face of Umbopa was
like the faces of the men before me, and so was his great form like
their forms. But I had not time to reflect on this coincidence.

"We are strangers, and come in peace," I answered, speaking very
slowly, so that he might understand me, "and this man is our servant."

"You lie," he answered; "no strangers can cross the mountains where all
things perish. But what do your lies matter?--if ye are strangers then
ye must die, for no strangers may live in the land of the Kukuanas. It
is the king's law. Prepare then to die, O strangers!"

I was slightly staggered at this, more especially as I saw the hands of
some of the men steal down to their sides, where hung on each what
looked to me like a large and heavy knife.

"What does that beggar say?" asked Good.

"He says we are going to be killed," I answered grimly.

"Oh, Lord!" groaned Good; and, as was his way when perplexed, he put
his hand to his false teeth, dragging the top set down and allowing
them to fly back to his jaw with a snap. It was a most fortunate move,
for next second the dignified crowd of Kukuanas uttered a simultaneous
yell of horror, and bolted back some yards.

"What's up?" said I.

"It's his teeth," whispered Sir Henry excitedly. "He moved them. Take
them out, Good, take them out!"

He obeyed, slipping the set into the sleeve of his flannel shirt.

In another second curiosity had overcome fear, and the men advanced
slowly. Apparently they had now forgotten their amiable intention of
killing us.

"How is it, O strangers," asked the old man solemnly, "that this fat
man (pointing to Good, who was clad in nothing but boots and a flannel
shirt, and had only half finished his shaving), whose body is clothed,
and whose legs are bare, who grows hair on one side of his sickly face
and not on the other, and who wears one shining and transparent
eye--how is it, I ask, that he has teeth which move of themselves,
coming away from the jaws and returning of their own will?"

"Open your mouth," I said to Good, who promptly curled up his lips and
grinned at the old gentleman like an angry dog, revealing to his
astonished gaze two thin red lines of gum as utterly innocent of
ivories as a new-born elephant. The audience gasped.

"Where are his teeth?" they shouted; "with our eyes we saw them."

Turning his head slowly and with a gesture of ineffable contempt, Good
swept his hand across his mouth. Then he grinned again, and lo, there
we