site bank.
When they reached it Otter rested on his paddles and gave vent to a
suppressed chuckle, which was his nearest approach to laughter.

"Why do you laugh, Black One?" asked Soa.

"Look yonder," he answered, and he pointed to some specks on the surface
of the river which were fast vanishing in the distance. "Yonder go the
boats of the slave-dealers, and in them are their arms and food. We cut
them loose, the Baas and I. There on the island sleep two-and-twenty
men--all save one: there they sleep, and when they wake what will they
find? They will find themselves on a little isle in the middle of great
waters, into which, even if they could, they will not dare to swim
because of the alligators. They can get no food on the island, for
they have no guns and ducks do not stop to be caught, but outside the
alligators will wait in hundreds to catch _them_. By-and-by they will
grow hungry--they will shout and yell, but none will hear them--then
they will become mad, and, falling on each other, they will eat each
other and die miserably one by one. Some will take to the water, those
will drown or be caught by the alligators, and so it shall go on till
they are all dead, every one of them, dead, dead, dead!" and again Otter
chuckled.

Leonard did not reprove him; with the talk of these wretches yet echoing
in his ears he could feel little pity for the horrible fate which would
certainly overtake them.

Hark! a faint sound stole across the quiet waters, a sound which grew
into a clamour of fear and rage. The slavers had awakened, they had
found the dead man in their midst mysteriously slain by an invisible
foe. And now the clamour gathered to a yell, for they had learned that
their boats were gone and that they were trapped.

From their shelter on the other side of the river, as they dropped
leisurely down the stream, Leonard and Otter could catch distant
glimpses of the frantic men rushing to and fro in the bright moonlight
and seeking for their boats. But the boats had departed to return no
more. By degrees the clamour lessened behind them, till at last it died
away, swallowed in the silence of the night.

Then Leonard told Soa what he had heard by the slaver's fire.

"How far is the road, Black One?" she asked when he had finished.

"By sundown to-morrow we shall be at the Yellow Devil's gates!" answered
Otter.

Two hours later they overtook the boats which they had cut adrift. Most
of them were tied together,