de the best of his way back to
the village, even though the journey would have had to be performed on
foot; but the ladder had, by his own command, been removed, and his
retreat was thus effectually cut off, a drop of about forty feet from
the bottom of the metal accommodation ladder to the ground being a
something not to be thought of.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

THE HISTORY OF CERTAIN DISTRESSED DAMSELS.

Meanwhile Seketulo, the chief in command of king M'Bongwele's household
cavalry, returned to the village in due course, and lost no time in
dismissing his men, chuckling to himself as he reflected that, after
all, he had beaten his monarch in the race homeward.

Time passed on; the sun set; the evanescent twilight faded out of the
sky; the stars twinkled forth in all the mellow radiance characteristic
of the tropics; and still the adventurous M'Bongwele and his wondrous
prize came not. Hour after hour lagged slowly away; and at length the
expectant villagers, who had poured into the open air to witness the
triumphant arrival of the king, returned to their huts--their transient
enthusiasm overcome by their habitual apathy and indolence--and
surrendered themselves willingly enough to the blandishments of sleep.
All, with the exception, that is to say, of the guard detailed to watch
over the prisoners, the anxious Lualamba, and Seketulo. These were all
wakeful enough, the latter perhaps even more so than any of the others.
For, as the night waxed and the great full moon rolled slowly upward
into the sky, the powerful chief, who had won for himself the envied
position of commander of the king's cavalry (a position equivalent to
that of commander-in-chief of the whole army), felt the hope growing
within him that the foolhardy king and those with him had been carried
off to the nether regions for a permanency by the wondrous Thing of
which they had so audaciously sought to secure the possession. And in
that case (M'Bongwele being without sons, and having, in order to avoid
possible future complications, carefully slaughtered all his brothers
and other relations on his accession to the throne) there would be a
vacancy in that particular country for a king, which vacancy Seketulo
believed himself powerful enough to secure and fill.

Giving free rein to these ambitious ideas and aspirations, the chief
paced thoughtfully to and fro in a retired corner of the village until
about ten o'clock that night, when his impatience cou