njury befall them, the medicine that
is here"--and he tapped the book--"will work against yon and yours."

He looked at her very sternly, attempting to carry the matter with a
high hand, for he judged from her words that something had happened
to his friends.

"Wow! Are my people so few that a boy can talk to me in this way?"
She snapped her fingers.

"And what stand would you and your people have made against the wild
men but for Ngonyama? What will they do when Hassan comes again, if
the great one is not at hand to help?"

"Ohe! Little chief," she laughed, "you cannot frighten me with
tales of Hassan; and think well over my word."

She went away down towards the new village that had been built
beyond the river, and her voice rose in a chant as she went--a chant
that was taken up and thrown back by the women returning home from
the gardens. Compton built up the fire, and then walked up to the
mouth of the gorge, restless and consumed with anxiety. Those words
of the woman, "maybe they will not return," haunted him. They seemed
to him ominous of danger. All night he patrolled up and down the
ledge, between the cave and the gorge, fearing they would not come,
and yet expecting to hear their voices at any moment; and in the
morning he was heavy-eyed from want of sleep. The night-guards from
the gorge trotted by, their places having been relieved.

"Have ye seen Ngonyama and the Spider?"

"There is smoke," they said. "Maybe the white chiefs make the
fire."

"Where?"

"Beyond the water that is taboo."

He hurried off with his glasses, and from the gorge saw smoke rising
far down the forest; and the sight gave him hope, for it might mean
that his friends had followed the river down from Deadman's Pool on
the trail of the missing boat. Bidding the men keep a good watch,
and report any new development to him at once, he went back to the
eave to breakfast and to renewed study of the journal. As he read,
his attention became riveted on a series of sketches which laid bare
the subterranean passages under the south-west portion of the cliff,
between the gorge and the canon giving outlet to the river. As he
read, too absorbed to think of anything else, he came upon the
following note:--

"If it chance that understanding eye should fall on these notes, let
my directions be carefully observed. No stranger--certainly no
white man--would be permitted to leave the valley once he discovered
its existence, by setting fo