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al of his creed. As they drew near the village, the Wajalu set up the most hideously discordant war-song he had ever heard in his life. They were met in the gate by a crowd of women howling and blowing horns, and otherwise adding to the horrific tumult. These, on beholding the stranger, imagined him a prisoner, and began clamouring for his death, pointing to the bloodstained place of slaughter where such were wont to be immolated. And then once more, hearing the shout of demoniacal laughter which arose from some of the fighting men, noting a ferociously sardonic grin upon not a few faces, Laurence felt his former misgivings all return. Accustomed as he was to perilous situations, to horrifying sights, the strain upon his nerves was becoming painfully intense. Fortunate, indeed, for him that those nerves were now hardened to the cold consistency of cast steel by almost daily trial. "Men of the Wajalu," he began, in a decisive, commanding voice, "well is it for all here that I am among you this day as a friend and guest, for, but for that, this village was doomed. You know not who I am, but you shall know in time. Then you will know that but for my presence here to-day the spear and the slave-yoke would have been your portion, that of your village the flames. Now I give you your lives." The words, hurriedly rendered to those who could not understand by those who could, perhaps more the haughty indifference of his tone, his bearing, his appearance in general, hard and determined, overawed the crowd. No further voice was raised against him. Their advances of hospitality became even profuse. He was shown to the best hut. But before he entered it he could not avoid seeing the bodies of his late assailants in process of dismemberment as though they had been slaughtered cattle, and, inured as he was to horrible and sickening sights, never had he been conscious of so overpowering a feeling of repulsion as now. The cannibal atrocities of these human beasts, the glowering heads stuck all over the stockade,--the latest addition thereto being those of the slain Ba-gcatya,--the all-pervading influence of death brooding over this demoniacal haunt, even as the ever-present circlings of carrion birds high in mid-air--all this weighed upon his mind until he could have blown out his own brains for sheer horror and loathing. But upon this dark, enshrouding shadow, piercing, partly dispelling it, came a ray of searching light--
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