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No. That couldn’t be. I could feel them. I knew I could.
Snap!
I whirled around. ‘What was that? Did you hear that? What was it?’
‘A snapping branch,’ Mr Ambrose answered without bothering to stop or turn around. ‘Calm down, Mr Linton.’
‘Calm down? You want me to calm down? We’re stuck in the middle of the Amazonian jungle, with no help for miles around, surrounded by God only knows who and you want me to calm down?’
‘Yes.’
‘We could be killed!’
‘They won’t kill us.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because they’re too curious to know what we want. They won’t kill us until they’ve found out.’
‘Oh, thank you, Sir! That makes me feel so much better!’
‘You’re welcome.’
Gah! I would really have loved to strangle him right then and there. Only, I knew if I got that close to him, even with mosquito bites all over me and anger boiling up inside, I would go for his mouth instead of his throat.
‘I am gratified to hear that you have such a high opinion of our survival chances,’ I said in the sweetest voice I could manage. ‘Who are these mysterious “they” you are taking us to?’
No answer.
‘Tell me! Now!’
No answer.
I was just about to reach for my gun, when my question was suddenly answered for me - but not by Mr Ambrose. It was answered by a man dropping out of a tree only a few yards ahead, blocking our path. More men followed, dropping from trees and appearing from behind bushes all around, their eyes narrowed and as sharp as the spears in their hands. All the men were dark-skinned, with strange, flat faces and slitted eyes. And, oh yes, one tiny little detail…They were all stark-naked.
‘Mr Linton,’ Mr Ambrose said, raising his hand, ‘let me introduce you to “they”. “They”, meet Mr Victor Linton.’
Going Wild
We reached the village by sundown. It sat atop a cliff high, high above the rainforest, and the sinking sun cast everything into a golden light. That didn’t make the two dozen or so sharp spears pointed at us any more visually appealing in my mind, however.
Mr Ambrose had been right in one respect - the natives were curious. They also, however, as suggested by the raised spears, the half-drawn bows and the searching gazes they directed at us, were immensely suspicious. They muttered to each other in hushed voices, using a strange, completely alien tongue that I had no hope of understanding.
‘What are they saying?’ I hissed at Mr Ambrose as we were slowly escorted up a path to the top of the cliff.
‘How should I know?’
‘What? You don’t understand their language?’
‘Strange though it might seem to you, Mr Linton, I do not, in fact, know everything there is to know.’
‘How the hell do you expect to talk them into helping us if you don’t speak their language?’
‘Father Marcos told me that their leader speaks Portuguese.’
‘And if they decide to kill us before we reach this multilinguistic gentleman?’
‘That would be most unfortunate.’
