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--