e that, being a
stranger among them, they would on request provide me with additional
wives during my stay,--entirely as a matter of ceremonial etiquette; and
it suddenly occurred to me that I might make very good use of this custom
by putting in an immediate demand for the two white women--if they
existed. You see, I wanted an interview with them, in the first place,
to arrange the best means of getting them away. I confess I was consumed
with an intense curiosity to learn their history--even to see them. I
wondered if they could tell me anything of the great world now so remote
in my mind. As a matter of courtesy, however, I spent the greater part
of the day with the chief, for any man who manifests a desire for women's
society loses caste immediately; and in the evening, when the fact of my
presence among the tribe had become more extensively known, and their
curiosity aroused by the stories that Yamba had taken care to circulate,
I attended a great _corroboree_, which lasted nearly the whole of the
night. As I was sitting near a big fire, joining in the chanting and
festivities, Yamba noiselessly stole to my side, and whispered in my ear
that _she had found the two white women_.

I remember I trembled with excitement at the prospect of meeting them.
They were very young, Yamba added, and spoke "my" language--I never said
"English," because this word would have conveyed nothing to her; and she
also told me that the prisoners were in a dreadful state of misery. It
was next explained to me that the girls, according to native custom, were
the absolute property of the chief. He was seated not very far away from
me, and was certainly one of the most ferocious and repulsive-looking
creatures I have ever come across,--even among the blacks. He was over
six feet high, and of rather a lighter complexion than his
fellows,--almost like a Malay. The top of his head receded in a very
curious manner, whilst the mouth and lower part of the face generally
protruded like an alligator's, and gave him a truly diabolical
appearance. I confess a thrill of horror passed through me, as I
realised that two doubtless tenderly reared English girls were in the
clutches of this monster. Once I thought I must have been dreaming, and
that the memories of some old story-book I had read years ago were
filling my mind with some fantastic delusion. For a moment I pictured to
myself the feelings of their prosaic British relatives, could the