Page:Karel Čapek - The Absolute at Large (1927).djvu/229

 "You don't know him?" shouted the Captain. "How long have you been here, man?"

"This is my ninth year," said Mr. Bondy.

"Then you might well have known him," the Captain said. "So you've been here nine years? Business, eh? Or a little home of refuge, is it? On account of your nerves, I suppose?"

"No," said Mr. Bondy. "You see, I foresaw that they were all going to be at loggerheads over there, so I got out of the way. I thought that here I would find more peace."

"Aha, peace! You don't know our big black fellows! There's a bit of a war going on here all the time, my lad."

"Oh well," G. H. Bondy demurred, "there really was peace here. They're quite decent chaps, these Papuans or whatever you call them. It's only just recently that they've begun to be rather disagreeable. I don't quite understand them. What are they really after?"

"Nothing special," said the Captain. "They only want to eat us."

"Are they as hungry as all that?" asked Bondy in amazement.

"I don't know. I think they do it more out of religion. It's one of their religious rites, don't you see? Something like communion, I take it. It takes them that way every now and then."