of _El Draque_. Do you
remember him?"

"_Si, senor_," answered the leader of the party eagerly, also in a
mongrel kind of Spanish which George was able to comprehend without very
much difficulty. "Yes, we remember _El Draque_, the great white chief
and the enemy of our enemy the Spaniard. Is he here again?"

"No," answered George, "I regret to say that he is not; the Great White
Queen needed his services, so he could not come. But I have come in his
stead to punish the Spaniards for their treachery to him last year, and
I want some information concerning Nombre de Dios. Can you give it me?
You are Cimarrones, are you not?"

"_Si, senor, si_," answered the black; "we are Cimarrones; and perhaps
our chief may be able to tell you what you wish to know about Nombre.
Will you come to our village? It lies yonder."

And, indeed, in the far corner of the clearing George could now
distinguish a small village consisting of about thirty low huts huddled
together in the bordering shadow of the next belt of high timber. The
path from the wood zigzagged across the clearing, winding here to avoid
an enormous stump, and there to pass round a fallen tree--for the
Cimarrones were far too lazy to attempt what they regarded as the
unnecessary labour of clearing away obstacles--but trending generally
toward the conglomeration of huts in the far corner of the clearing.

The village of Lukabela--so named after its chief--did not favourably
impress George Saint Leger, when the little party presently reached it.
It was the young Englishman's first introduction to actual savagedom,
and the filthy condition of the huts and their surroundings, the lean
and hungry look of the pack of snarling village dogs which rushed out to
meet them, red-eyed with semi-starvation and ferocity, and with bared
fangs, ferocious as wild beasts and only restrained from attack by the
presence of the native escort, and the overpowering reek of many mingled
forms of dirt and decay which pervaded the place, were in the last
degree repulsive to the somewhat fastidious young man. But this was
only a first impression, and it quickly yielded to one of admiration
when, as the villagers poured out of their huts to learn the cause of
the unwonted excitement of their dogs, George noted with appreciative
eyes the splendid physique of the men and women who constituted its
inhabitants. They were of mixed breed, ranging from the robust, full-
blooded African negro to t