larity had produced in his own people,
what village calamities he had been blamed for, what persecutions he
had suffered? For some reason he had fled from his own tribe, to be
greeted at the outskirts of alien villages with showers of spears. He
had learned to reciprocate the horror of mankind. Then he had dwelt in
the jungle, joining the furtive beasts. But still, moved by an
obscure, invincible need, he crept in thickets from which he might
watch the life of human beings, feasting his eyes on the fire-splashed
bodies of men and women, listening to the songs and the laughter,
filling his nostrils with the savor of his kind, as a damned spirit
might creep back to the warmth of life from a desolate hereafter.

But what did he see now? Was she who sat before him human or
divine--one of those who must be placated by strict deeds, by charms or
the blood of animals and captives; some spirit of the jungle that had
made herself visible, in her marvelous pallor and uncanny costume, amid
a retinue of mortals inured to her magic?

"Tell him that he is safe," she said, with a movement of loathing.

Falling forward, he embraced her boots with his hands.

A porter who understood his language was summoned to question him. The
albino had just now crept through the country of the Mambava. He had
not dared to linger there; for on all the forest trails bands of
warriors were moving in toward the rendezvous where, as soon as the
moon was full, they would hold the dances. Yet in the midst of those
forests he had seen the camp of white men.

"He has seen it!" she cried, leaning forward to devour with her eyes
that hideous and precious instrument of fate. "Hamoud, he has seen
him! He can guide us there!" And with a look of tenderness she
murmured, "You will show us the way? Ah, I will give you--I will give
you----"

She saw herself pouring gold over the pariah.

He bowed his head till his dirty, yellowish poll nearly touched his
gray knees that were covered with callouses. Amid the close-packed,
silent audience a smothered phrase rose to the ears of the interpreter.
Hamoud, turning away his face, cast forth the words:

"Too late."

For the albino, while creeping round that camp in the Mambava forests,
had heard of a strange thing, of the shooting of one of the white men
in the night. Those discussing the matter had not known how it had
happened, since they had all been asleep. The white man was then
dying. By this