runk with the blood of thine enemies.
"Ha--ha--ha!"

With each wild roar, shouted in unison at the end of each of these
impromptu strophes, the barbarians immediately surrounding him would
turn to Eustace and flash their blades in his face, brandishing their
weapons in pantomimic representation of carving him to pieces. This to
one less versed in their habits and character would have been to the
last degree terrifying, bound and at their mercy as he was. But it
inspired in him but little alarm. They were merely letting off steam.
Whatever his fate might eventually be, his time had not yet come, and
this he knew.

After a great deal more of this sort of thing, they began to get tired
of their martial display. The chanting ceased and the singers subsided
once more into their normal state of free and easy jollity. They
laughed and poked fun among themselves, and let off a good deal of chaff
at the expense of their prisoner. And this metamorphosis was not a
little curious. The fierce, ruthless expression, blazing with racial
antipathy, depicted on each dark countenance during that wild and
headlong chase for blood, had disappeared, giving way to one that was
actually pleasing, the normal light-hearted demeanour of a keen-witted
and kindly natured people. Yet the chances of the prisoner's life being
eventually spared were infinitesimal.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

THE SILVER BOX.

Throughout the night their march continued. Towards dawn, however, a
short halt was made, to no one more welcome than to the captive himself;
the fact being that poor Eustace was deadly tired, and, but for the
expediency of keeping up his character for invulnerability, would have
requested the chief, as a favour, to allow him some rest before then.
As it was, however, he was glad of the opportunity; but, although he had
not tasted food since the previous midday, he could not eat. He felt
feverish and ill.

Day was breaking as the party resumed its way. And now the features of
the country had undergone an entire change. The wide, sweeping,
mimosa-dotted dales had been left behind--had given place to wild forest
country, whose rugged grandeur of desolation increased with every step.
Great rocks overhung each dark ravine, and the trunks of hoary
yellow-wood trees, from whose gigantic and spreading limbs depended
lichens and monkey ropes, showed through the cool semi-gloom like the
massive columns of cathedral aisles. An undergro