lan took Jeekie's advice and in
time fell fast asleep, nor did he wake again till the faint light which
for the want of a better name they called dawn, was filtering down to
them through the canopy of boughs.

"Been to look," said Jeekie as he handed him his coffee. "Hit that dwarf
man, see his blood, but think others carry him away. Jeekie very good
shot, stone, spear, arrow, or gun, all same to him. Now get off as quick
as we can before porters smell a rat. You eat chop, Major, I pack."

Presently they started on their trudge through those endless trees,
with Fear for a companion. Even the porters, who had been told nothing,
seemed more afraid than usual, though whether this was because they
"smell rat," as Jeekie called it, or owing to the progressive breakdown
of their nervous systems, Alan did not know. About midday they stopped
to eat because the men were too tired to walk further without rest. For
an hour or more they had been looking for a comparatively open place,
but as it chanced could find none, so were obliged to halt in dense
forest. Just as they had finished their meal and were preparing to
proceed, that which they had feared, happened, since from somewhere
behind the tree boles came a volley of reed arrows. One struck a porter
in the neck, one fixed itself in Alan's helmet without touching him,
and no less than three hit Jeekie on the back and stuck there,
providentially enough in the substance of the cork mattress that he
still carried on his shoulders, which the feeble shafts had not the
strength to pierce.

Everybody sprang up and with a curious fascination instead of attempting
to do anything, watched the porter who had been hit in the neck
somewhere in the region of the jugular vein. The poor man rose to his
feet with great deliberation, reminding Alan in some grotesque way of a
speaker who has suddenly been called on to address a meeting and seeks
to gain time for the gathering of his thoughts. Then he turned
towards that vast audience of the trees, stretched out his hand with a
declamatory gesture, said something in a composed voice, and fell upon
his face stone dead! The swift poison had reached his heart and done its
work.

His three companions looked at him for a moment and the next with a yell
of terror, rushed off into the forest, hurling down their loads as they
ran. What became of them Alan never learned, for he saw them no more,
and the dwarf people keep their secrets. At the time inde