forth.

At the sight which meets his gaze his heart gives a great bound. His
instinct has not been at fault. There, in the midst of the open space,
are the thatched roofs of a native village--and a village of some size.

It is situated in the open--in the midst of an amphitheatre of forest
which engirdles it on three sides, the further being bounded by a line
of jagged rocks of no great height. But around it there is no sign of
life. No human forms are issuing from or entering its low stockade, no
sound of human voices comes to him from within it. Perhaps they are
sleeping throughout the heat of the day. And then he pauses.

What will be his reception? Hostile possibly. Yet here lies his only
hope. To remain as he is means certain death. He will warn the
inhabitants of yonder place of the proximity of his enemies and theirs,
that it not strong enough for defence, which is more than likely, they
may save their lives--and his--in timely flight. And, having decided
upon this line of conduct, he steps from his hiding-place, and proceeds
to cross the intervening space.

But as he draws near the village, he is conscious of a renewed sinking
of the heart; for now he perceives that the stockade is broken down in
several places, and what he has hardly noticed before in his excitement
and hunger as he snatched at the bunches of millet--a field of which he
is passing through--that the crops are trampled and torn about, as
though hurriedly foraged. And then, as he gains a wide breach in the
stockade, and is about to step through, a sight meets his gaze which is
not entirely unfamiliar, but which somehow or other never seems entirely
to lose its horror and repulsion.

Strewn around in scattered profusion are hundreds of bones. Skulls,
too, grinning up out of the long herbage which in some instances has
sprouted right through the battered orifice which has let out the life,
producing the most hideous and ghastly effect. Everywhere they lie,
grouped in batches, mostly just within the stockade, though others are
not wanting immediately around the low-roofed grass huts. Well enough
does the fugitive know these signs. The fate of this village has been
that of many another in the blood-stained heart of the Dark Continent.
Its inhabitants have been surprised, and all who have shown resistance,
or for any reason were not worth carrying away, ruthlessly massacred,
regardless of age or sex--as not a few skulls of diminutiv