s able to cope successfully. Prudence
and safety suggested to them this means to avoid trouble and recapture,
and if they did not avail themselves of this happy opportunity, they
might, perhaps, in a few hours, be cursing their squeamishness and
irresolution, while lamenting their fate in bonds more cruel than any
they had undergone while in Ferodia's power. Before such considerations
Selim and Abdullah submitted to the superior judgment and craft of Moto
and Simba, and said no more, though to each other they regretted that
such a step had to be taken.

Night came, without anything alarming having occurred, and Niani was
called from his watch, and whatever they said among themselves until the
hour of departure was said so low that no one could have heard their
voices even had some straggler by accident been outside the bush.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes. The real direction in which our people journeyed may be found by
any reader curious enough to wish to know if he will examine the map of
Central Africa as published in the book `How I Found Livingstone,' when
the reader will be able to locate easily the scenes laid here. He will
find that the countries are laid down with a fidelity which generally
belongs to standard geographical works, that no liberties are taken with
the habits, the customs, or the true ethnology of the great country of
Ututa, or with the geography of Central Africa, neither with the
probabilities of a life in that far region. The chain of circumstances,
as here portrayed, alone belong to the romantic and the fictitious, and
this fact the author would fain impress upon the minds of his readers.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

DOWN THE RIVER--THE LAKE AT LAST--SELIM DESCRIBES THE LAKE'S BEAUTIES--
KALULU ANSWERS SELIM--KALULU DOES NOT BELIEVE IN SELIM'S SKY-SPIRIT.--
THE JOURNEY ON THE LAKE--SELIM SHOOTS A ZEBRA--SELIM'S FURIOUS RIDE ON A
ZEBRA--SELIM SAFE--THE TEMPEST ON THE LAKE--SLAVES AGAIN.

The time to make a bold stroke towards regaining a country where they
might meet friends came about three hours after darkness had fallen upon
the earth. No sound had been heard to cause alarm: the bullfrogs
growled inharmoniously among the wild spear-grass; the bull-crocodile
woke the echoes with his hoarse roar; the black ibis had long ago hushed
its harsh screams. It was surely time to be astir, for at this time of
night peaceful Africans or weak parti