d to sit down. Where is the hut you spoke of, mother?"

"Shall I carry you, little one?" said the woman, with a loud laugh.
"A few steps only. A little way, and you can eat and sleep."

She passed to the right under shelter of a cliff, and came very
quickly to the door of a wide cave, that ran back some thirty feet.

"Here is your home, and in the morning the sun will look in at the
door, and from the threshold, when you awake, you may sit and feast
on such a sight as will gladden your eyes, for now the shadows hide
it."

They threw their packages on the floor and sat down on a carpet of
clean white sand.

"A little further there is water. Muata, my son, for the last time
do woman's work and light the fire, while I go below for food."

"Say nothing to the people of my coming," said the chief. "Presently
I will go down secretly, and see how the men bear themselves."

"Wow! I see now it is the chief, and not a carrier of wood."

She went off into the gathering gloom, but was back in the hour with
a great bunch of yellow bananas, a calabash of goats'-milk, and a
young kid, showing no signs of weariness for all her toil. Those
bananas, growing with an upward curve against the stem to relieve
the dead weight on the branch as they grew, were just then a finer
sight than the most magnificent scenery, and the travellers made a
great feast, which done, they stretched themselves out on the clean
dry sand up there in the clean, crisp air, and slept till the sun
next morning streamed into the open cave.

They woke up to find themselves alone, but not forgotten; for
outside there lay a little heap of good things, including fresh
eggs, a calabash of milk, sweet potatoes, and a bundle of firewood.

"By Jove!" cried Compton; "look at the view. Isn't it splendid?"

"Well, it won't vanish," said Mr. Hume, "so we'll have breakfast
first."

Further on along the ledge there was a little cascade, falling into
a bath-like opening evidently, from the signs, of human
construction, and here, in ice-cold water, they refreshed
themselves. After breakfast they were like new men. The keen air put
to flight the beginnings of malaria contracted in the noisome
atmosphere of the dark water-course they had last travelled, and
brought the sparkle into their eyes, and a smile to the lips.

"Now for the view--for a good long look at the Garden of Rest."

"Not yet. We'll first overhaul our rifles and stock of ammunition.
This is no picnic, y