“It was from them you learned to speak my tongue?”

Ziffak again nodded his head, adding: 

“Many of my people speak it as well as I.”

“Tell me, Ziffak, why, if your home is so far above the rapids, you are here among these people, whose name I do not know?”

“They are Aryks; they have much less people than the Murhapas, and are our slaves.  Some days ago word was brought to us that a party of white men were making their way up the Xingu.  Waggaman and Burkhardt and I set out to learn for ourselves and to stop them.  They went down the other side of the river and I came down to the Aryk village.  I roused them to kill you before you could pass above the rapids, but we were able to slay only one of them.”

“And it was a sad mistake that you did that; for he was a good man, who wished you no evil.  Where are Waggaman and Burkhardt?”

The native shook his head.  He had picked up his spear, but made no movement toward taking his departure.  Ashman hoped he would not, for everything said not only convinced him of the first importance of gaining the fellow’s confidence, but encouraged him in the belief that he was fast doing so.  He resolved to leave no stone unturned looking to that end.

“Why did not your two white friends help you in the fight, to keep us from going further up the Xingu?”

“Maybe they did,” replied Ziffak, with a significant glance up stream, which left no doubt that he referred to the conflict that had taken place there while the couple were talking on the margin of the river.

“I don’t believe it,” Ashman hastened to say, hopeful that such was the case; for, with two white men and their firearms, the peril of his friends must have been greatly increased.

“Why do you seek to enter our country?” asked the dusky giant, after a brief pause.

“We want to learn about your people; but I pledge you we wish not to harm a hair of their heads.”

It was not to be expected that a savage who has heard nothing else for years except that any penetration of his territory by white men meant destruction, could give up that belief simply on the pledge of one of the race accused.

But it was equally clear that this particular savage was favorably disposed toward Ashman.  It may have been that his good will was won by the neat manner in which he had got the best of Ziffak, the most terrible warrior ever produced by that people.  A brave man respects another brave man.

“Why did Waggaman and Burkhardt visit your villages and make their home with you for so many years?”

“I do not know,” replied Ziffak, with another shake of his head; “but they have proven they are friends.  They do not want to go back to their people, who are all bad.”

The thought occurred to Ashman, though he did not express it, that the strange white men were criminals.  They may have escaped from the diamond mines, which were at no great distance, and naturally preferred the free, wild life of the interior to the labor and tyranny which the miserable wretches condemned to service in those regions undergo.