y or two. Finally we got into a bit o'
higher ground an' struck the biggest surprise of all. Just before sunset
we came out o' the forest into a stretch o' yam patches along the river.
Beyond these an' right ahead of us was the biggest village we had seen
yet--three to four hundred huts, I'd say. Outside was the whole tribe
waitin' for us. Off to one side, near the forest, was a good sized palm
hut, and around it was a zareba."

"What's queer about that?" asked Mr. Wallace, as the narrator paused for
a moment. The boys saw a smile flicker across Montenay's face.

"The zareba was made out o' ivory," was his quiet reply. Burt at once
broke into a laugh, thinking that Captain Mac was joking.

"Pretty good," he chuckled. "What'd they do--cut up the tusks into
square blocks to make a six-foot wall?" But his mirth died away suddenly
as his uncle made a silencing gesture.

"An ivory zareba," went on Montenay. "Made o' tusks, clear around the
hut. They were set with points up, curvin' out. But I didn't get much
chance to see it then. We were taken into the village and I was given a
hut to myself. The young chap, Mbopo, reported to an old, wizened
witch-doctor who was the boss. I judged he was speakin' in my favor, but
the old fellow shook his head an' waved a hand at the separate hut. The
whole crowd set up a yell o' 'Pongo!' Then they threw me into the hut.

"I stayed there for eight days, too. Ye'll mind that there were just
eight slaves an' mysel' in the party. They treated me well, fed me fine,
but every night I heard a big jamboree goin' on. On the ninth evenin'
they brought me out. The village was surrounded by the usual thorn
zareba, an' the whole tribe was gathered just inside the gates,
feastin'. Mbopo an' three others tied me up an' carried me out halfway
to the separate hut. Here they laid me on the ground beside a small
fire.

"The old wizened chap came out after us with a long iron which he stuck
in the fire. Then he pulled off my shirt an' did--this." Captain Mac
slipped down his shirt collar and exposed the scarred shoulder that
Critch had seen on the boat. As the others gathered around with
exclamations of astonishment, Burt could see that the scar was in the
form of a cross, except that a long loop took the place of the
head-piece. Besides this, the whole shoulder seemed a mass of
cicatrices.

"Yon's the shape o' the bit o' wood I found in Yusuf's packet," went on
Montenay, when Mr. Wallace interrupted