ould hear the crunch of the stone upon
Gungana's shaven skull, till I would fain stop my ears to shut out the
sound; but that was of no use, because the sound was in my brain. And
it seemed that Gungana's ghost had come up out of the earth, and was
standing over me with hollow and blazing eyes, till at last I could bear
it no longer, and rose up, resolved to get away from that spot, at any
rate. So I walked on cautiously, and singing softly to myself to drive
away these evil shapes of the darkness, and, wearied as I was, I
preferred movement, for it warmed me.

"But towards morning a thick mist sprang up, and now I knew no longer
what direction I was taking. I snuffed the wind, but it was coming in
fitful puffs equally from every direction. Fearing to walk over the
cliff, I returned to retrace my steps, and then--_Au_! that is a moment
I can never forget, even now, old as I am. The ground failed beneath
me, and I shot downwards feet foremost into the earth. For one
sickening moment thus I fell, then stopped with a jerk. The stick of my
shield, my hold of which I had not relaxed, had wedged somehow crosswise
and arrested my fall; and there I hung suspended in this black chasm,
even as Gungana had hung suspended.

"But the straight drop seemed to end here, for I could now feel the rock
with my feet sloping obliquely down. However, it was all the same, for
I could not climb up; I had fallen too far and the sides were too
straight for that. _Whau_! Gungana had spoken truly when he had
predicted for me a worse death than his. For no merciful hand was there
to crush in my skull with a stone from above, and so end my sufferings
at once. No! I was destined to hours of horror down in my living tomb,
holding on by a most frail support, to leave go when exhaustion should
overpower me, and sink, buried alive, into the awful heart of the earth.
Did ever living man feel as I felt, _Nkose_, as I clung there,
realising that never again was I to behold the light of day? Surely
not.

"And then a most unutterably fearsome thing happened. Strange, uncouth
whisperings seemed to sound beneath, rising upward from the blackness of
the pit. Then something grabbed me by the leg in a firm and bony grip.
The stick of the shield gave way, and, with a last awful cry of wild
terror and despair, I felt myself being dragged down--down!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE EATERS OF MEN.

"In that short flash of time I must have died a thou