Chapter 6

They made again their way through the brambles, so much and so that they finished by being covered with spines. 
      “Ow Ow Ouch!!!” Poor Jack, he did not need an acupuncture session!
 At the end of one moment they arrived at last to the cave they so much desired: that of the Black Eagle!
       They entered there, but they came out from it quickly, the back stung with darts. Still worse than the spines! (Ah, yes! I forgot to tell you: the Black Eagle is the head of a cannibal tribe which lives there.)
— “AHI! Bonhi bonhi! Hearzowr-meel Runninuh-wei! Letzkach-Thumupp!” shouted the little cannibals as they ran after them.
  And here are our heroes in the cooking pot of the chief.
— “But I am not edible! and you put far too much salt!”
— “Watzeesed?”
 
 cannibal feast


- “Obviously that doesn't work, Jack. Let's use heavy artillery.”
And the professor, rolling up his sleeves, struck the head cook.
 - “Wow!!! You have muscles, you do, chief!”
      And now once more they're on the run. But our heroes did not have much choice: on one side brambles, on the other the cave, or else the cannibals. Guess what they chose! The cave, of course! But these imbeciles, in their precipitation, had not even realized that they were going to remain stuck at the far end. 
  Indeed, a little further the cave ended, and they were forced to stop. And there, on top of a small mound, they found...
 
 — “OOOh! look, boss, what a diamond! It is as large as a basketball!
   But already, the cannibals had caught up with them, and, licking the chops, they were eyeing the meal that for sure they would eat a little late.
 

— “Hold them off with these stones, Jack. Me, I will look for the diamond.”
  But poor Jack aimed very inaccurately, and he was soon surrounded.
— “Help, chief! these dreadful fellows will cut my head off!” 
  The professor had just grabbed the diamond, and it shone suddenly with a blinding light. In a flash, they found themselves... before the tribunal of the gods!

 a talking bird!
                                                       ***
— “What's going on, boss?” asked Jack who still had circles of light in front of his eyes.
— “Sacrilegious villains!” said Horus, the falcon god. “You have just taken the sacred diamond of the gods! what do you have to say in your defense?”
— “Oh! a talking bird! said again Jack who had still not understood where he had fallen.
— “Rrraaaa! You dare thus to speak to a god! That deserves death!
— “Yes, let's hang Them!”
— “No, let's slit their throats!”
— “The best is the torment of the goat!”
Finally, the gods decided: in the way of a torture, they would have to undergo the tickles of the goat. Then, they will be made to be swallowed by the large divine beast, half-lion half-crocodile...

Illustrations: école des Bruyères, Olivier Magos' 1997-98 class (Belgium)
Chapter 5
 Back to the writers' corner
Chapter 7

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