ut inside, one of his too eager comrades outside
had laid about rather incautiously with his knife, drove it through the
meat and sliced Zombo's left hand. He was easily soothed, however;
Harold bound up the cut with a piece of rag, and Zombo went to work as
recklessly as ever.

In a marvellously short time tons of meat were cut up and divided
amongst the band, and, before daylight had quite disappeared, the
hunters were on their way back to camp, while a troop of hyenas and
other carnivora were gorging themselves with the elephant's remains.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE ENCAMPMENT AND THE SUPPER--DISCUSSIONS, POLITICAL AND OTHERWISE--
KAMBIRA RECEIVES A SHOCK, AND OUR WANDERERS ARE THROWN INTO PERPLEXITY.

Turn we now to a more peaceful scene. The camp is almost quiet, the
stars are twinkling brightly overhead, the fires are glimmering fitfully
below. The natives, having taken the edge off their appetites, have
stretched their dusky forms on their sleeping-mats, and laid their
woolly heads on their little wooden pillows. The only persons moving
are Harold Seadrift and Disco Lillihammer--the first being busy making
notes in a small book, the second being equally busy in manufacturing
cloudlets from his unfailing pipe, gazing the while with much interest
at his note-making companion.

"They was pretty vigorous w'en they wos at it, sir," said Disco, in
reference to supper, observing that his companion looked up from his
book, "but they wos sooner done than I had expected."

"Yes, they weren't long about it," replied Harold, with an abstracted
air, as he resumed his writing.

Lest the reader should erroneously imagine that supper is over, it is
necessary here to explain what taking the edge off a free African's
appetite means.

On reaching camp after the cutting up of the elephant, as detailed in
the last chapter, the negroes had set to work to roast and boil with a
degree of vigour that would have surprised even the _chefs de cuisine_
of the world's first-class hotels. Having gorged themselves to an
extent that civilised people might perhaps have thought dangerous, they
had then commenced an uproarious dance, accompanied by stentorian songs,
which soon reduced them to the condition of beings who needed repose.
Proceeding upon the principle of overcoming temptation by giving way to
it, they at once lay down and went to sleep.

It was during this stage of the night's proceedings that Disco foolishly
imagined