of the poor
boy's prayers and life at a single stroke.

The escort clapped their hands in salute or approval, after which four
of them, at a sign, took up the body and started with it at a trot for
Rica Town, where probably that night it appeared upon the grid. Brother
John saw, and his big white beard bristled with indignation like the
hair on the back of an angry cat, while Stephen spluttered something
beginning with "You brute," and lifted his fist as though to knock the
Kalubi down. This, had I not caught hold of him, I have no doubt he
would have done.

"O Kalubi!" gasped Brother John, "do you not know that blood calls for
blood? In the hour of your own death remember this death."

"Would you bewitch me, white man?" said the Kalubi, glaring at him
angrily. "If so----" and once more he lifted the spear, but as John
never stirred, held it poised irresolutely. Komba thrust himself between
them, crying:

"Back, Dogeetah, who dare to meddle with our customs! Is not the Kalubi
Lord of life and death?"

Brother John was about to answer, but I called to him in English:

"For Heaven's sake be silent, unless you want to follow the boy. We are
in these men's power."

Then he remembered and walked away, and presently we marched forward as
though nothing had happened. Only from that moment I do not think that
any of us worried ourselves about the Kalubi and what might befall him.
Still, looking back on the thing, I think that there was this excuse to
be made for the man. He was mad with the fear of death and knew not what
he did.

All that day we travelled on through a rich, flat country that, as we
could tell from various indications, had once been widely cultivated.
Now the fields were few and far between, and bush, for the most part a
kind of bamboo scrub, was reoccupying the land. About midday we halted
by a water-pool to eat and rest, for the sun was hot, and here the four
men who had carried off the boy's body rejoined us and made some report.
Then we went forward once more towards what seemed to be a curious
and precipitous wall of black cliff, beyond which the volcanic-looking
mountain towered in stately grandeur. By three o'clock we were near
enough to this cliff, which ran east and west as far as the eye could
reach, to see a hole in it, apparently where the road terminated, that
appeared to be the mouth of a cave.

The Kalubi came up to us, and in a shy kind of way tried to make
conversation. I think that