" With the challenge he pulled his pistol.

He found nothing and nobody. But from the spot he had just vacated came
the same voice again.

"You no shoot, sar. You shoot fren's, dat's all. Go back."

"I go back when I see what this humbug means. I'll shoot man or animal
that runs across my bows!"

Barry stumbled forward, and again the subtle rustling surrounded him,
but no voice now. The sound seemed to vibrate and run before him, yet
faster than he could travel afoot. Then, so suddenly that it startled
him, he came alongside a stout tree, and other voices sounded,--voices
of white people. For the moment he was at a loss; then the truth
flashed upon him and he looked up into the umbrageous foliage of the
tree.

Above his head almost--he was still in the shade of the cane brake--he
discerned the platform of a rough tree-dwelling from which depended a
vine-stem ladder, steadied by pegs driven into the ground at the base of
the trunk. And, peering over the rim of the platform, like a sailor
looking over the edge of a ship's spreading top, he saw Miss Sheldon,
displeasure clouding her face. Another face was at the Mission girl's
shoulder, and impatience was the most prominent emotion on it. Barry had
time to recognize Mrs. Goring in that second apparition; then swift and
silent as a cobra's attack he was taken from behind.

No word was spoken. Arms like steel bands smothered his limbs; his
pistol hand was snatched back irresistibly, yet, he noticed even then,
with no violence, and the weapon was taken from his powerless fingers. A
piece of coarse cloth was flung over his head; vicelike hands gripped
his ankles; he was borne with no apparent effort from the spot.

After a brief initial struggle, Barry resigned himself to his captors
perforce. Where he was bound for was beyond conjecture; he only heard,
faintly through his hood, the cheeping and rustling of the canes; bush
tendrils swept along his body and told him that he was being carried
through the trackless part of the jungle. His journey was short. In ten
minutes he was laid on the ground, still with no word from his captors,
and in two long breaths no sound remained near him except the voices of
the foliage. He lay still a moment, wondering what his fate was to be;
then, involuntarily, he moved in his bonds, and found they were loose;
he was unfettered.

Hurling aside the muffling cloth, he started to his feet, and the grass
bands fell from his arms and legs. H