revolver half drawn when the knobbly end of the
chief's killing-spear struck him between the eyes, and he went down on
his knees.

Thus it came about, that he found himself sitting before Bucongo, his
feet and hands tied with native grass, with the girl at his side in no
better case.

She was very frightened, but this she did not show. She had the
disadvantage of being unable to understand the light flow of offensive
badinage which passed between her captor and Bones.

"O Tibbetti," said Bucongo, "you see me as a god--I have finished with
all white men."

"Soon we shall finish with you, Bucongo," said Bones.

"I cannot die, Tibbetti," said the other with easy confidence, "that is
the wonderful thing."

"Other men have said that," said Bones in the vernacular, "and their
widows are wives again and have forgotten their widowhood."

"This is a new ju-ju, Tibbetti," said Bucongo, a strange light in his
eyes. "I am the greatest of all cross-God men, and it is revealed to me
that many shall follow me. Now you and the woman shall be the first of
all white people to bear the mark of Bucongo the Blessed. And in the
days to be you shall bare your breasts and say, 'Bucongo the Wonderful
did this with his beautiful hands.'"

Bones was in a cold sweat and his mouth was dry. He scarcely dare look
at the girl by his side.

"What does he say?" she asked in a low voice. Bones hesitated, and then
haltingly he stammered the translation of the threat.

She nodded.

"O Bucongo," said Bones, with a sudden inspiration, "though you do evil,
I will endure. But this you shall do and serve me. Brand me alone upon
the chest, and upon the back. For if we be branded separately we are
bound to one another, and you see how ugly this woman is with her thin
nose and her pale eyes; also she has long hair like the grass which the
weaver birds use for their nests."

He spoke loudly, eagerly, and it seemed convincingly, for Bucongo was in
doubt. Truly the woman by all standards was very ugly. Her face was
white and her lips thin. She was a narrow woman too, he thought, like
one underfed.

"This you shall do for me, Bucongo," urged Bones; "for gods do not do
evil things, and it would be bad to marry me to this ugly woman who has
no hips and has an evil tongue."

Bucongo was undecided.

"A god may do no evil," he said; "but I do not know the ways of white
men. If it be true, then I will mark you twice, Tibbetti, and you shall
be my man fo