ial."

"Very well," agreed Sir Reginald, somewhat reluctantly. "I suppose it
is really our duty to do this, so let us do it. But it is rather a
disagreeable business to be mixed up in all the same."

"Disagreeable! undoubtedly," assented Lethbridge; "but certainly not to
be shirked on that account. I can sympathise with you in your
reluctance to do this thing, old chap; merely to depose M'Bongwele was
one thing, to hang him and his crowd of murdering witch-doctors is quite
another, and this is the first affair of the kind that you have been
mixed up in. With me it is different. In my military capacity I have,
on several occasions, been obliged to try prisoners and condemn them to
death--and so, too, has Mildmay, I'll be bound. It means the doing of
an unpleasant thing as the only means whereby to put an effectual stop
to something infinitely more unpleasant. At least, that is how I look
at it."

"Yes, of course you are quite right. Let us go at once and get the
affair over as soon as possible," said Sir Reginald, turning away to
enter the pilot-house and assume the control of the ship during the
proposed movement of her to the village.

"We are now about to move to M'Bongwele's palace and bring him to trial
for his many misdeeds," explained von Schalckenberg to Lobelalatutu.
"You will remain with us until the trial is over."

"_Bietu_!" answered the chief, saluting in token of his submission to
the will of these strange beings. He stood deeply considering for a
moment, and then said, hesitatingly: "Since the Great Spirits are about
to right the wrongs which we have suffered at the hands of M'Bongwele
and his witch-doctors, it may be that they would be willing to save the
life of Siswani, one of the chiefs who was opposed to the reinstatement
of M'Bongwele. Like myself, he has been a marked man from the hour when
he held back from joining those who supported M'Bongwele, and it was but
yesterday that the witch-doctors found a cause against him. His
punishment was to begin this morning at sunrise."

"Oh, horror! and it is now nearly noon," exclaimed the professor, in
horrified accents. "Why did you not mention it before, man? What is
the nature of the punishment?"

"His eyelids were to be cut off, and he was then to be pegged down on an
ants' nest and smeared with honey, that the insects might devour him
alive," was the calm answer.

"Ah!" ejaculated the professor. "Yes, I know that punishment; I hav