mile, pointed to
a vein on his black wrist, and set his sharp, pointed teeth against it,
in a way that was a reply.

"I was anxious to see for myself, naturally, suspecting some
hocus-pocus, so I ventured to be respectfully dubious.

"The chief was in an amiable mood; he bade me visit his tent with my
servant at moon-rise, and he would prove that this was no lie, but the
truth.

"When we went out, it was about eleven o'clock, and the surrounding
jungle was full of the horrible noises of an African night; the wail of
the small lemur, that sounds like the death-moan of a child; the more
distant roar of the lion in the black depths of the forest, too thick
for the moonlight to ever penetrate; the giant trees of the bombax
around the encampment, wreathed with llianes and parasitical poison
vines that cast fantastic shadows on the ground, white with the
perfectly white moonlight of the tropics, that reminds one of the
electric light in its purity of ray and the blackness of the shadows
that contrast with it.

"Noiselessly my black servant and I proceeded to the chief's enclosure.
His slaves permitted us to pass, by his orders, and we found ourselves
in his tent, where he sat in grave silence on a pile of skins, the flare
of a torch revealing fitfully the ugly face of the medicine-man,
crouched with due humility on the earthen floor at his master's feet.
After an exchange of compliments, his highness informed me that he had
ordered one of his female slaves to be brought, that the poison had
already been administered without her knowledge, and he also briefly
remarked, as a proof of his clemency, that it was fortunate for her that
the white man had doubted the drink, as otherwise she would have been
given over to torture, since she had proved unfaithful to her lord, the
chief having bestowed her on one of his sentries, whom she had betrayed
with a soldier.

"As he spoke sounds were heard outside, and, between two guards, the
unfortunate woman was dragged into the tent. It was not lawful for her
to address the chief, so she stood, panting, dishevelled, but silent, in
the yellow torchlight. Her hair was nearly straight and hung in tangles
on her beautiful shoulders; without so much as a girdle for covering,
she felt no shame, but only looked about with rolling, terrified eyes,
the picture of a snared animal.

"No one spoke. She stood swaying from side to side, her beautiful figure
pliant as grass.

"Finally, with a lon