ant a score of spears hurtled
at the ship and rattled on the steel screens around the deck. The yell
of the battle-cry of the tribe echoed and re-echoed down the river.

Grenfell was standing by the little girls. Suddenly one of them with
dancing eyes shouted and waved her arms.

"What is it?" cried Grenfell to her.

"See--see!" she cried, pointing to a warrior in a canoe who was just
poising a spear, "that is my brother! That is my brother! This is my
town!"

"Call to him," said Grenfell.

Her thin childish voice rang out. But no one heard it among the
warriors. Again she cried out to her brother. The only answer was a
hail of spears and arrows.

Grenfell turned rapidly and shouted an order to the engineer.
Instantly a shriek, more wild and piercing than the combined yells
of the whole tribe, rent the air. Again the shriek went up. The
warriors stood transfixed with spear and arrow in hand like statues
in ebony. There was a moment's intense and awful silence. They had
never before heard the whistle of a steamer!

"Shout again--quickly," whispered Grenfell to the little African
girl.

In a second the child's shrill voice rang out in the silence across
the water, crying first her brother's name, and then her own.

The astonished warrior dropped his spear, caught up his paddle
and--in a few swift strokes--drove his canoe towards the steamer. His
astonishment at seeing his sister aboard overcame all his dread of
this shrieking, floating island that moved without sails or paddles.

Quickly she told her story of how the strange white man in the great
canoe that smoked had found her in the village of their enemies, had
saved her from slavery, and--now, had brought her safely home again.
The story passed from lip to lip. Every spear and bow and arrow was
dropped.

The girls were quickly put ashore, and as Grenfell walked up the
village street every warrior who had but a few moments before been
seeking his blood was now gazing at this strange friend who had
brought back to the tribe the daughters whom they thought they had
lost for ever.

Grenfell went on with his work in face of fever, inter-tribal
fighting, slave-raiders, the horrors of wife and slave-slaughter
at funerals, witch-killing--and in some ways worse still, the
horrible cruelties of the Belgian rubber-traders--for over a
quarter of a century.

In June 1906, accompanied by his negro companions, he lay at
Yalemba, sick w