peared to be a leader. "We have smitten them,
and we have brought away their cattle."

As he spoke another native was seen approaching. He was a large burly
jovial-looking man, somewhere about forty years of age, armed with a
spear and enveloped in the native _lamba_, a garment used much in the
same way as the Scottish plaid, which it resembled in form, though of
much lighter material. The ornamentation of this garment proclaimed the
wearer a person of distinction, and the evident satisfaction that beamed
on his broad jovial countenance when he recognised and greeted Ravonino
showed that it was Voalavo himself--the chief of the village they were
approaching.

"I'm sorry to see," said the guide, after the first few words of
salutation, "that my friend still delights in war and robbery."

"Don't be sorry, friend, don't be sorry," returned the chief with a
hearty laugh, as he gave the other a slap on the shoulder. "Sorrow does
no good. It only puts water in the eyes and makes them red. Look at
me--just returned from `war and robbery,' and as happy as a squirrel.
If a man does not delight in war and robbery, what is there in the world
to delight in? If _I_ am not sorry why should _you_ be? If you can't
help it--then laugh at it and try to enjoy your sorrow. That's the way
_I_ do. It suits me. I grow fat on it!"

He certainly did grow fat--if not on laughing at sorrow, certainly on
something else--and his followers, although respectfully silent, showed
by their smiling faces that they sympathised with their chief's
hilarious mood.

"But where did you fall in with the white men?" asked Voalavo, turning
suddenly towards Mark and Hockins, who stood listening with interest and
curiosity to the rapid flow of his unintelligible talk. "Such pale
flowers do not grow in _our_ forests!"

In a few words Ravonino explained the history of our adventurers as far
as he knew it, and the chief, on learning that they were his friend's
friends, bade them welcome, and shook hands heartily in the European
fashion--a mode of expressing friendship which had probably been learned
from the missionaries, who, after spending many years in Madagascar,
had, about the time we write of, been all banished from the island.

"Come now," cried the chief, "the rice will soon be ready--that won't
make you sorry, Ravonino, will it?--and we have yet to cross the river
with the cattle in the face of the hungry crocodiles--which won't make
_them