.

"What are these?" he asked, turning to the chief.

The African pointed up the river. Grenfell's heart burned in him,
as the chief told how he and his men had swept up the river in their
canoes armed with their spears and bows and arrows and had raided
another tribe.

"And these," said the chief, pointing to the girls, who began
to wonder what was going to happen, "these are two girls that we
captured. They are some of our booty. They are slaves. They are tied
there till someone will come and buy them."

Grenfell could not resist the silent call of their woeful faces.
Quickly he gave beads and cloth to the chief, and took the little
girls back with him down to the river bank. As they jumped into the
canoe to go aboard the S.S. _Peace_, the two girls wondered what this
strange new master would do with them. Would he be cruel? Yet his eyes
looked kind through those funny, round, shining things balanced on his
nose.

The girls at once forgot all their sorrows when they jumped on board
this wonderful river monster. They felt it shiver and throb and begin
to move. The bank went farther and farther away. The _Peace_ had again
started up stream.

The girls stood in wonder and gazed with open eyes as the banks slid
past. They saw the birds all green and red flashing along the surface
of the water, and the huge hippopotami sullenly plunging into the
river like the floating islands of earth that sail down the Congo.
Their quick eyes noted the quaint iguana, like giant lizards, sunning
themselves on the branches of the trees over the stream and then
dropping like stones into the stream as the steamer passed.

_The Slave Girl's Brother_

Then, suddenly, as they came round a bend in the river, all was
changed. There ahead Grenfell saw a river town. The canoes were being
manned rapidly by warriors. The bank bristled with spears in the hands
of ferocious savages, whose faces were made horrible by gashes and
loathsome tattooing. In each canoe men stood with bows in their hands
and arrows drawn to the head. The throb of the engines ceased. The
ship slowed up. But the canoes came on.

The men of this Congo town only knew one thing. Enemies had, only a
few weeks earlier, come from down-river, had raided their town,
burned their huts, killed many of their braves, and carried away their
children. Here were men who had also come from down the river. They
must, therefore, be enemies.

Their chief shouted an order. In an inst