e a number of black, apish faces at various points among
the thick undergrowth surrounding the clearing. Another form flitted
across the thin open space in which he had seen the first.

"By George! he's got a bow in his hand. They're men! This is worse
still. The orang-outang is bad enough, but he avoids men, I believe,
unless interfered with or alarmed. These forest savages are dead shots
with their arrows, and they'll look on us as intruders. If they're as
spiteful as most of their kind we shall have trouble. Get your
revolver ready, but we must pretend we haven't noticed them. You've
got to replace those plugs; do it as quickly as you can. Don't look
round; I'll keep guard."

He saw several of the savages pass across in the same direction as the
first, and now he noticed, what had escaped him before, that they were
diminutive creatures, certainly not more than four feet high. He had
clearly stumbled upon a settlement of forest pigmies. From what he had
read of pigmy races he knew that it required extreme patience and a
great expenditure of time to win their confidence. That was out of the
question now. His first impulse was to hail them, and try to make
friends of them by offering some small present; but he checked himself
as the thought flashed upon him that a movement on his part might
startle them and provoke a discharge of their tiny arrows, which were
probably poisoned. He could not doubt they had seen him long before he
had seen them, and had been for some time playing the part of silent
spectators, being kept at a distance, perhaps, by the aspect of the
strange object which they had observed descending among them from the
sky. It must be sufficiently alarming to their untutored eyes. But
after a time their dread seemed to be overpowered by curiosity or
hostility, and Smith saw, with alarm, that the little figures were
gradually drawing nearer, flitting silently as shadows from tree to
tree, and hiding themselves so effectually, even when they came to
closer quarters, that nothing but the flicker of a brownish form among
the undergrowth, or a round black head projecting from tree or bush,
betrayed their presence.

"Nearly done, Roddy?" he asked, without turning.

"Pretty near."

With an outward calmness that corresponded little to his inward
sensations Smith lit a cigarette, racking his wits for some means of
keeping the pigmies at a distance without provoking a cloud of arrows
or a dash in force. The hal