m of all that had befallen since he had been hauled to
his mysterious and awful doom. The thoughtless act of Holmes had
necessitated the destruction of Nondwana's kraal there and then; and,
indeed, the king's brother was more than dissatisfied with the clemency
extended to the other two white men. But the word of Tyisandhlu, once
given, stood. They had been sent out of the country under a strong armed
escort, which was under orders to conduct them to the great town of an
Arab chief, with whom El Khanac had blood brotherhood.

How had she found out the mystery of the Spider? Was it known to all the
nation? It was known to very few, she explained. The Black ones who
waited upon the Spider were a mysterious order--so mysterious, indeed,
that none knew exactly who were members of it and who were not. Nor
could she tell how the strange and gruesome cult first originated, save
that it was dimly whispered that the Ba-gcatya had taken it over from
the nation they had driven out, and that in accordance with an ancient
prophecy uttered by a famous magician at the time of their flight from
Zululand. But as she told of her resolve to rescue him at all risks,
even so long ago as when, by overhearing her father's talk, she learned
that this doom was to be his in any case, Laurence felt himself grow
strangely soft towards her. Savage or not, Nondwana's daughter was a
splendid character in the whole-hearted devotion of her love; heroic was
hardly the word for it. And as she went on to tell how she had devoted
herself entirely to finding out the locality of the dreaded spot,
learning the way to it by stealthily following on the footsteps of that
grim order when it was actually engaged in conveying thither another
human victim, risking her life at every step,--and not her life merely,
but incurring the certainty of the same fearful doom in the event of
discovery,--telling it, too, in the most simple way, and as though the
act were the most natural thing in the world, Laurence realized that he
might have done worse than throw in his lot with this loftily descended
daughter of a splendid race of kingly barbarians, had circumstances been
ordered otherwise.

But even while thus listening, while thus thinking, another vein of
thought was running parallel in his mind. Those insignificant-looking
stones, which he had picked up down there, represented wealth--ample
wealth; and with it had come a feverish longing to enjoy the comforts,
the pleas