excitedly. "Oh, do go on! Make haste."

"Yes," continued Dunn, more deliberately than ever. "Coming back--
dark--fancied I saw something crawling.--Jumped aside.--Like baboon."

"That was it, Brown, safe. Dan and I saw one too. Now, what's to be
done?"

"Shoot," said the man laconically.

"Oh, we don't want to kill them."

"Small shot," said Brown softly.

"Pepper," said Dean.

Brown nodded.

"Well, we are not going to try that," cried Mark. "Here, you go and
fetch the two blacks. You are quite good friends now."

Brown nodded, hurried off, and returned in a few minutes with the pair
he had sought, who came up with their eyes hard at work gazing
searchingly from one to the other and looking as if they expected to be
called to account for some misdoing.

"They think you are going to bully them, Mark," whispered Dean. "Tell
them it is all right."

Mark, who was seated upon an ancient block of stone that had fallen from
the wall, sprang to his feet so suddenly that the pigmy took flight on
the instant, and Mak was following him, when Mark sprang to him and
caught him by the arm.

"What are you going to do, stupid?" he cried. "I wasn't going to hit
you. It's all right. Sit down. Here--_pious_--_cooey_!" he cried.

"_Pig, tchig, tchig, tchig, tchig_!" cried Dean; and the dwarf turned to
glance back as he ran.

"Tell him it's all right, Mak. We want to talk to you," said Mark.
"There sit down, and he will come."

The big black hesitated a moment, and then slowly squatted.

"I say, Dean, a guilty conscience needs no accuser! Look at him in
front. He's been having something since breakfast. Pig! Pig! Mak,
call him."

The Ulaka looked doubtingly at the speaker, and then gave utterance to a
low, soft call which made the pigmy cease running and stop as if in
doubt. Mak called again, and the little fellow turned, to stand
watching him, when Mak called once more and he came slowly back, Mark
talking to him the while as if he were a little child that he wanted to
encourage, and smiling as he held out his hand, in which after a little
more hesitation and searching gazing in Mark's eyes, he laid his own.

What followed was for the main part in pantomime, first one and then
another of the English party trying to make the Illaka understand what
had happened and what was required of them, a good quarter of an hour
being expended over this, with the black staring at them stolidly the
whole time, t