Then he wound it up.
The Indians stirred apprehensively at the sound.
The ground where they were camping was hard mud, inundated at flood time.
Dr. Messinger put the toy down at his feet and set it going; tinkling merrily it ran towards the group of Indians.
For a moment Tony was afraid that it would turn over, or become stuck against a root but the mechanism was unimpaired and by good chance there was a clear course.
The effect exceeded anything that he had expected.
There was a loud intake of breath, a series of horrified, small grunts, a high wail of terror from the women, and a sudden stampede; a faint patter of bare brown feet among the fallen leaves, bare limbs, quiet as bats, pushed through the undergrowth, ragged cotton gowns caught and tore in the thorn bushes.
Before the toy had run down, before it had jingled its way to the place where the nearest Indian had been squatting, the camp was empty.
“Well I'm damned,” said Dr. Messinger, “that's better than I expected.”
“More than you expected anyway.”
“Oh it's all right.
They'll come back.
I know them.”
But by sundown there was still no sign.
Throughout the hot afternoon Tony and Dr. Messinger, shrouded from cabouri fly, sprawled in their hammocks.
The empty canoes lay in the river; the mechanical mouse had been put away.
At sundown Dr. Messinger said,
“We'd better make a fire.
They'll come back when it is dark.”
They brushed the earth away from the old embers, brought new wood and made a fire; they lit the storm lantern.
“We'd better get some supper,” said Tony.
They boiled water and made some cocoa, opened a tin of salmon and finished the peaches that were left over from midday.
They lit their pipes and drew the sheaths of mosquito netting across their hammocks. Most of this time they were silent.
Presently they decided to go to sleep.
“We shall find them all here in the morning,” said Dr. Messinger.
“They're an odd bunch.”
All round them the voices of the bush whistled and croaked, changing with the hours as the night wore on to morning.
Dawn broke in London, clear and sweet, dove-grey and honey, with promise of good weather; the lamps in the streets paled and disappeared; the empty streets ran with water, and the rising sun caught it as it bubbled round the hydrants; the men in overalls swung the nozzles of their hoses from side to side and the water jetted and cascaded in a sparkle of light.
“Let's have the window open,” said Brenda.
“It's stuffy in here.”
The waiter drew back the curtains, opened, the windows.
“It's quite light,” she added.
“After five.
Oughtn't we to go to bed.”
“Yes.”
“Only another week and then all the parties will be over,” said Beaver.
“Yes.”
“Well let's go.”
“All right.
Can you pay?
I just haven't any money.”
They had come on after the party, for breakfast at a club Daisy had opened.
Beaver paid for the kippers and tea.
“Eight shillings,” he said.
“How does Daisy expect to make a success of the place when she charges prices like that?”
“It does seem a lot … So you really are going to America?”
“I must.
Mother has taken the tickets.”
“Nothing I've said tonight makes any difference?”
“Darling, don't go on.