us bark in a
compound made from bruised herbs, and which closely resembled chloroform
in its effect, and of which, he added, he had often made quantities for
Zero.

Asked if he knew how Zero used the drug, this man at once fully
explained the whole "death," stupefaction, and abduction of Lady
Drelincourt and her child--a miserable aboriginal savage thus calmly
elucidating a mystery which had proved altogether too much for the
wisest doctors and keenest detectives in far-away and enlightened
England.

Upon Kenyon, however, expressing the most utter disbelief of his
statement, the "Fetish" boldly offered to exhibit the result of the
experiment in his own proper person, provided the white men would give
him some powder and a gun before they went away; and Kenyon having
undertaken to make him happy with a flint-lock and six feet of superior
English tower-marked "gas-pipe," the man forthwith proceeded to
demonstrate the truth of his curious tale.

First obtaining a small gourd of the drug referred to, he then took from
a pouch at his side a beautiful _little tame white monkey_. Next
picking a sharp thorn, he coated the point well with the nameless
compound, and, giving the instrument to the monkey, pointed to himself.
The little animal cunningly concealed the thorn within its palm, and
then offered to shake hands with its master, and this ceremony having
been performed, the old man held up his hand and exhibited a small red
mark in the palm. He then explained that the properties of the drug
were distinctly anaesthetic, and that he could not feel the puncture,
which was painlessly made; but he would nevertheless shortly go to sleep
for three or four days, and then wake up again, being quite recovered,
and none the worse for the experiment.

The drug had no perceptible effect upon the man for several hours, but
towards evening he began palpably to get very drowsy, and no power on
earth could keep him awake. The suspicious Kenyon, however, was not to
be "done," and punched and kicked the old man unmercifully--an operation
in which he was most ably seconded by Amaxosa, who beat the "cunning man
of the witch-finders black and blue" with the handle of his spear,
pausing only now and then to take a pinch of snuff. "Ow! my father," he
said at last, throwing down the spear in disgust--"Ow, my father, who
can beat the life into a dead dog like this? What is gone is gone for
ever, and the breath will never come again, so we h