et it was difficult to feel
sanguine with the odds so terribly against him.

What would she do when she heard that Tom had been killed and himself
captured by the savages? "Were anything to befall you, my heart would
be broken," had been almost her last words, and the recollection of them
tortured him like a red-hot iron, for he had only his own fool-hardiness
to thank that he was in this critical position at all. Fortunately it
did not occur to him that he might be reported dead, instead of merely
missing.

His reflections were interrupted. A great noise arose without--voices--
then the steady tramp of feet--the clash of weapons--and over and above
all, the weird, thrilling rhythmical chant of the war-song. He had just
time to restore the silver box to its place, when the door of the hut
was flung open and there entered three Kafirs fully armed. They ordered
him to rise immediately and pass outside.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

THE PARAMOUNT CHIEF.

The spectacle which met Eustace's eyes, on emerging from the dark and
stuffy hut, struck him as grand and stirring in the extreme.

He saw around him an open clearing, a large natural amphitheatre,
surrounded by dense forest on three sides, the fourth being constituted
by a line of jagged rocks more or less bush-grown. Groups of hastily
constructed huts, in shape and material resembling huge beehives, stood
around in an irregular circle, leaving a large open space in the centre.
And into this space was defiling a great mass of armed warriors.

On they came, marching in columns, the air vibrating to the roar of
their terrible war-song. On they came, a wild and fierce array, in
their fantastic war dresses--the glint of their assegai blades dancing
in the sunlight like the ripples of a shining sea. They were marching
round the great open space.

Into this muster of fierce and excited savages Eustace found himself
guided. If the demeanour of his guards had hitherto been good-humoured
and friendly, it was so no longer. Those immediately about him kept
turning to brandish their assegais in his face as they marched, going
through the pantomime of carving him to pieces, uttering taunts and
threats of the most blood-curdling character.

"_Hau umlungu_! Are you cold? The fire will soon be ready. Then you
will be warm--warm, ha-ha!" they sang, rubbing their hands and spreading
them out before an imaginary blaze. "The wood is hot--ah-ah! It burns!
ah-ah!" And t