whole band was tracking its way by moonlight through the pathless
jungle.

The pace at which they travelled home was much more rapid than that at
which they had set out on their expedition. Somehow, the vigorous tones
in which Kambira had given command to break up the camp, coupled with
his words, roused the idea that he must have received information of
danger threatening the village, and some of the more anxious husbands
and fathers, unable to restrain themselves, left the party altogether
and ran back the whole way. To their great relief, however, they found
on arriving that all was quiet. The women were singing and at work in
the fields, the children shouting at play, and the men at their wonted
occupation of weaving cotton cloth, or making nets and bows, under the
banyan-trees.

Perplexity is not a pleasant condition of existence, nevertheless, to
perplexity mankind is more or less doomed in every period of life and in
every mundane scene--particularly in the jungles of central Africa, as
Harold and his friends found out many a time to their cost.

On arriving at the native village, the chief point that perplexed our
hero there was as to whether he should return to the coast at once, or
push on further into the interior. On the one hand he wished very much
to see more of the land and its inhabitants; on the other hand, Kambira
was painfully anxious to proceed at once to the coast in search, of his
lost wife, and pressed him to set off without delay.

The chief was rather an exception in regard to his feelings on this
point. Most other African potentates had several wives, and in the
event of losing one of them might have found consolation in the others.
But Kambira had never apparently thought of taking another wife after
the loss of Azinte, and the only comfort he had was in his little boy,
who bore a strong resemblance, in some points, to the mother.

But although Harold felt strong sympathy with the man, and would have
gone a long way out of his course to aid him, he could not avoid
perceiving that the case was almost, if not altogether, a hopeless one.
He had no idea to what part of the coast Azinte had been taken. For all
he knew to the contrary, she might have been long ago shipped off to the
northern markets, and probably was, even while he talked of her, the
inmate of an Arab harem, or at all events a piece of goods--a
"chattel"--in the absolute possession of an irresponsible master.
Besides the