ss, still she hoped that it would come quickly
now and end the sufferings of the little victim.

The footsteps she had heard without the hut now halted before the door.
There was a whispered colloquy, and a moment later M'ganwazam, chief of
the tribe, entered. She had seen but little of him, as the women had
taken her in hand almost as soon as she had entered the village.

M'ganwazam, she now saw, was an evil-appearing savage with every mark
of brutal degeneracy writ large upon his bestial countenance. To Jane
Clayton he looked more gorilla than human. He tried to converse with
her, but without success, and finally he called to some one without.

In answer to his summons another Negro entered--a man of very different
appearance from M'ganwazam--so different, in fact, that Jane Clayton
immediately decided that he was of another tribe. This man acted as
interpreter, and almost from the first question that M'ganwazam put to
her, Jane felt an intuitive conviction that the savage was attempting
to draw information from her for some ulterior motive.

She thought it strange that the fellow should so suddenly have become
interested in her plans, and especially in her intended destination
when her journey had been interrupted at his village.

Seeing no reason for withholding the information, she told him the
truth; but when he asked if she expected to meet her husband at the end
of the trip, she shook her head negatively.

Then he told her the purpose of his visit, talking through the
interpreter.

"I have just learned," he said, "from some men who live by the side of
the great water, that your husband followed you up the Ugambi for
several marches, when he was at last set upon by natives and killed.
Therefore I have told you this that you might not waste your time in a
long journey if you expected to meet your husband at the end of it; but
instead could turn and retrace your steps to the coast."

Jane thanked M'ganwazam for his kindness, though her heart was numb
with suffering at this new blow. She who had suffered so much was at
last beyond reach of the keenest of misery's pangs, for her senses were
numbed and calloused.

With bowed head she sat staring with unseeing eyes upon the face of the
baby in her lap. M'ganwazam had left the hut. Sometime later she
heard a noise at the entrance--another had entered. One of the women
sitting opposite her threw a faggot upon the dying embers of the fire
between them.