g to
treat with Prince Kendo for the ivory we had procured, or else that he
had come to warn us of some danger to which we might be exposed, should
we return to the village. I was on the point of stepping out of our
place of concealment to go and meet him, when another person sprang up
from behind a bank where he had been concealed, with a large knife in
his hand, and before I could cry out to warn the captain, the other had
plunged the weapon into his breast. With one piercing cry Captain
Roderick fell back, while his assailant having driven the weapon home,
left it sticking in the wound, and with a howl like a wild beast plunged
into the forest, which immediately hid him from our sight. We all
hurried forward, eager to give assistance to the wounded man; Caspar
drew out the knife.

"Yes," he said, "this was Jansen's, he had vowed vengeance against the
captain, and we had good reason to hate him, but this is a foul cowardly
deed notwithstanding."

Harry and I meantime lifted up the wounded man; his arms dropped
downwards, not a groan, not a breath escaped him, his eyes were fixed
and staring in death. The weapon had struck too deeply home for human
power to save him. His spirit had fled. We notwithstanding sent Caspar
back to obtain assistance, that we might carry the body to the camp.

In a short time Caspar returned with Charley and Tom and several blacks.
A litter was formed, and we conveyed him to the camp. Though we had
every reason to dislike the man who had been the cause of all the
hardships and sufferings we were enduring, yet we felt no animosity
towards him, and were horror-struck at his appalling death. Prince
Kendo expressed his astonishment at the captain's death. What he said
was to the effect that he thought that no human power could injure him,
"but I now see that white men can die like black men," he observed with
a peculiar expression which made us feel that it would be dangerous to
offend the black Prince.

"But it was a white man that killed him, remember that," said Tom, "the
black fellows, from what I hear, tried it very often but could not
succeed."

"Yes, that was the case, but he had a friendly spirit always by to
protect him, but that got killed at last, and so you see his power
departed from him."

The prince alluded to Growler, whose death we thus discovered was well
known, although Captain Roderick had endeavoured to conceal the fact.

"The sooner we bury the poor fellow