Charles Beadle

“ Tony had to admit. “Pretty tough proposition unless they could find the diving suits. If what you say is right, Plessons, they must have a colossal fortune here; and they’re sending it out, too, judging from that belt on that fellow.” He laughed softly. “If Sawyer gets wise to this he’ll go plumb crazy! —— the skeeters!”
“Me, too,” agreed Plessons. “Best thing ter do is ter get back there in the jungle and light a smudge fire and go fossackin’ arahnd that there camp with the moon. We’ll want food anyway since that blasted boche pinched the porter.” ”

“ The old feller what died must have broke away, but the spiders got him. Cripes! That’s why the blighters don’t bum the spider belt. That’s their barbed-wire entanglement to keep the prisoners in!”
“But the prisoners could fire the belt themselves,” suggested Tony. ”

“ His companion seems to have killed him with his fist. He is a strong one, that. Undoubtedly they quarreled, yet neither has any diamonds.”
“Good. Perhaps Ahrenburg shot the other pigs if there were any, but he must be court martialed for letting these enter the valley. Throw this pork into the jungle. It is a pity, for he would have been perhaps a good specimen for the Herr Doktor. Go. I want my lunch.”
They stamped away in the direction of the hut.
“See?” whispered Plessons. “They haven’t tumbled that we’re here.”
“So much the better. Sawyer must have struck Bodiker mighty hard!” ”

“ Yer see, they dig in the clay, shove it inter baskets and haul it up on them wire stays to the plateau, where it’s broken up and all the di’monds picked aht. See, there’s the dump jus’ ter the left. Crumbs! They must have a dozen fortunes there by the look of it; and fifty more in the grahnd. Look, there’s von Muhlhauser comin’ back—does hisself well in a machila (hammock) my oath!—and our maite.” He laughed. “Looks pretty sick if yer arsk me—ol’ slab-sides!”
“Then the whole column must have remained here instead of giving themselves up after the Armistice,” said Tony. ”

“ On their passage they saw no spoor of game; no sign of life of any sort except birds, lizards, snakes and insects. Mosquitoes, even before the sun set, attacked them in clouds. The Mbwa (dog) fly, which flies no higher than a big dog, chewed their wrists and ankles. ”