"Me no sabbey. He say you too small and thin for chop."

Captain Kettle's pale cheeks flushed. Curiously enough it never occurred
to him to be grateful for this escape from a cannibal dinner-table. But
his smallness was a constant sore to him, and he bitterly resented any
allusion to it.

"Tell that stinking scarecrow I'll wring his neck for him before I'm
quit of this village."

"Me no fit," said the linguister candidly. "He kill me now if I say
that, same's he kill you soon."

"Oh, he's going to kill me, is he?"

The interpreter nodded emphatically. "Or get dem big ju-ju," he added.

"Ask him how Cappie Nilssen can be cured."

The man with the yaws put the question timidly enough, and the
witch-doctor burst into a great guffaw of laughter. Then after a
preliminary dance, he took off a little packet of leopard skin, which
hung amongst his other charms, and stuffed it deep inside
Kettle's shirt.

The interpreter explained: "Him say he put ju-ju on Cappie Nilssen, and
can take it off all-e-same easy. Him say you give Cappie Nilssen dis new
ju-ju for chop, an' he live for well one-time."