children gazing at him with mingled curiosity and wonder. Then,
stooping, he crept through the low doorway. Two of his guards entered
with him, and to his unspeakable gratification their first act was to
relieve him of the _reim_ which secured his arms. This done, a woman
appeared bearing a calabash of curdled milk and a little reed basket of
stamped mealies.

"Here is food for you, _Umlungu_," said one of them. "And now you can
rest until--until you are wanted. But do not go outside," he added,
shortly, and with a significant grip of his assegai. Then they went
out, fastening the wicker screen that served as a door behind them, and
Eustace was left alone.

The interior of the hut was cool, if a trifle grimy, and there were
rather fewer cockroaches than usual disporting themselves among the
domed thatch of the roof--possibly owing to the tenement being of recent
construction. But Eustace was dead tired and the shelter and solitude
were more than welcome to him just then. The curdled milk and mealies
were both refreshing and satisfying. Having finished his meal he
lighted his pipe, for his captors had deprived him of nothing but his
weapons, and proceeded to think out the situation. But nature asserted
herself. Before he had taken a dozen whiffs he fell fast asleep.

How long he slept he could not tell, but it must have been some hours.
He awoke with a start of bewilderment, for his slumber had been a heavy
and dreamless one: the slumber of exhaustion. Opening his eyes to the
subdued gloom of the hut he hardly knew where he was. The atmosphere of
that primitive and ill-ventilated tenement was stuffy and oppressive
with an effluvium of grease and smoke, and the cockroaches were running
over his face and hands. Then the situation came back to him with a
rush. He was a prisoner.

There was not much doing outside, to judge by the tranquillity that
reigned. He could hear the deep inflections of voices carrying on a
languid conversation, and occasionally the shrill squall of an infant.
His watch had stopped, but he guessed it to be about the middle of the
afternoon.

He was about to make an attempt at undoing the door, but remembering the
parting injunction of his guard, he judged it better not. At the same
time it occurred to him that he had not yet investigated the cause of
the saving of his life. Here was a grand opportunity.

Cautiously, and with one ear on the alert for interruption, he took the