Their Object Was Evidently To Plunder Us Of Every Thing.
My Men Seized Their Javelins, And Stood On The Defensive,
While The Young Chiboque Had Drawn Their Swords And Brandished Them
With Great Fury.
Some even pointed their guns at me, and nodded
to each other, as much as to say, "This is the way we shall do with him."
I sat on my camp-stool, with my double-barreled gun across my knees,
and invited the chief to be seated also.
When he and his counselors
had sat down on the ground in front of me, I asked what crime we had committed
that he had come armed in that way. He replied that one of my men, Pitsane,
while sitting at the fire that morning, had, in spitting,
allowed a small quantity of the saliva to fall on the leg of one of his men,
and this "guilt" he wanted to be settled by the fine of a man, ox, or gun.
Pitsane admitted the fact of a little saliva having fallen on the Chiboque,
and in proof of its being a pure accident, mentioned that he had given the man
a piece of meat, by way of making friends, just before it happened,
and wiped it off with his hand as soon as it fell. In reference to a man
being given, I declared that we were all ready to die rather than give up
one of our number to be a slave; that my men might as well give me
as I give one of them, for we were all free men.
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