he would
depart. But they barred his way.

"Now, nay, Jonemi. Now, nay," they cried, "Madula, our father, would
fain see _his_ father again, and he is at hand. Come now with us,
Jonemi, for it will be good for him to look upon thy face again."

The words were spoken jeeringly, and he knew it. But he pretended not
to. Boldness alone would serve his course. Yet his heart was like
water within him at the thought of Nidia, how she would be waiting his
coming, hour after hour--but no--he must not think of it, if he wanted
to keep his mind. Madula, too, owed him a bitter grudge as the actual
instrument for carrying out the cattle destroying edict, and was sure to
order him to be put to death. Such an opportunity of revenge was not
likely to be foregone by a savage, who, moreover, was already
responsible for more than one wholesale and treacherous murder.

"Yes," he answered, "Madula was my friend. I would fain see him again--
also Samvu."

"_Hau_! Samvu? There is no Samvu," said one, with a constrained air.
"The whites have shot him."

"In battle?" said John Ames, quickly.

"Not so. They found him and another man sitting still at home. They
declared that he had helped kill `Ingerfiel,' and they shot them both."

"I am sorry," John Ames said. "Samvu was also my friend. I will never
believe he did this."

A hum, which might have been expressive of anything, rose from the
listeners. But this news had filled John Ames with the gravest
forebodings. If the chief's brother had been slain in battle, it would
have been bad enough; but the fact that he had been shot down in cold
blood out of sheer revenge by a band of whites, with or without the
figment of a trial, would probably exasperate Madula and his clan to a
most perilous extent, and seemed to aggravate the situation as regarded
himself, well-nigh to the point of hopelessness.

They had been travelling all this while, and John Ames noticed they were
taking very much the direction by which he had come. If only it would
grow dark he might manage to give them the slip. But it was some way
before sundown yet.

Turning into a lateral valley, numerous smokes were rising up above the
rocks and trees. Fires? Yes, and men came crowding around the
newcomers. Why, the place was swarming with rebels; and again bitterly
did John Ames curse his fancied and foolish security.

He glanced at the eager, chattering faces which crowded up to stare at
him, and re