"Well," said the missionary, "don't get ruffled. I've got no use for
quarrelling. Go your way, and if things turn out ugly don't say I didn't
give you the straight cinch, as one white man to another in a savage
country. And now, it's about my usual time for siesta."

"Right," said Kettle. "I'll siesta too. My fever's gone now, and I'm
feeling pretty rocky and mean. Sleep's a grand pick-me-up."

They took off their coats, and lay down then under filmy mosquito bars,
and presently sleep came to them. Indeed, to Kettle came so dead an
unconsciousness that he afterward had a suspicion (though it was beyond
proof) that some drug had been mixed with his drink. He was a man who at
all times was extraordinarily watchful and alert. Often and often during
his professional life his bare existence had depended on the faculty for
scenting danger from behind the curtain of sleep; and his senses in this
direction were so abnormally developed as to verge at times on the
uncanny. Cat-like is a poor-word to describe his powers of vigilance.

But there is no doubt that in this case his alertness was dulled. The
fatigue of the march, his dose of fever, his previous night of
wakefulness in the canoe, all combined to undermine his guard; and,
moreover, the attack of the savages was stealthy in the extreme. Like
ghosts, they must have crept back from the bush to reconnoitre their
village; like daylight ghosts, they must have surrounded the trader
missionary's hut and peered at the sleeping man between the bamboos of
the wall, and then made their entrance; and it must have been with the
quickness of wild beasts that they made their spring.

Kettle woke on the instant that he was touched, and started to struggle