The man in the corner seemed much abashed; but those about
him pushed him forward, and he was shoved along through the crowd until he,
too, stood beside the table, where a dozen men pointed at his head and
cried "Bang-bang!" or "Pom-pom!" as the case might be.
To our amazement we saw that just over his right temple there was torn the
path of a bullet, exactly that on the cook's head.
[Illustration:
He cut from the melon-rind a roughly shaped model of a ship and stuck in
it, to represent masts, three slivers of bamboo.]
CHAPTER XXI
NEW ALLIES
Now the chief reached for Roger's knife and deftly whittled out the shape
of a native canoe. In it he placed several seeds, then, pushing it against
the carved ship, he pointed to the man with the bullet wound on his temple
and cried, "Pom-pom!" Next he pointed at two seeds in the boat and said,
"Pom-pom," and snapped them out of the canoe with his finger.
"Would you believe it!" Blodgett gasped. "The heathens went out to the ship
in one o' them boats, and Falk fired on 'em!"
"And two of 'em was killed!" Davie exclaimed unnecessarily.
Roger now laid half a melon on the floor, its flat side down, and moved the
boat slowly over to it.
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