iting an opportunity to seize either by stealth or might some object
of the black's apparel.

Nor was it long before the opportunity came. Feeling safe within his
thorny enclosure, Mugambi was wont to stretch himself in the shade of
his shelter during the heat of the day, and sleep in peaceful security
until the declining sun carried with it the enervating temperature of
midday.

Watching from above, Chulk saw the black warrior stretched thus in the
unconsciousness of sleep one sultry afternoon. Creeping out upon an
overhanging branch the anthropoid dropped to the ground within the
boma. He approached the sleeper upon padded feet which gave forth no
sound, and with an uncanny woodcraft that rustled not a leaf or a grass
blade.

Pausing beside the man, the ape bent over and examined his belongings.
Great as was the strength of Chulk there lay in the back of his little
brain a something which deterred him from arousing the man to combat--a
sense that is inherent in all the lower orders, a strange fear of man,
that rules even the most powerful of the jungle creatures at times.

To remove Mugambi's loin cloth without awakening him would be
impossible, and the only detachable things were the knob-stick and the
pouch, which had fallen from the black's shoulder as he rolled in sleep.

Seizing these two articles, as better than nothing at all, Chulk
retreated with haste, and every indication of nervous terror, to the
safety of the tree from which he had dropped, and, still haunted by
that indefinable terror which the close proximity of man awakened in
his breast, fled precipitately through the jungle. Aroused by attack,
or supported by the presence of another of his kind, Chulk could have
braved the presence of a score of human beings, but alone--ah, that was
a different matter--alone, and unenraged.

It was some time after Mugambi awoke that he missed the pouch.
Instantly he was all excitement. What could have become of it? It had
been at his side when he lay down to sleep--of that he was certain, for
had he not pushed it from beneath him when its bulging bulk, pressing
against his ribs, caused him discomfort? Yes, it had been there when
he lay down to sleep. How then had it vanished?

Mugambi's savage imagination was filled with visions of the spirits of
departed friends and enemies, for only to the machinations of such as
these could he attribute the disappearance of his pouch and knob-stick
in the first exci