I am not translating his words, but that was what he gave them to understand pretty plainly, to my great amusement.
After the excitement was over, Runi, who had maintained a dignified calm, made some roundabout remarks, apparently with the object of eliciting an account of what I had seen and heard in the forest of evil fame.

I replied carelessly that I had seen a great many birds and monkeys--monkeys so tame that I might have procured one if I had had a blow-pipe, in spite of my never having practiced shooting with that weapon.
It interested them to hear about the abundance and tameness of the monkeys, although it was scarcely news; but how tame they must have been when I, the stranger not to the manner born--not naked, brown-skinned, lynx-eyed, and noiseless as an owl in his movements--had yet been able to look closely at them! Runi only remarked, apropos of what I had told him, that they could not go there to hunt; then he asked me if I feared nothing.
"Nothing," I replied carelessly.

"The things you fear hurt not the white man and are no more than this to me," saying which I took up a little white wood-ash in my hand and blew it away with my breath.

"And against other enemies I have this," I added, touching my revolver.

A brave speech, just after that araguato episode; but I did not make it without blushing--mentally.
He shook his head, and said it was a poor weapon against some enemies; also--truly enough--that it would procure no birds and monkeys for the stew-pot.
Next morning my friend Kua-ko, taking his zabatana, invited me to go out with him, and I consented with some misgivings, thinking he had overcome his superstitious fears and, inflamed by my account of the abundance of game in the forest, intended going there with me.