.

It was well after noon when Paulvitch came to the Mosula village upon
the bank of the tributary of the Ugambi. Here he was received with
suspicion and unfriendliness by the native chief, who, like all those
who came in contact with Rokoff or Paulvitch, had suffered in some
manner from the greed, the cruelty, or the lust of the two Muscovites.

When Paulvitch demanded the use of a canoe the chief grumbled a surly
refusal and ordered the white man from the village. Surrounded by
angry, muttering warriors who seemed to be but waiting some slight
pretext to transfix him with their menacing spears the Russian could do
naught else than withdraw.

A dozen fighting men led him to the edge of the clearing, leaving him
with a warning never to show himself again in the vicinity of their
village.

Stifling his anger, Paulvitch slunk into the jungle; but once beyond
the sight of the warriors he paused and listened intently. He could
hear the voices of his escort as the men returned to the village, and
when he was sure that they were not following him he wormed his way
through the bushes to the edge of the river, still determined some way
to obtain a canoe.

Life itself depended upon his reaching the Kincaid and enlisting the
survivors of the ship's crew in his service, for to be abandoned here
amidst the dangers of the African jungle where he had won the enmity of
the natives was, he well knew, practically equivalent to a sentence of
death.

A desire for revenge acted as an almost equally powerful incentive to
spur him into the face of danger to accomplish his design, so that it
was a desperate man that lay hidden in the foliage beside the little
river searching with eager eyes for some sign of a small canoe which
might be easily handled by a single paddle.

Nor had the Russian long to wait before one of the awkward little
skiffs which the Mosula fashion came in sight upon the bosom of the
river. A youth was paddling lazily out into midstream from a point
beside the village. When he reached the channel he allowed the
sluggish current to carry him slowly along while he lolled indolently
in the bottom of his crude canoe.

All ignorant of the unseen enemy upon the river's bank the lad floated
slowly down the stream while Paulvitch followed along the jungle path a
few yards behind him.

A mile below the village the black boy dipped his paddle into the water
and forced his skiff toward the bank. Paulvitch, elated b