tively blanched with horror, and his teeth
chattered.

'Silence, chatterbox!' I cried, querulously perhaps, when he laid down
his pole and seated himself in an attitude of despair.

'What's the matter, old boy?' asked Leonora, and the reply came in
faltering accents--

'_The Ama Barghis!_'[15]

[15]
_Ama_ is the prefix of all the tribal names; Ama Zulu, Ama
Hagger. I connect it with the Greek preposition [Greek:
hama].--ED.

Don't keep hammer hammering away at Greek! This is a boy's
book, not a holiday task, this is!--PUBLISHER.

We glanced in terror down the river's edge.

There, on the path trodden by so many millions of feet that now are
silent,[16] there were the burly forms of five or six splendid savages.

[16]
_Please_ don't begin moralising again. One never knows when it
will come upon you.--PUBLISHER.

Couldn't help just throwing it in.--ED.

The character of their language--which was borne to us on the pure
breeze of morning--their costume, their floating house, in which these
scourges of the water highway commonly reside--everything combined to
demonstrate that they belonged to the Barghiz, the most powerful and
most dreaded of the native populations.

'_Me umslopogey_,' whispered Ustani in his native language, meaning
that he would retreat.

'Eyes in the boat,' cried Leonora, in her clear, commanding tones;
'paddle on all!'

The Boshman, cowed by her aspect, and the mere slave of discipline (he
had pulled in the St. Catherine's second torpid), obeyed her command,
and presently we were abreast of the Barghiz.

'Hi, Miss,' cried the Barghi chief, a man of colossal stature, 'Can't
yer look where yer a shovin' to?'

Though his words were unintelligible, his tone was insulting.

Leonora rose to her feet, and to the occasion.

By virtue of her rare acquaintance with savage customs, she was able to
taunt the Barghiz with the horrors of their tribal mystery, to divulge
which is _Death_!

She openly insulted the secret orgies of the tribe.

_She denounced the Dog-Feast!_

'WHO ATE THE PUPPY PIE UNDER MARLOWE BRIDGE?' shrilled Leonora in
her proud sweet young voice.

In a moment a shower of stones struck the dhow, and spurred the water
into storm. Frank Muller, the Barghi chief, distinguished himself by
the fury of his imprecations and the accuracy of his aim. A smothered
groan told me that Ustani had been hit in the mouth.

_W