gold embroider," the Frenchman
answered.

"My government won't let me give the little kings umbrellas," said
Peters in vexation. "It makes the big chiefs jealous. I say, Raguet," he
rambled on, sitting up dizzily, "what is this Ju-Ju idol of theirs?"

"I know not," said the French lieutenant. "Only ze king and ze priests
have seen him. If zey tell, zey die--ze idol keel zem."

"I suppose they'll be keeping up these infernal tom-toms for another
week," grumbled the sick man, lying back and half closing his eyes from
weariness. "Well, I'll have to try to get well in time."

The Frenchman resisted the impulse to leap back in surprise, but his
eyes narrowed till they were slits in his face. So! This Englishman did
not know that this had been the last day of the sacrifices, that at
midnight a hecatomb of pigs was to be killed and eaten in the bush in
honor of the Ju-Ju. Nor that the king, when he had broached and drunk
the cask of rum, would be in a mood to discuss the treaty. Peters
evidently was unaware how much his majesty had been affronted by his
failure to present him with an umbrella. La! la! Fortune was evidently
upon his side. All this flashed through the Frenchman's mind in an
instant. A solitary chuckle escaped him, but he turned it into an
exclamation of grief, sighed deeply, seated himself upon the bed, and
kissed Peters affectionately on either cheek.

"My Peters, my poor friend," he began, "you must not theenk of leaving
your tent for ze next two, t'ree days. Ze fever, he is very bad onless
you receive him in bed. I shall take care of you."

"You're a good fellow, Raguet," said Peters, wiping his face
surreptitiously with the backs of his hands. When his visitor had left
he turned over and sank into a half-delirious doze that lasted until the
sun sank with appalling suddenness, and night rushed over the land.
Tossing upon his bed, all through the velvet darkness he was dimly
conscious, through his delirious dreams, of tom-toms beaten in the bush.
His throat was parched, and in his dreams he drank greedily from his
canteen; but each time that he awoke he saw it hanging empty from the
tent flap. Presently a large, bright, yellow object rose up in front of
him. Greedily he set his teeth into it; and even as he did so it
disappeared, and he awoke, gasping and choking under the broiling
blackness.

"I'll have to take that canteen down to the stream and fill it," he
muttered, rising unsteadily and proceeding