the open doorway
of a hut upon the opposite side of the street below them. By various
gestures he seemed to be trying to explain something to her and at
last she caught at the germ of his idea--that her white man was a
prisoner there.

Beneath them was the roof of a hut onto which she saw that she
could easily drop, but what she could do after she had entered the
village was beyond her.

Darkness was already falling and the fires beneath the cooking pots
had been lighted. The girl saw the stake in the village street and
the piles of fagots about it and in terror she suddenly realized
the portent of these grisly preparations. Oh, if she but only had
some sort of a weapon that might give her even a faint hope, some
slight advantage against the blacks. Then she would not hesitate
to venture into the village in an attempt to save the man who had
upon three different occasions saved her. She knew that he hated her
and yet strong within her breast burned the sense of her obligation
to him. She could not fathom him. Never in her life had she seen a
man at once so paradoxical and dependable. In many of his ways he
was more savage than the beasts with which he associated and yet,
on the other hand, he was as chivalrous as a knight of old. For
several days she had been lost with him in the jungle absolutely
at his mercy, yet she had come to trust so implicitly in his honor
that any fear she had had of him was rapidly disappearing.

On the other hand, that he might be hideously cruel was evidenced
to her by the fact that he was planning to leave her alone in the
midst of the frightful dangers which menaced her by night and by
day.

Zu-tag was evidently waiting for darkness to fall before carrying
out whatever plans had matured in his savage little brain, for he
and his fellows sat quietly in the tree about her, watching the
preparations of the blacks. Presently it became apparent that some
altercation had arisen among the Negroes, for a score or more of
them were gathered around one who appeared to be their chief, and
all were talking and gesticulating heatedly. The argument lasted
for some five or ten minutes when suddenly the little knot broke
and two warriors ran to the opposite side of the village from whence
they presently returned with a large stake which they soon set up
beside the one already in place. The girl wondered what the purpose
of the second stake might be, nor did she have long to wait for an
explanation