at square of
Yacoahite was given up to the populace, and all the great chiefs were
being entertained at a banquet given by the king, Earle, "the white man
with the black hair," availed himself of the opportunity to demonstrate
his capabilities as a great medicine-man by performing a few very clever
conjuring tricks before the king and his guests, which the simple
Mangeromas regarded as absolute miracles. It was a stroke of sound
policy on Earle's part; for after seeing him cause a pack of cards to
vanish into thin air, extract coins--a few of which he still had in his
pocket--from the hair, ears and noses of great warriors, and perform
sundry other marvels, there was not a Mangeroma in all that great
assemblage who did not regard the American as something superhuman, or
who would have ventured, even in the most secret recesses of his soul,
to meditate treachery to him or anybody connected with him.

Taken altogether, the day had been a rather trying one for both Dick and
Earle, for, to start with, neither of them had slept at all during the
previous night, their minds having been in a state of extreme tension
with regard to the events of the coming hours; and when at length the
suspense was over and they knew that they had escaped a terrible fate by
the bare skin of their teeth, the reaction, combined with the necessity
to preserve during several hours a perfectly calm and unruffled
demeanour in the presence of those about them, had told upon both rather
severely, and especially upon Earle, upon whose cleverness and readiness
of resource the safety of the entire party depended. Therefore it was
with a sense of profound relief that the two friends at length found
themselves alone together and free to throw off the strain to which they
had been obliged to subject themselves all day.

It was well past midnight when the king's banquet having come to an end,
the two white men were conducted with much deference and ceremony to an
apartment in the king's house, in which, to their great delight, they
found the whole of their belongings, including their two camp beds,
which some thoughtful individual--who afterwards proved to have been
Peter--had fixed up and prepared for their occupation. They lost no
time in discarding their clothing and flinging themselves upon their
pallets, for both were feeling utterly exhausted; but before
surrendering themselves to sleep they exchanged a few remarks relative
to the events of the past