present
instance been intended to carry back to Equatoria, news of the safe
arrival of the band. The great cat would, of course, have been started
off in the dark, without loss of time, or risk of suspicion even in the
event of its being observed, and would certainly have travelled very
swiftly to its distant home.

On the following morning the Atagbondo buried their dead, and then threw
the deceased slavers into the river to carry a message of woe and
weeping to their friends a hundred miles below.

Noticing his cousin looking anxiously at the summit of the mountain
several times that day with Kenyon's field-glass, "What's the matter
with the peak, old chap?" said Leigh.

"I wish I knew, Alf," was the reply; "I haven't seen it since the night
we got here: ever since then it has been completely hidden by yonder
white cloud, which rests upon it, and unless I am mistaken, the heat
emanating from that vapour is so intense, that the everlasting snows are
being absolutely melted away from the summit of the cone."

Just then a very wonderful and awful thing happened, for even as
Grenville was speaking, the heat-clouds suddenly rolled away like a
scroll and curled up out of sight, revealing the glittering peak for one
brief instant in all the radiant majesty of its unveiled glory, and then
the very next second there shot far, far up into the azure vault, a
giant jet of angry, inky-looking smoke, which floated lightly and lazily
through the absolutely pulseless air towards the north, and was quickly
succeeded by another great puff, and another, until the whole of the
northern heavens were densely clouded, and the mountain itself bore the
appearance of a gigantic monster mechanically expelling vast volumes of
dead black smoke at every labouring respiration of its mighty rock-girt
lungs, and shrouding the whole country in a sombre death-like pall of
weird and awful shade.

"A volcano, by Jove!" ejaculated Leigh.

"Yes," replied his cousin, "and an active one, too. I fear that
Umbulanzi's explosion, the first night we came, has awakened the
slumbering internal fires, or else the water is somehow penetrating into
the crater and interfering with the gases imprisoned in its abysmal
depths. We shall be in a nice pickle if the volcano takes a fancy to
indulge in an eruption just at present; however, we must hope for the
best, old man, and put our trust in Providence."

That very night, sad to say, our friends were awakened b