ad fallen
asleep, as a native generally does when it is warm and he has nothing
to do. Mavovo looked very thoughtful. I wondered whether he had been
consulting his Snake again, but did not ask him. Since the episode of
our escape from execution by bow and arrow I had grown somewhat afraid
of that unholy reptile. Next time it might foretell our immediate doom,
and if it did I knew that I should believe.

As for Hans, he looked much disturbed, and was engaged in wildly hunting
for something in the flap pockets of an antique corduroy waistcoat
which, from its general appearance, must, I imagine, years ago have
adorned the person of a British game-keeper.

"Three," I heard him mutter. "By my great grandfather's spirit! only
three left."

"Three what?" I asked in Dutch.

"Three charms, Baas, and there ought to have been quite twenty-four. The
rest have fallen out through a hole that the devil himself made in this
rotten stuff. Now we shall not die of hunger, and we shall not be shot,
and we shall not be drowned, at least none of those things will happen
to me. But there are twenty-one other things that may finish us, as I
have lost the charms to ward them off. Thus----"

"Oh! stop your rubbish," I said, and fell again into the depths of my
uncomfortable reflections. After this I, too, went to sleep. When I woke
it was past midday and the wind was falling. However, it held while
we ate some food we had brought with us, after which it died away
altogether, and the Pongo people took to their paddles. At my suggestion
we offered to help them, for it occurred to me that we might just as
well learn how to manage these paddles. So six were given to us, and
Komba, who now I noted was beginning to speak in a somewhat imperious
tone, instructed us in their use. At first we made but a poor hand at
the business, but three or four hours' steady practice taught us a good
deal. Indeed, before our journey's end, I felt that we should be quite
capable of managing a canoe, if ever it became necessary for us to do
so.

By three in the afternoon the shores of the island we were
approaching--if it really was an island, a point that I never cleared
up--were well in sight, the mountain top that stood some miles inland
having been visible for hours. In fact, through my glasses, I had been
able to make out its configuration almost from the beginning of the
voyage. About five we entered the mouth of a deep bay fringed on
either side with fore