"Good!" said Dick smiling at Raal. "These are binoculars."

"Binoculars!" muttered Raal. "What a terrible word. It must be a
fierce creature to have such a name." He watched Dick holding the
glasses to his eyes and added with admiration, "How brave is Tahara!
My Master has great courage to handle such a terrifying demon without
fear!"

Dick offered the glasses to his warrior but Raal backed away hastily.

"The evil eye! Ah-woe, Tahara!"

Dick laughed. "Take a look, Raal. They are, in truth, magic glasses.
But you can see that they do not harm me."

Raal shook his head vigorously. Tahara was all-powerful, that he knew.
Tahara could cast out evil. But he, Raal, was not a god and could not
afford to take chances.

Dick Oakwood looked at his chief warrior with a tolerant smile. Here
was a man, brave in battle, a great fighter, a courageous hunter,
taking chances with his life a thousand times in combat with his
enemies or a hand-to-hand struggle with wild animals, yet the sight of
the binoculars with their glass lenses that looked to his savage mind
as great unwinking eyes, had sent him into a panic.--And Raal was one
of the bravest of his subjects. The others were far less intelligent.

Dick looked forward to the time when he could teach this tribe the
folly of superstition. These strange fancies of demons and witchcraft,
learned from Cimbula, the wily medicine-man, had more than once stood
him in good stead, for Dick had used their fears to bend their wills to
his, but now that he had brought peace to his kingdom, he wanted to
break down these superstitious ideas that kept the tribe from advancing
in the arts of peace.

Dick Oakwood had joined an expedition to Africa undertaken by his
father, Professor Hector Oakwood, a famous scientist, who had come to
the desert to find and study a tribe of white savages living in an
obscure mountain fastness and said to be of a Stone-Age race.
Professor Mason and Dr. Jarvis had their own projects, the study of the
jungle plants and reptiles, while Rex Carter, the millionaire, who
financed the expedition, was interested in the eclipse of the sun which
he wanted to study from a temporary observatory put up on an oasis in
the desert. His other interest was in seeing that his son and
daughter, Dan and Ray Carter, had a good time on the trip. Dan's
carefree disposition, his ability to find fun under all circumstances,
kept the party from taking the dangers and inco