e is going to say is--But here comes the chief and
his principal headmen to meet us. Now, Inaguy, you be very careful in
your interpretation of everything that passes, for a good deal may
depend upon it. And let's hurry; I want to get up as close as possible
to that idol before the palaver begins."

The chief of the tribe was easily distinguishable from all the rest,
from the fact that he walked some half a dozen paces in front of the
others, and also because of his garb, which consisted of a gaudy
head-dress of variously coloured feathers and an enormous jaguar's skin
thrown over his left shoulder, half of it covering the front of his
body--and the other half the rear, the two halves united at his right
hip by knotting the skin of the left foreleg to the left hinder one. He
was, like all the rest of his tribe, coal-black in colour, and, like his
followers, was armed with a sheaf of formidable-looking barbed spears,
the heads of which appeared to be made of bone or horn. They seemed to
be a fine race of men, standing nearly six feet high, and their carriage
was suggestive of great strength and agility, but they were undeniably
ugly and repulsive of feature, the expression being that of mingled
cunning and cruelty. As they drew nearer, King Cole, the black panther,
began to snarl and show his fangs in an exceedingly hostile fashion,
whereupon Dick hurriedly seized one of the tent ropes and deftly looped
it about the animal's neck in a standing bowline knot, at the same time
soothing him by word and touch.

The two parties met and came to a halt at a point some thirty feet from
the altar; and as they did so Earle waved his hand in greeting toward
the figure, airily remarking as he did so:

"How do, old chap! Glad to have the pleasure of seeing you at last."

To which, to the stupefaction of everybody, Dick included, the figure
replied in a high, thin voice:

"The pleasure is mine, oh wonderful medicine-man, who has come to heal
my people. Tell them that ye are my particular friends, and that they
must treat you and yours well during your stay among them, upon pain of
incurring my lasting anger."

"Got that, Inaguy?" asked Earle, turning to his headman, who seemed so
paralysed with amazement that he could scarcely reply in the
affirmative. "Good! Then just translate to the chief and his followers
what I said, and what their god answered."

With chattering teeth and lips that quivered with terror to such an