c had precipitated the villagers.

Interrogation at an end, he still stayed on with them. The flickering
blaze lighted the circle of little brown folk, each flare gleaming on
an eye here, glinting there on beaded jacket or brass trinkets with
which both men and women were adorned. The first mad panic had abated,
but Death had stalked through the settlement six times in as many
days, and they listened superstitiously for the stark Tread through
the woods which hemmed them in. Each whispering wind that stirred the
leaves overhead brought a deeper silence, each wail from delirious
sufferers in nearby huts tightened the little circle.

The quavering gutturals of a half-blind old woman, wrinkled and
shrivelled with a number of years no man could estimate, jarred the
dumb circle.

"My years are as the scales of a fish. Each year has brought wisdom.
Listen."

It was the invariable preface of a Bogobo legend. Terry stirred: it
was the old woman who had told him of the Giant Agong.

"This sickness takes not many more of our people. The white men will
stop it. Trust them. These white men are Bogobo friends. These white
men are strong, wise, honest. White is better blood than brown blood.
Yes. The Hill People knew this."

At the mention of the dread folk the group of tribesmen moved
uneasily. A young hunter nervously stirred the flagging fire into
brighter blaze as the old woman went on:

"Yes. The Hill People knew. Have you forgotten how the Giant Agong
rang the night the Spaniards lost their girl-child?

"No. You have not forgotten. The Hill People took her--they wanted
white blood in the veins of future chiefs. They knew what white blood
means--the Hill People know!"

Curiously thrilled by the simple legend, Terry moved nearer to the old
woman.

"Grandmother, how many years ago was this?"

"Years? Years? I know naught of your white man's years, but this I
know--it happened during the rains before the dark-eyed white men
gave way to the blue-eyed white men."

Interpreting this as referring to the departure of the Spanish troops,
he gently pressed her for further details. But she was finished.

It was dawn when the doctor rose. Groaning in the agony of the fat man
who wakes stiff from the discomfort of an unaccustomed hard bed, he
sat up, then forgot his miseries in a new worry as he saw Terry asleep
under the open window, wrapped in his saddle blanket but without the
protection of a mosquito net. He cursed, stop