e viciously on Umbopa.

"Welcome, white men from the Stars," he said; "this is another sight
from that which your eyes gazed on by the light of last night's moon,
but it is not so good a sight. Girls are pleasant, and were it not for
such as these," and he pointed round him, "we should none of us be here
this day; but men are better. Kisses and the tender words of women are
sweet, but the sound of the clashing of the spears of warriors, and the
smell of men's blood, are sweeter far! Would ye have wives from among
our people, white men? If so, choose the fairest here, and ye shall
have them, as many as ye will," and he paused for an answer.

As the prospect did not seem to be without attractions for Good, who,
like most sailors, is of a susceptible nature,--being elderly and wise,
foreseeing the endless complications that anything of the sort would
involve, for women bring trouble so surely as the night follows the
day, I put in a hasty answer--

"Thanks to thee, O king, but we white men wed only with white women
like ourselves. Your maidens are fair, but they are not for us!"

The king laughed. "It is well. In our land there is a proverb which
runs, 'Women's eyes are always bright, whatever the colour,' and
another that says, 'Love her who is present, for be sure she who is
absent is false to thee;' but perhaps these things are not so in the
Stars. In a land where men are white all things are possible. So be it,
white men; the girls will not go begging! Welcome again; and welcome,
too, thou black one; if Gagool here had won her way, thou wouldst have
been stiff and cold by now. It is lucky for thee that thou too camest
from the Stars; ha! ha!"

"I can kill thee before thou killest me, O king," was Ignosi's calm
answer, "and thou shalt be stiff before my limbs cease to bend."

Twala started. "Thou speakest boldly, boy," he replied angrily;
"presume not too far."

"He may well be bold in whose lips are truth. The truth is a sharp
spear which flies home and misses not. It is a message from 'the
Stars,' O king."

Twala scowled, and his one eye gleamed fiercely, but he said nothing
more.

"Let the dance begin," he cried, and then the flower-crowned girls
sprang forward in companies, singing a sweet song and waving the
delicate palms and white lilies. On they danced, looking faint and
spiritual in the soft, sad light of the risen moon; now whirling round
and round, now meeting in mimic warfare, swaying, eddying her