ef, the unconscious white men were
carefully lifted from their seats and deposited at full length in them.
The tent was then struck, and, with its simple furniture, taken in
charge by certain members of the band told off for the purpose, when
each of the hammocks, with its sleeping burden, was carefully raised
from the ground and shouldered by four savages, and, the remainder of
the warriors forming round them as an escort, the band took the trail to
the village, and marched rapidly away.

On reaching their destination the prisoners (for such they evidently
were) were carried to a new hut, which had all the appearance of having
been specially constructed for them, and, once inside, the poles of the
hammocks were carefully laid in the forked ends of upright posts, firmly
fixed in the ground, the whole forming a sufficiently comfortable bed.
Four young women then entered the building, and, taking their places,
one at the head of each sleeper, proceeded, with the aid of large
feather fans, to protect their helpless charges from the attacks of the
mosquitoes and other insect torments with which the village swarmed;
when the hammock-bearers filed out, and the white men were left to sleep
off, undisturbed, the effects of the potent drug which had been artfully
mingled with the milk with which their coffee had that day been
prepared.

The hut in which our four friends were thus left had been erected in a
spacious palisaded quadrangle which surrounded the king's palace, so
that M'Bongwele might, as it were, always have them under his own eye;
and the fact that, having got them into his power, the king was
determined, if possible, to keep them there, was made manifest by the
presence of a strong cordon of guards, who, on the passage of the
prisoners within the portal, immediately ranged themselves round the hut
outside. The hut was only some twelve feet square, and entirely open at
one end, the open end being, however, protected from the sun by a
continuation of the roof in the form of a broad verandah supported at
the eaves upon two stout verandah-posts; and round this diminutive
structure were ranged twenty picked men, facing inward, fully armed with
bow, spear, and shield; it was pretty evident, therefore, that, unless
the prisoners had the power to render themselves invisible, or of
paralysing their guards, there was little probability of their effecting
their escape.

The posting of the guard having been effected to Lua