f the trees of their
forest? Those places are for them so many fortresses, from which they
will to-morrow shower down upon us those darts, which, alas! never fail
to do mischief. Luckily it was night when they attacked us just now,
for otherwise we at this hour should have a lance through each of our
bodies, and then they would have cut off our heads to serve as trophies
for a superb fete. Your head, master, would first have been laid on the
ground, and the brutes would have danced round it, and, as our leader,
you would have been a target of honour for them to practise upon.

"And now, master, all that which would have occurred to us if the
night had not favoured our escape is but deferred, for, alas! we cannot
remain continually on this beach, although it is the only spot where
we can protect ourselves against these black rascals. We must go to
our homes, and this we cannot do without passing through the woods
inhabited by these abominable creatures, who made us eat raw meat,
and seasoned only with cinders. Well, master, before you undertook
this excursion, you ought to have recollected all that happened to
us among the Tinguians and the Igorrots."

I listened calmly to this touching lamentation of my lieutenant, who
was perfectly right in all he said; but when he finished I sought to
rouse his courage, and replied:

"What! my brave Alila! are you afraid? I thought the Tic-balan, and
the evil spirits could alone affect your courage. Do you want to make
me think that men like yourself, without any arms but bad arrows, are
enough to make you quake? Come, enough of this cowardice; to-morrow
we shall have daylight, and we shall see what is to be done. In
the meantime let us search for shell-fish, for I am very hungry,
notwithstanding the alarm into which you are trying to throw me."

This little sermon gave courage to Alila, who immediately set about
making a fire, and then, by the aid of lighted bamboos, he and his
comrade went to the rocks to find out the shell-fish.

Alila was nevertheless quite right, and I myself could not disguise
the fact, that good luck alone could extricate us from the critical
position in which we were placed by my fault, in having thought of
my country, and in wishing to ornament the Museum of Paris with a
skeleton of an Ajetas. [24]

From disposition and habit I was not a man to alarm myself with any
danger which was not immediate; yet I avow that the last words I
had said to Alila:--"T