; but I did not make it without blushing—mentally.
He shook his head, and said it was a poor weapon against some enemies; also—truly enough—that it would procure no birds and monkeys for the stew-pot.
Next morning my friend Kua-kó, taking his zabatana, invited me to go out with him, and I consented with some misgivings, thinking he had overcome his superstitious fears, and, inflamed by my account of the abundance of game in the forest, intended going there with me. The previous day's experience had made me think that it would be better in the future to go there alone. But I was giving the poor youth more credit than he deserved: it
