back.

"Hist!"

He pressed my hand, for I had been growing louder of speech in my
excitement, and just then there was a fresh outburst of voices from
within the hut, followed by the trampling of feet and loud shouting,
which seemed to be crossing the village and going farther away.

"They have taken the prisoner to--"

Our companion said the first words excitedly, and then stopped short.

"Where?" I exclaimed aloud, as I caught at his arm.

He answered me in the savage tongue, and with an impatient stamp of the
foot I turned to the doctor.

"What can we do?" I said. "It makes me wish to be a prisoner too. I
should see him, perhaps, and I could talk to him and tell him that help
was near."

"While you shut up part of the help, and raised expectations in his
breast, that would perhaps result in disappointment," replied the
doctor. "We must wait, my lad, wait. The savages are excited and
alarmed, and we must come when their suspicions are at rest."

"What do you mean?" I said. "Do you mean to go back to-night without
him?"

"Not if we can get him away," he said; "but we must not do anything mad
or rash."

"No, no, of course not," I said despairingly; "but this is horrible: to
be so close to him and yet able to do nothing!"

"Be patient, my lad," he whispered, "and speak lower. We have done
wonders. We have come into this unknown wild, and actually have found
that the lost man is alive. What is more, we have come, as if led by
blind instinct, to the very place where he is a prisoner, and we almost
know the hut in which he is confined."

"Yes, yes. I know all that," I said; "but it is so hard not to be able
to help him now."

"We are helping him," said the doctor. "Just think: we have this poor
half-dazed fellow to glean some information, and we have a hiding-place
near, and--Look out!"

I turned my piece in the direction of the danger, for just then a member
of our little expedition, who had been perfectly silent so far, uttered
a savage growl and a fierce worrying noise.

Simultaneously there was a burst of shouts and cries, with the sound of
blows and the rush of feet through the bush.

For the next few minutes there was so much excitement and confusion that
I could hardly tell what happened in the darkness. All I knew was that
a strong clutch was laid upon my shoulders, and that I was being dragged
backwards, when I heard the dull thud of a blow and I was driven to the
ground, with a