Mudge tugged on her arm.

“Come on, luv, we’ve got to be ready to leave when Jon-Tom reaches us.”

She held back. “Extremely interesting. I’ve never heard the like before.” Mudge overheard, too. His tugs began to take on an aura of desperation.

Abruptly the fighting ceased. The chief and the rest of the warriors had returned. “Not nice to begin festivities without us,” he said disapprovingly. “Plenty of time to play after wedding ceremony complete.”

“No wedding ceremony.”

The chief gaped at his daughter. “SAY WHAT?”

“No wedding ceremony.” Breathing hard, her fur mussed, Essaip was clearly in no mood to back down. “Who you think you are to give order like that?”

“Who I think I—I am your father! I am chief of this tribe!” The giant’s face was flushed, a remarkable sight.

“By what right you make such a demand?”

Speechless, the chief waded through his warriors, scattering them left and right, and tried to cuff her across the muzzle. She blocked the blow and caught him with a return right to the chops. Several warriors stepped up to grab her. As they did so they were set upon by the tribe’s females. Shouts and snarls filled the hitherto peaceful evening air, along with bits of fur and flesh.

Abandoning the fight, the chief chose instead to confront Jon-Tom as he was trying to tiptoe inconspicuously around the dust of battle.

“You! You have brought this trouble among us. You have been talking to my daughter and filling her head with superstitious nonsense. What evil magic have you worked? Marriage is off. Dinner is back on.” He reached for Jon-Tom, who skipped back out of the way.

“Essaip!” He called to her several times, but she was too busy raising male consciousness by cracking skulls to help.

The chief advanced, grinning nastily. “I going to eat you myself, have you raw for dinner. One piece at a time. I think I start with head first.” He reached out again. Jon-Tom saw Mudge running to recover his longbow but he knew the otter would never make it in time. His oh-so-clever scheme had backfired. Mudge was right. The odds had finally run out.

A massive shadow interposed itself between him and the chief and thundered, “You not going to eat anyone without my permission.” The ground shook as the new arrival moved forward to engage the chief in combat.

“Come on, mate!” Mudge had his longbow in hand, but there was no reason to use it now. “Let’s get out o’ ’ere.”

A bit stunned by the extent of the reaction he’d provoked among the tribe’s ladies, Jon-Tom allowed himself to be led from the scene of battle. No one tried to stop him and his companions as they recovered their supplies and slipped unnoticed into the forest.

“Who was that?” he finally mumbled when they had put the village a safe distance behind them. “Who saved me?”

“I’m not sure,” said Weegee, “but I think it must have been Mrs. Chief. I still don’t understand quite what happened, Jon-Tom. What on earth did you tell the daughter to make her and the other females react so violently?”

“I had no idea how they’d react, to tell you the truth. All I did was sit her down and tell her about. …”

“Right, mate,” said Mudge energetically, “we can get to all that later, wot? Right now we need to save our breath for puttin’ as many trees between ourselves and that lot as we can.”

“Sure, but I. …”

“Sure but you can talk about it later, when we ’ave a chance to sit down an’ chat without worryin’ about no pursuit, right?”

Jon-Tom caught the otter’s drift and shut up. There was no harm in acceding to his friend’s unspoken request for silence. He doubted Weegee needed any otherworldly philosophical help anyway.

XIV

THE OGRES DID NOT follow. Jon-Tom suspected they wouldn’t. They were too busy sorting out their own lives to worry about their former captives.

Mudge should have been cheered by their easy escape. Instead, the otter tramped along enveloped in melancholy, his expression dour. When he replied to questions it was in monosyllables. Finally Jon-Tom asked him if anything was wrong.

“O’ course somethin’s wrong, mate. I’m tired. Tired o’ stinkin’ jungle, tired o’ runnin’, tired o’ followin’ you ’alfway around the world every time I think life’s settled back to somethin’ like normal. An’ there’s somethin’ else, too.” By way of illustration be began scratching under his left arm, working his way around to his back.

“Ever since we left Chejiji I’ve been itchin’. Last few days ’tis gotten considerable worse. I must’ve picked up some kind o’ rash. Worst place is in the middle o’ me back, but I can’t reach back there.”

“You should’ve said something, love.” Weegee halted and began peeling off his vest. “Let me have a look.”

They took a standing break while she inspected Mudge’s back and shoulders.

“Well, wot is it?” he asked when she didn’t comment. When she finally did speak it wasn’t to him.

“Jon-Tom, I think you’d better come have a look at this.”

He did so, and was too shocked by what he saw to say anything.

All the hair on the otter’s back had fallen out. A glance beneath the arm where he’d just been scratching showed that the fur there was likewise coming out. Weegee brushed her paw across the back of his leg and came away with a whole handful of fur.

“Wot’s the matter with you two? Wot’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid it’s more than just a rash, Mudge.”

“Wot do you mean, more than a rash? ’Ave I got leprosy or somethin’?”

“No—not exactly,” Weegee murmured.

That brought Mudge around sharply. “Wot do you mean, ‘not exactly’? Will somebody kindly tell me wot’s wrong? ’Tis just a damn itch. See?” He rubbed his right forearm. When he brought his paw back he’d left behind a bare strip of skin. “Oh me haunches an’ little sisters.” Horrified, he stared up at Jon-Tom. “You got to stop it, mate.” A patch of fur fell from his forehead. “Do somethin’, spellsing it awaaaay.” He was hopping about frantically, the fur fairly flying off him.

“I’ll try, Mudge.” He whipped the suar around and sang the most appropriate songs he could think of, ending with a rousing chorus of the title tune from the musical Hair. All to no avail. Mudge’s alopecia continued to worsen. When the exhausted otter finally ran down several minutes later there wasn’t a tuft of fur on his denuded form.

Cautious regarded him with his usual phlegmatic state. “Never seen a bald otter before. Ain’t pretty.”

“Wot am I goin’ to doooo!”

“Stop moaning, for one thing,” Jon-Tom chided him.

“I might as well be dead.”

“And don’t talk like that.”

Weegee was leaning on Mudge, trying to comfort him. Now she pulled away slightly to peer at his spine. “Wait a minute. I think it’s starting to grow back already.”

“Don’t tease me, luv. I know I’m doomed to wander the world like this, an outcast, furless and naked like some mutated ’uman.”

“No, really.” There was genuine excitement in her voice. “Look here.” She raised his left arm to his face. Jon-Tom looked, too. Sure enough, little nubs of fur were sprouting through the skin. They could see them growing.

Mudge all but leaped into the air with relief. “Comin’ back she is! Wot a relief. I thought ’twas all over for poor Mudge. Wouldn’t ’ave been able to show me face in any o’ me old ’aunts. Come on, mates, let’s not ’ang around ’ere. I might get reinfected.”