"Who you? You who? Who you?"
The savage, to Mr. Pottle's surprise, answered after a brief moment:
"Me—Lee."
Here was luck. The man-eater could talk the Pottle lingo.
"Oh," said Mr. Pottle, to show that he understood, "you—Mealy."
The savage shook his head.
"No," he said; "Me—Lee. Me—Lee." He thumped his barrel-like chest with each word.
"Oh, I see," cried Mr. Pottle; "you Mealy-mealy."
The savage made a face that among civilized people would have meant that he did not think much of Mr. Pottle's intellect.
"Who you?" inquired Mealy-mealy.
Mr. Pottle thumped his narrow chest.
"Me, Pottle. Pottle!"
"Oh, you Pottle-pottle," said the savage, evidently pleased with his own powers of comprehension.
Mr. Pottle let it go at that. Why argue with a cannibal? He addressed the savage again.
"Mealy-mealy, you eatum long pig? Eatum long pig you? Long pig you eatum?"
This question agitated Mealy-mealy. He trembled. Then he nodded his head in the affirmative, a score of rapid nods.
Mr. Pottle's voice faltered a little as he asked the next question.
"Where you gottum tribe? You gottum tribe where? Tribe you gottum where?"
Mealy-mealy considered, scowled, and said:
"Gottum velly big tribe not far. Velly fierce. Eatum long pig. Eatum Pottle-pottle."
Mr. Pottle thought it would be a good time to go, but he could think of no polite excuse for leaving. An idea occurred to Mealy-mealy.
"Where your tribe, Pottle-pottle?"
His tribe? Mr. Pottle's eyes fell on his own scarlet pareu and the brownish legs beneath it. Mealy-mealy thought he was a cannibal, too. With all his terror, he had a second or two of unalloyed enjoyment of the thought. Like all barbers, he had played poker. He bluffed.
"My tribe velly, velly, velly, velly, velly, velly big," he cried.
"Where is?" asked Mealy-mealy, visibly moved by this news.
"Velly near," cried Mr. Pottle; "hungry for long pig; for long pig hungry——"
There was suddenly a brown blur on the landscape. With the agility of an ape, the huge savage had turned, darted down the beach, plunged into the bush, and disappeared.
"He's gone to get his tribe," thought Mr. Pottle, and fled in the opposite direction.
When he reached his cave, panting, he tried to fit a cartridge into his shot-gun; he'd die game, anyhow. But rust had ruined the neglected weapon, and he flung it aside and took out his best razor. But no cannibals came.
He was scared, but happy. He had seen his cannibal; more, he had talked with him; more still, he had escaped gracing the festal board by a snake's knuckle. He prudently decided to stay in his cave until the sails of Tiki Tiu's schooner hove in sight.
§5
But an instinct stronger than fear drove him out into the open: his stock of canned food ran low, and large red ants got into his flour. He needed cocoanuts and breadfruit and baby fekes (or young octopi). He knew that numerous succulent infant fekes lurked in holes in his own cove, and thither he went by night to pull them from their homes. Hitherto he had encountered only small fekes, with tender tentacles only a few feet long; but that night Mr. Pottle had the misfortune to plunge his naked arm into the watery nest when the father of the family was at home. He realized his error too late.
A clammy tentacle, as long as a fire hose, as strong as the arm of a gorilla, coiled round his arm, and his scream was cut short as the giant devil-fish dragged him below the water.
The water was shallow. Mr. Pottle got a foothold, forced his head above water, and began to yell for help and struggle for his life.
The chances against a nude Ohio barber of 140 pounds in a wrestling match with an adult octopus are exactly a thousand to one. The giant feke so despised his opponent that he used only two of his eight muscular arms. In their slimy, relentless clutch Mr. Pottle felt his strength going fast. As his favorite authors would have put it, "it began to look bad for Mr. Pottle."
The thought that Mr. Pottle thought would be his last on this earth was, "I wouldn't mind being eaten by cannibals, but to be drowned by a trick fish——"
Mr. Pottle threshed about in one final, frantic flounder; his strength gave out; he shut his eyes.
He heard a shrill cry, a splashing in the water, felt himself clutched about the neck from behind, and dragged away from the feke. He opened his eyes and struggled weakly. One tentacle released its grip. Mr. Pottle saw by the tropic moon's light that some large creature was doing battle with the feke. It was a man, a large brown man who with a busy ax hacked the gristly limbs from the feke as fast as they wrapped around him. Mr. Pottle staggered to the dry beach; a tentacle was still wound tight round his shoulder, but there was no octopus at the other end of it.
The angry noise of the devil-fish—for, when wounded, they snarl like kicked curs—stopped. The victorious brown man strode out of the water to where Mr. Pottle swayed on the moonlit sand. It was Mealy-mealy.
"Bad fishum!" said Mealy-mealy, with a grin.
"Good manum!" cried Mr. Pottle, heartily.
Here was romance, here was adventure, to be snatched from the jaws, so to speak, of death by a cannibal! It was unheard of. But a disquieting thought occurred to Mr. Pottle, and he voiced it.
"Mealy-mealy, why you save me? Why save you me? Why you me save?"
Mealy-mealy's grin seemed to fade, and in its place came another look that made Mr. Pottle wish he were back in the anaconda grip of the feke.
"My tribe hungry for long pig," growled Mealy-mealy. He seemed to be trembling with some powerful emotion. Hunger?
Mr. Pottle knew where his only chance for escape lay.
"My tribe velly, velly, velly hungry, too," he cried. "Velly, velly, velly near."
He thrust his fingers into his mouth and gave a piercing school-boy whistle. As if in answer to it there came a crashing and floundering in the bushes. His bluff had worked only too well; it must be the fellow man-eaters of Mealy-mealy.
Mr. Pottle turned and ran for his life. Fifty yards he sped, and then realized that he did not hear the padding of bare feet on the sand behind him or feel hot breath on the back of his neck. He dared to cast a look over his shoulder. Far down the beach the moonlight showed him a flying brown figure against the silver-white sand. It was Mealy-mealy, and he was going in the opposite direction as fast as ever his legs would take him.
Surprise drove fear temporarily from Mr. Pottle's mind as he watched the big cannibal become a blur, then a speck, then nothing. As he watched Mealy-mealy recede, he saw another dark figure emerge from the bush where the noise had been, and move slowly out on the moon-strewn beach.
It was a baby wild pig. It sniffed at the ocean, squealed, and trotted back into the bush.
As he gnawed his morning cocoanut, Mr. Pottle was still puzzled. He was afraid of Mealy-mealy; that he admitted. But at the same time it was quite clear that Mealy-mealy was afraid of him. He was excited and more than a little gratified. What a book he could write! Should he call it "Cannibal-Bound on O-pip-ee," or, "Cannibals Who have almost Eaten