The two next retired into the woods, where they ate and slept. They could not move when they awoke, for during the night the native Oreillons had bound them with ropes of bark. Fifty naked Oreillons, armed with arrows, stone clubs, and hatchets, surrounded them. Nearby other natives attended a great caldron of boiling water, while still others prepared spits. All shouted that they would be avenged by eating a Jesuit. Cacambo blamed the girls for their sad plight. Candide, looking at the caldron and spits, knew that they were about to be roasted or boiled, and he wondered what Doctor Pangloss would have said if he saw what the pure state of nature was like.
Cacambo, as we have seen, never lost his head. He consoled his master, saying that he knew a bit of the native's language and would talk with them. And so he did, most reasonably. He argued with the Oreillons that a Jesuit should be devoured, for national law taught us to kill our neighbors, and all people behave accordingly. But, he continued, the natives would not want to eat their friends. He then convinced them that they should verify the facts before deciding to treat him and Candide as enemies. And the facts were verified, whereupon Candide and his servant were treated most hospitably. At last the Oreillons conducted the two to the border of their country, shouting joyfully: "He's not a Jesuit!" Candide, wondering about this latest experience, decided that the pure state of nature must be good since his life had been spared once his captors learned that he was not a Jesuit.
