t out, holding it in the palm of her hand for a moment with
tear-blurred eyes bent upon it. Then she raised it to her lips, and
crushing it there buried her face in the soft ferns, sobbing.

"Beast?" she murmured. "Then God make me a beast; for, man or beast, I
am yours."

She did not see Clayton again that day. Esmeralda brought her supper
to her, and she sent word to her father that she was suffering from the
reaction following her adventure.

The next morning Clayton left early with the relief expedition in
search of Lieutenant D'Arnot. There were two hundred armed men this
time, with ten officers and two surgeons, and provisions for a week.

They carried bedding and hammocks, the latter for transporting their
sick and wounded.

It was a determined and angry company--a punitive expedition as well as
one of relief. They reached the sight of the skirmish of the previous
expedition shortly after noon, for they were now traveling a known
trail and no time was lost in exploring.

From there on the elephant-track led straight to Mbonga's village. It
was but two o'clock when the head of the column halted upon the edge of
the clearing.

Lieutenant Charpentier, who was in command, immediately sent a portion
of his force through the jungle to the opposite side of the village.
Another detachment was dispatched to a point before the village gate,
while he remained with the balance upon the south side of the clearing.

It was arranged that the party which was to take its position to the
north, and which would be the last to gain its station should commence
the assault, and that their opening volley should be the signal for a
concerted rush from all sides in an attempt to carry the village by
storm at the first charge.

For half an hour the men with Lieutenant Charpentier crouched in the
dense foliage of the jungle, waiting the signal. To them it seemed
like hours. They could see natives in the fields, and others moving in
and out of the village gate.

At length the signal came--a sharp rattle of musketry, and like one
man, an answering volley tore from the jungle to the west and to the
south.

The natives in the field dropped their implements and broke madly for
the palisade. The French bullets mowed them down, and the French
sailors bounded over their prostrate bodies straight for the village
gate.

So sudden and unexpected the assault had been that the whites reached
the gates before the frightened nati