ght was deeply overcast, heavy clouds riding low above the jungle
and the water--only to the west, where the broad ocean spread beyond
the river's mouth, was there a suggestion of lessening gloom.

It was a perfect night for the purposes of the work in hand.

Her enemies could not see the activity aboard the ship nor mark her
course as the swift current bore her outward into the ocean. Before
daylight broke the ebb-tide would have carried the Kincaid well into
the Benguela current which flows northward along the coast of Africa,
and, as a south wind was prevailing, Jane hoped to be out of sight of
the mouth of the Ugambi before Rokoff could become aware of the
departure of the steamer.

Standing over the labouring seamen, the young woman breathed a sigh of
relief as the last strand of the cable parted and she knew that the
vessel was on its way out of the maw of the savage Ugambi.

With her two prisoners still beneath the coercing influence of her
rifle, she ordered them upon deck with the intention of again
imprisoning them in the forecastle; but at length she permitted herself
to be influenced by their promises of loyalty and the arguments which
they put forth that they could be of service to her, and permitted them
to remain above.

For a few minutes the Kincaid drifted rapidly with the current, and
then, with a grinding jar, she stopped in midstream. The ship had run
upon a low-lying bar that splits the channel about a quarter of a mile
from the sea.

For a moment she hung there, and then, swinging round until her bow
pointed toward the shore, she broke adrift once more.

At the same instant, just as Jane Clayton was congratulating herself
that the ship was once more free, there fell upon her ears from a point
up the river about where the Kincaid had been anchored the rattle of
musketry and a woman's scream--shrill, piercing, fear-laden.

The sailors heard the shots with certain conviction that they announced
the coming of their employer, and as they had no relish for the plan
that would consign them to the deck of a drifting derelict, they
whispered together a hurried plan to overcome the young woman and hail
Rokoff and their companions to their rescue.

It seemed that fate would play into their hands, for with the reports
of the guns Jane Clayton's attention had been distracted from her
unwilling assistants, and instead of keeping one eye upon them as she
had intended doing, she ran to the bow of the