rned for a
final gaze in the fascination of horror, I no longer had the place to
myself.

Two human figures stood at the farther rim of the amphitheater, silently
regarding me. Both were thin, pigmy-built men with long arms and low
foreheads. Their faces, grotesquely disfigured with bone and shell
ornaments spiked through noses and ears, were bestial yet not stupid.
Their eyes were beady and sharp, and just now their thick lips hung
pendulous with wonderment. For an instant I was incapable of motion;
then, as they stood in equal petrification, I remembered and acted on
the counsel of an east-side gang member whom I had once been privileged
to know in New York. I had inconsequently inquired whether, in his
acrimonious career, he never came eye to eye with fear.

"Sure thing," he had promptly replied, "but when a guy gets your
goat--stall. If you makes de play strong enough it's a cinch you gets
his goat too."

By that rule this was my moment to "stall." I drew myself up to the
limit of stature and threw out my chest in the best semblance of
arrogance I could assume.

They were decked like the head of their sacrificial victim, in brilliant
feather work, beautifully and harmoniously wrought. Their flint-tipped
spears were elaborately carved and their necklaces were fashioned of
shells and teeth. Some of the teeth were human. For perhaps thirty
seconds we held the strained tableau, then I glanced over my shoulder.
Between me and retreat stood a third figure. Compared to his gaudiness
of decking, the raiment of the others was mean and sober. One bare
shoulder and arm was covered with festering ulcers. His monkey-like
face had the same slant of brow and heaviness of lip, but it worked
constantly with a keen and twitching play of expression which argued
speculative thought. As I turned he was leaning on a knotted war-club,
and regarding me with profound gravity.

CHAPTER X

I SEEK ORCHIDS

Internally I was quaking, and thinking very fast. The first shock of
their astonishment was dissipating, and two of the three faces were
clouding into a glowering scrutiny which augured darkly for my escape.
The gaze of the third held a grave perplexity, touched with awe, and in
the interval of overcharged silence the other eyes dwelt questioningly
on his.

I knew from their spell-bound attitudes that I was the first white man
they had seen and an apparition. Measured by their pigmy standards, I
was a gigantic being of a