ng prince the knowledge of himself. He hath
cursed thee with the three curses of the pagans Takhar, Tuirakh, and
Zomara, the Crocodile-god, held in awe by all."

"Well, thinkest thou that I fear the empty threats of a youth whose
hostility towards me arises from the fact that I captured his father on
the Great Salt Road, and smiting off his head, sent it as a present to
the Naya?" asked Samory in indignation.

But as the black-plumed slaves removed the inanimate form of Omar, the
aged councillor stepped forward boldly, saying:

"I perceive, O source of light, that the dark clouds of evil are
gathering to disturb the hours of futurity; the spirits of the wicked are
preparing the storm and the tempest against thee; but--the volumes of
Fate are torn from my sight, and the end of thy troubles is unknown."

The councillors exchanged glances and stood aghast, but Samory, livid
with rage, sprang from his divan and commenced to upbraid the aged seer
for his words of warning. I was not, however, allowed to listen to the
further discussion of the old man's prophecy, being hurried by two of the
torturer's slaves back to my underground cell, where I remained alone for
many hours awaiting Omar, who, I presumed, was being brought back to
consciousness in another part of the great impregnable fortress, the
mazes of which were bewildering.

CHAPTER X.

ZOMARA.

IN darkness and anxiety I remained alone for many days in the foul
subterranean prison. Had the fiendish tortures been repeated upon my
hapless friend, I wondered; or had he succumbed to the injuries already
inflicted? Hour by hour I waited, listening to the shuffling footsteps of
my gaolers, but only once a day there came a black slave to hand me my
meagre ration of food and depart without deigning to give answer to any
of my questions.

I became sick with anxiety, and at last felt that I must abandon all hope
of again seeing him. I was alone in the midst of the fiercest and most
fanatical people of the whole of Africa, a people whose supreme delight
it was to torture the whites that fell into their hands as vengeance for
the many expeditions sent against them. Through those dismal days when
silence and the want of air oppressed me, I remembered the old adage that
when Hope goes out Death smiles and stalks in, but fortunately, although
wearied and dejected, I did not quite abandon all thought of ever again
meeting my companion. The hope of seeing him, of being