e main road led up to it. But there was this
difference between that particular road and all the others, that whereas
the others had cultivated fields on either side of them, this road was
bordered on either hand by beautiful smooth grassy lawns, kept cut quite
close, interspersed at frequent intervals with great, fancifully shaped
beds of flowers, while here and there enormous shade trees had been
left, beneath which quite a large number of handsomely attired men and
women were lounging. These were, of course, the palace gardens; and
when I enquired, Pousa informed me that the loungers belonged to the
queen's retinue, the general public being rigorously excluded from them.
Upon our arrival at the point where the road leading to the palace
branched off from the main road, Pousa informed me that I must now bid a
temporary adieu to the wagon and my followers, these being destined to
the lower end of the valley, where the pasture was situated, while, by
command of the queen, I was to be lodged in the palace; therefore if I
would indicate such of my personal belongings as I wished to have taken
to my new quarters, he would see that they were duly conveyed thither.
I rather demurred at this, not caring to be separated from Piet and
'Mfuni; but upon learning that the arrangement had been ordered by the
queen, and could not now be altered, I yielded, with the best grace I
could muster, and gave instructions that all my spare guns and a
plentiful supply of ammunition should be conveyed to my destined
quarters with the utmost circumspection, and there deposited.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE PLOT THICKENS.

Separated from the wagon, and thus under no further obligation to
regulate our pace by that of the slow-moving oxen, we now, at Pousa's
command, advanced at a trot along the road leading directly to the
palace; and as we rapidly approached that structure I became
increasingly impressed by the remarkable grace and beauty of its
architectural decorations, the exquisite details of which forced
themselves more insistently upon my attention with every foot of our
progress. For instance, I saw now that certain irregularities in the
surface of the walls and the shafts of the columns, which in the
distance I had taken as due to the effect of weather, were really a vast
number of small pictures, sculptured in very low relief, representing
scenes in the history of Bandokolo, many of those scenes being,
naturally, battles. And altho