One of them
aimed a dart. It missed the object overhead, glanced off the
tree, and fell down on the hunter himself. This is how the other
native reported the result:
"'Quacca takes the dart out of his shoulder. Never a word. Puts
it in his quiver and throws it in the stream. Gives me his
blowpipe for his little son. Says to me good-bye for his wife
and the village. Then he lies down. His tongue talks no longer.
No sight in his eyes. He folds his arms. He rolls over slowly.
His mouth moves without sound. I feel his heart. It goes fast and
then slow. It stops. Quacca has shot his last woorali dart.'"
We looked at each other, and the horror of the thing sank deep
into our minds. Woorali. What was it? There were many travellers
in the room who had been in the Orient, home of poisons, and in
South America. Which one had run across the poison?
"Woorali, or curare," said Craig slowly, "is the well-known
poison with which the South American Indians of the upper Orinoco
tip their arrows. Its principal ingredient is derived from the
Strychnos toxifera tree, which yields also the drug nux vomica."
A great light dawned on me. I turned quickly to where Vanderdyke
was sitting next to Mrs. Ralston, and a little behind her. His
stony stare and laboured breathing told me that he had read the
purport of Kennedy's actions.
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