f revealed by the crackling fire which
burnt in the centre, the people of the Akasava city looked on
impressively.

N'gori, the chief, his brows all wrinkled in terror, his shaking hands
at his mouth in a gesture of fear, was no more than a spectator, for his
masterful son limped from side to side, consulting his counsellors.

Presently the men who had bound Bones stepped aside, their work
completed, and M'fosa came limping across to his prisoners.

"Now," he mocked. "Is it hard for you this fetish stick which Sandi has
placed?"

"You're a low cad," said Bones, dropping into English in his wrath.
"You're a low, beastly bounder, an' I'm simply disgusted with you."

"What does he say?" they asked M'fosa.

"He speaks to his gods in his own tongue," answered the limper; "for he
is greatly afraid."

Lieutenant Tibbetts went on:

"Hear," said he in fluent and vitriolic Bomongo--for he was using that
fisher dialect which he knew so much better than the more sonorous
tongue of the Upper River--"O hear, eater of fish, O lame dog, O
nameless child of a monkey!"

M'fosa's lips went up one-sidedly.

"Lord," said he softly, "presently you shall say no more, for I will cut
your tongue out that you shall be lame of speech ... afterwards I will
burn you and the fetish stick, so that you all tumble together."

"Be sure you will tumble into hell," said Bones cheerfully, "and that
quickly, for you have offended Sandi's Ju-ju, which is powerful and
terrible."

If he could gain time--time for some miraculous news to come to
Hamilton, who, blissfully unconscious of the treachery to his
second-in-command, was sleeping twenty miles downstream--unconscious,
too, of the Akasava fleet of canoes which was streaming towards his
little steamer.

Perhaps M'fosa guessed his thoughts.

"You die alone, Tibbetti," he said, "though I planned a great death for
you, with Bosambo at your side; and in the matter of ju-jus, behold! you
shall call for Sandi--whilst you have a tongue."

He took from the raw-hide sheath that was strapped to the calf of his
bare leg, a short N'gombi knife, and drew it along the palm of his hand.

"Call now, O Moon-in-the-Eye!" he scoffed.

Bones saw the horror and braced himself to meet it.

"O Sandi!" cried M'fosa, "O planter of ju-ju, come quickly!"

"Dog!"

M'fosa whipped round, the knife dropping from his hand.

He knew the voice, was paralysed by the concentrated malignity in the
voice.

There st