Dear old
officer, I think it was due to me."

"Called you! Called you! Why--why----" spluttered Hamilton.

"In fact, we did call you Bones, but we could not wake you," smoothed
Sanders.

A look of amazement spread over the youthful face of Lieutenant
Tibbetts. "You called me?" he asked incredulously. "Called _me_?"

"_You!_" hissed Hamilton. "I not only called you, but I kicked you.
I poured water on you, and I chucked you up to the roof of the hut and
dropped you."

A faint but unbelieving smile from Bones. "Are you sure it was me,
dear old officer?" he asked, and Hamilton choked. "I only ask," said
Bones, turning blandly to the girl, "because I'm a notoriously light
sleeper, dear old Miss Patricia. The slightest stir wakes me, and
instantly I'm in possession of all my faculties. Bosambo calls me
'Eye-That-Never-Shuts----'"

"Bosambo is a notorious leg-puller," interrupted Hamilton irritably.
"Really, Bones----"

"Often, dear old Sister," Bones went on impressively, "campin' out in
the forest, an' sunk in the profound sleep which youth an' a good
conscience brings, something has wakened me, an' I've jumped to my feet,
a revolver in my hand, an' what do you think it was?"

"A herd of wild elephants walking on your chest?" suggested Hamilton.

"What do you think it was, dear old Patricia miss?" persisted Bones, and
interrupted her ingenious speculation in his usual aggravating manner:
"The sound of a footstep breakin' a twig a hundred yards away!"

"Wonderful!" sneered Hamilton, stirring his coffee. "Bones, if you could
only spell, what a novelist you'd be!"

"The point is," said Sanders, with good-humoured patience, which
brought, for some curious reason, a warm sense of intimacy to the girl,
"you've got to go up and try your eye on the woman D'rona Gufuri."

Bones leant back in his chair and spoke with deliberation and
importance, for he realized that he, and only he, could supply a
solution to the difficulties of his superiors.

"The power of the human eye, when applied by a jolly old scientist to a
heathen, is irresistible. You may expect me down with the prisoner in
four days."

"She may be more trouble than you expect," said Sanders seriously. "The
longer one lives in native lands, the less confident can one be. There
have been remarkable cases of men possessing the power which this woman
has----"

"And which I have, sir an' Excellency, to an extraordinary extent,"
interrupted Bones firmly. "Hav