the wild pigs. Paw-paw and banana-
trees were just ripening their fruit, while beneath grew sweet potatoes
and yams. On one edge of the clearing was a small grass house,
open-sided, a mere rain-shelter. In front of it, crouched on his hams
before a fire, was a gaunt and bearded bushman. The fire seemed to smoke
excessively, and in the thick of the smoke a round dark object hung
suspended. The bushman seemed absorbed in contemplation of this object.

Warning them not to shoot unless the man was successfully escaping,
Sheldon beckoned the Poonga-Poonga men forward. Joan smiled
appreciatively to Sheldon. It was head-hunters against head-hunters. The
blacks trod noiselessly to their stations, which were arranged so that
they could spring simultaneously into the open. Their faces were keen
and serious, their eyes eloquent with the ecstasy of living that was upon
them--for this was living, this game of life and death, and to them it
was the only game a man should play, withal they played it in low and
cowardly ways, killing from behind in the dim forest gloom and rarely
coming out into the open.

Sheldon whispered the word, and the ten runners leaped forward--for Binu
Charley ran with them. The bushman's keen ears warned him, and he sprang
to his feet, bow and arrow in hand, the arrow fixed in the notch and the
bow bending as he sprang. The man he let drive at dodged the arrow, and
before he could shoot another his enemies were upon him. He was rolled
over and over and dragged to his feet, disarmed and helpless.

"Why, he's an ancient Babylonian!" Joan cried, regarding him. "He's an
Assyrian, a Phoenician! Look at that straight nose, that narrow face,
those high cheek-bones--and that slanting, oval forehead, and the beard,
and the eyes, too."

"And the snaky locks," Sheldon laughed.

The bushman was in mortal fear, led by all his training to expect nothing
less than death; yet he did not cower away from them. Instead, he
returned their looks with lean self-sufficiency, and finally centred his
gaze upon Joan, the first white woman he had ever seen.

"My word, bush fella _kai-kai_ along that fella boy," Binu Charley
remarked.

So stolid was his manner of utterance that Joan turned carelessly to see
what had attracted his attention, and found herself face to face with
Gogoomy. At least, it was the head of Gogoomy--the dark object they had
seen hanging in the smoke. It was fresh--the smoke-curing had just