ank,
examining the bushes that we might discover if there was any path
through them. We searched about, however, for some time before we could
find a pathway. At length one appeared, and Natty darting down it, made
his way towards the water as last as he could run. It was like the
former one, formed, I concluded, by elephants or rhinoceroses to reach
their evening drinking-place. There was the canoe. The paddles,
however, and everything in her, had been taken way. My heart beat with
satisfaction and gratitude. Leo and Mango had escaped destruction in
the cataract; but what, then, had become of them? We could discover no
trace or sign, nothing whatever to give us any clue to their fate.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

AMONG SAVAGES.

"What can have become of them?" exclaimed Natty for the twentieth time
as we stood examining the canoe. "But here come the blacks. Perhaps
they will find out."

The chief and several of his followers assembled round the canoe, and
began to talk eagerly to each other. They arrived at length at some
conclusion, but what it was we could not divine. Then they examined the
ground round, and seemed to discover certain marks, as one called the
other to look at them. Then away they ran up the path, and began
beating about in the surrounding wood. They came back shaking their
heads, and when we by signs asked them what had happened, they pointed
to the south.

"Depend upon it, Andrew," exclaimed Natty, "Leo and Mango have gone in
that direction. Let us set off after them."

"I will try and make the blacks understand that we intend to do so," I
answered.

I succeeded in explaining my wishes; but the blacks only shook their
woolly pates, and made signs that if we did, we should be knocked on the
head, or that daggers would be stuck into us.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried Natty, "can that have been the fate of Leo
and Mango?"

"I hope not," I said. "If anybody has carried them off, they would not
have done so for the sake of killing them. What I suspect is, that the
neighbouring tribe is at war with our present friends, and that they
happened to be making a raid into the country, and falling in with Leo
and Mango, carried them off captives. It was evident from the signs
these people made to us that they did not wish us to cross the stream,
which they probably considered the boundary line between their territory
and that of the tribe with which they are at war. I may be mistaken,
bu