All seven, shoving and slithering, rushed forward in a mass. Kandid could still hear the pattering of Nava's heels, then there was no time for that. He was frightened and ashamed, but his fear left him very quickly, since unexpectedly it pretty soon became clear that the only real fighter among the robbers was the leader. Fending off his blows, Kandid saw that the rest of them, while continuing to wave their clubs in an aimlessly aggressive manner, were just knocking into one another tottering from their own heroic swings, stopping often to spit on their palms. One of them suddenly gave a despairing squeal: "I'm sinking!" and collapsed noisily into the swamp, two of the robbers at once threw away their weapons and set to work dragging him out. The leader, however, pressed on croaking and stamping his feet, until Kandid caught him a chance blow on the kneecap. The leader dropped his staff, hissed sharply, and squatted on his haunches. Kandid leaped back.
The two thieves were busy dragging the sinking one from the bog; he was completely stuck, his face had gone bluish. Their leader sat on his haunches and was examining his injury solicitously. The other three, sticks raised, were crowding about behind his back, also examining the injury over his head.
"You're a fool, pop," said the leader reproachfully. "You didn't ought to do that, you village yokel. I've never seen the likes of you, and that's a fact... You can't see what's good for you, village yokel, blasted thick oaf..."
Kandid waited no longer. He turned and raced after Nava as fast as his legs would carry him. The robbers called out after him, jeering and angry, the leader shouting: "Stop him! Stop him!" They didn't come after him, and Kandid wasn't happy about that. He experienced feelings of disappointment and annoyance and as he ran tried to imagine how these clumsy, awkward, and unmalicious people could so terrorize the villages and also in some way destroy deadlings, those agile and merciless fighters.
Soon he caught sight of Nava; the girl was bounding along about thirty yards ahead, banging her hard bare heels down on the ground. He saw her disappear around a bend and suddenly reappear coming toward him, then freeze for an instant and race sideways straight across the swamp, leaping from root to root, amid flying spray. Kandid's heart stopped.
"Don't," he roared, breathless. "Have you gone crazy? Stop!"
Nava at once halted, grabbing at a liana, and turned toward him. Now he saw another three robbers emerging from the bend, who stopped, looking now at him, now at Nava.
"Dummy!" cried Nava penetratingly. "You hit them and run here! You won't sink here don't be scared! Hit them, beat them! That's the way! Go on! Go on! Give it to them!"
"You there," said one of the robbers solicitously, "stop that shouting, just hold on, or you'll fall in, drag you out after..."
Behind him the robbers began stamping and crying:
"Ooh-hoo!" The three in front waited. Then Kandid, seizing hold of his cudgel at both ends, thrust it ahead of him across his chest and flew at them, knocked all three down and fell over himself. He knocked himself badly on somebody but leaped up at once. Everything swam before his eyes. Somebody again cried out in terror: "I'm sinking." Someone's bearded face thrust at him and Kandid struck it a blow with his staff without looking. The staff broke in half. Kandid flung the fragment from him and jumped into the swamp.
A root subsided under his foot and he very nearly came to grief, but at once leaped for the next and proceeded jumping heavily from one snag root to another, in a spray of black stinking mud. Nava squealed in triumph and whistled as he came toward her. In the rear angry voices resounded: "What happened to you, butterfingers, clumsy devil?"
"What about you, then, tell me that!"
"We let the girl go, the girl won't last long now..."
"The man's gone mad, fighting!"
"He ripped my clothes, blast it, what clothes too, best you can get, my clothes, but he tore them. Not even him, it was you tore them..."
"That's enough talky-talk, when all's done; we've got to catch them, not talky-talk... See, they're running, and you talky-talk!"
"What about you, then, tell me that!"
"He hit my leg, see? Damaged my poor knee, but how he did it, I don't understand, I just swung and ..."
"And where's Seveneyes? Boys, Seveneyes is sinking."
"Sinking! That's right, sinking... Seveneyes sinking and they talky-talk!"
