e dawn, run past the gree-gree if he is about, and make a dash for
the open forest. It is our only chance of escape, for at dawn the priests
will come again to watch beside the tombs, and if discovered we are
certain to be skewered through the mouth, dragged before Prempeh and
hacked to pieces by the criminal executioner."

"Well, any fate is better than that," I observed. "Let us wait an hour or
so, and then make a rush for it."

"Very well," he answered, and together we resumed the work of exploring
the strange place.

Soon, however, our lamp burned dim, flickered, and went out; then, after
waiting in silence for half an hour in the pitch darkness, we softly
opened the door, and, holding our breaths, crept out. With noiseless
tread we stole along the sacred grove and were nearly at the end when,
without warning, the hideous gree-gree, with a fiendish yell of triumph,
sprang out of some bushes upon us.

Involuntarily, I put up my fist to ward off attack, and in doing so gave
him a well-directed blow full in the face, sending him down flat on his
back.

"Hurrah!" cried Omar in delight. "Floored him! Let's run for our lives."

Ere the midnight murderer could spring to his feet, we had dashed away as
fast as our legs could carry us, running along the fetish-grove, past the
cluster of executioners' houses, across the open space where in the
centre stood the great tree under which Prempeh had sat to witness the
wholesale sacrifice, and continuing until we came to a path through the
high elephant-grass, we soon left the city far behind us, and plunged
into the dark, dismal forest by the narrow winding way that led to the
unexplored regions of the north.

When at length we paused to take breath Omar, panting, said:

"At last we are free again. Betea will not seek us, for he naturally
believes we were killed by the gree-gree. If Zomara favours us we shall
yet live to enter Mo and lead our hosts into the country of Samory."

Then, taking from his neck a little bag of some strange powder, he took
therefrom a pinch, and with fervent words scattered it to the four
quarters of the wind, thus making a thank-offering to the Crocodile-god.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WAY OF THE THOUSAND STEPS.

TO describe in detail our long toilsome journey and the terrible
hardships we suffered during the next two months is unnecessary. Suffice
it to say that without means of barter, unarmed, and living upon fruit
and roots, we tramped