With a thrill of fear he
glanced at the indicator. It was pointed properly, and he knew at once
that something was wrong with the delicate mechanism that controlled
it. Probably the pressure of the rope across its face, when he was
bound, had put it out of order. There he was, seven feet in the air,
but without the power to rise an inch farther.
This short flight, however, had greatly astonished the blacks, who,
seeing his body suspended in mid-air, immediately hailed him as a god,
and prostrated themselves upon the ground before him.
The fat chief had seen something of white men in his youth, and had
learned to mistrust them. So, while he remained as prostrate as the
rest, he peeped at Rob with one of his little black eyes and saw that
the boy was ill at ease, and seemed both annoyed and frightened.
So he muttered some orders to the man next him, who wriggled along the
ground until he had reached a position behind Rob, when he rose and
pricked the suspended "god" with the point of his spear.
"Ouch!" yelled the boy; "stop that!"
He twisted his head around, and seeing the black again make a movement
with the spear, Rob turned his electric tube upon him and keeled him
over like a ten-pin.
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