ced to come upon the camp of our
travellers one evening about sunset.

Disco was recovering from his attack of fever at the time, though still
weak. Harold was sitting by his couch of leaves in the hut which had
been erected for him on the first day of the illness. Jumbo was cutting
up a piece of flesh for supper, and Antonio was putting the kettle on
the fire. The rest of the party were away in the woods hunting.

No guard was kept; consequently the savages came down on them like a
thunderbolt, and found them quite unprepared to resist even if
resistance had been of any use.

At first their captors, bitterly infuriated by their recent losses,
proposed to kill their prisoners, without delay, by means of the most
excruciating tortures that they could invent, but from some unknown
cause, changed their minds; coupled Harold and Disco together by means
of two slave-sticks; tied Antonio and Jumbo with ropes, and drove them
away.

So suddenly was the thing done, and so effectually, that Disco was far
from the camp before he could realise that what had occurred was a fact,
and not one of the wild feverish dreams that had beset him during his
illness.

The natives would not listen to the earnest explanation of Antonio that
Harold and Disco were Englishmen, and haters of slavery. They scowled
as they replied that the same had been said by the slavers who had
attacked their village; from which remark it would seem that Yoosoof was
not quite the originator of that device to throw the natives off their
guard. The Portuguese of Tette on the Zambesi had also thought of and
acted on it!

Fortunately it was, as we have said, near sunset when the capture was
made, and before it became quite dark the band encamped, else must poor
Disco have succumbed to weakness and fatigue. The very desperation of
his circumstances, however, seemed to revive his strength, for next
morning he resumed his journey with some hope of being able to hold out.
The continued protestations and assurances of Antonio, also, had the
effect of inducing their captors to remove the heavy slave-sticks from
the necks of Harold and Disco, though they did not unbind their wrists.
Thus were they led further into the country, they knew not whither, for
several days and nights, and at last reached a large village where they
were all thrust into a hut, and left to their meditations, while their
captors went to palaver with the chief man of the place.

This chief