ll were gentle folk and that she would find them
kind, considerate and honorable.

To My Dear's surprise there was none of the shyness of the wild
creature in Meriem's anticipation of the visit of strangers.

She looked forward to their coming with curiosity and with a certain
pleasurable anticipation when once she was assured that they would not
bite her. In fact she appeared no different than would any pretty
young miss who had learned of the expected coming of company.

Korak's image was still often in her thoughts, but it aroused now a
less well-defined sense of bereavement. A quiet sadness pervaded
Meriem when she thought of him; but the poignant grief of her loss when
it was young no longer goaded her to desperation. Yet she was still
loyal to him. She still hoped that some day he would find her, nor did
she doubt for a moment but that he was searching for her if he still
lived. It was this last suggestion that caused her the greatest
perturbation. Korak might be dead. It scarce seemed possible that one
so well-equipped to meet the emergencies of jungle life should have
succumbed so young; yet when she had last seen him he had been beset by
a horde of armed warriors, and should he have returned to the village
again, as she well knew he must have, he may have been killed. Even
her Korak could not, single handed, slay an entire tribe.

At last the visitors arrived. There were three men and two women--the
wives of the two older men. The youngest member of the party was Hon.
Morison Baynes, a young man of considerable wealth who, having
exhausted all the possibilities for pleasure offered by the capitals of
Europe, had gladly seized upon this opportunity to turn to another
continent for excitement and adventure.

He looked upon all things un-European as rather more than less
impossible, still he was not at all averse to enjoying the novelty of
unaccustomed places, and making the most of strangers indigenous
thereto, however unspeakable they might have seemed to him at home. In
manner he was suave and courteous to all--if possible a trifle more
punctilious toward those he considered of meaner clay than toward the
few he mentally admitted to equality.

Nature had favored him with a splendid physique and a handsome face,
and also with sufficient good judgment to appreciate that while he
might enjoy the contemplation of his superiority to the masses, there
was little likelihood of the masses being equally