ard would not have
needed to raise his voice to call him to his side.

The leader of this hurried retreat had been sitting there for two hours.
The slimy moving surface of the river had entered into his brain; the
restless silence of the African forest alone kept him awake. He hardly
realised that the sound momentarily gaining strength within his ears was
that of a paddle--a single, weakly, irregular paddle. It was not a sound
to wake a sleeping man. It came so slowly, so gently through the whisper
of the dripping leaves that it would enter into his slumbers and make
itself part of them.

Guy Oscard only realised the meaning of that sound when a black shadow
crept on to the smooth evenness of the river's breast. Oscard was
eminently a man of action. In a moment he was on his feet, and in the
darkness of the room there was the gleam of a rifle-barrel. He came back
to the window--watching.

He saw the canoe approach the bank. He heard the thud of the paddle
as it was thrown upon the ground. In the gloom, to which his eyes were
accustomed, he saw a man step from the boat to the shore and draw the
canoe up. The silent midnight visitor then turned and walked up towards
the house. There was something familiar in the gait--the legs were
slightly bowed. The man was walking with great difficulty, staggering a
little at each step. He seemed to be in great pain.

Guy Oscard laid aside his rifle. He stepped forward to the open window.

"Is that you, Durnovo?" he said, without raising his voice.

"Yes," replied the other. His voice was muffled, as if his tongue was
swollen, and there was a startling break in it.

Oscard stepped aside, and Durnovo passed into his own house.

"Got a light?" he said, in the same muffled way.

In the next room Joseph could be heard striking a match, and a moment
later he entered the room, throwing a flood of light before him.

"GOOD GOD!" cried Guy Oscard. He stepped back as if he had been struck,
with his hand shielding his eyes.

"Save us!" ejaculated Joseph in the same breath.

The thing that stood there--sickening their gaze--was not a human being
at all. Take a man's eyelids away, leaving the round balls staring,
blood-streaked; cut away his lips, leaving the grinning teeth and red
gums; shear off his ears--that which is left is not a man at all. This
had been done to Victor Durnovo. Truly the vengeance of man is crueller
than the vengeance of God!

Could he have seen himself, Victor