Now each priest picked up his bag, opened it, and pulled out a large curved knife, like a pruning knife, and a small brass bottle. With a quick slash of the knife each priest cut through the bush in front of him. Then he picked it up, and dipped the broken end into the bottle. Finally, he laid the bush gently and carefully aside. Blade noticed that the cutoff end now gleamed black.

The priests then rose to their feet, the chant sounded again, and each took two steps forward. Then they knelt again and repeated the ritual. Slash-dip-lay aside. And again, and again. Blade realized with a chilling shock that they were moving rapidly up the slope toward him, toward where he had mutilated more than a dozen of the bushes.

The intervals between the cutting of bushes were growing longer now, and the priests were also fanning out as they climbed. They formed a solid line nearly a quarter of a mile from end to end, with Blade still near the center. Behind them as they advanced came the warriors, picking up the bushes as gently as they would have picked up newborn babies and carrying them back to the canoes. Unless both priests and warriors were blind, they must see those broken branches soon.

Blade did not have much longer to wait. Suddenly two priests broke off their chant. Their voices rose in howls of outrage that brought all the chanting to a sudden halt. Priests and warriors alike scurried toward the noisy two, gathered around them, and raised their own voices in lamentations. Blade saw that the two priests in the middle were each holding up a broken-off branch with one hand, and gesturing violently with the other. In the babble of voices rising into the night Blade could not make out a single coherent word. But he could certainly recognize tones of anger, outrage, and grim determination.

Obviously he had committed some sort of sacrilege by taking the branches. And there went practically any hope of quickly getting on good terms with these people. It was tempting to throw caution to the winds and try making a run for it. But Blade's trained judgment of the situation told him he would not get far. The warriors would be up with him before he got clear of the bushes. And he had no desire to run like a rabbit and end up being hunted down like one.