o was very merry by this time under
the influence of the beer, as, indeed, were also his men and their
entertainers. "Would you like to see what our guns can do?" asked the
half-caste. "If you will permit me, I shall let you hear and see them
in use."

The unsuspecting chief at once gave his consent. His visitors rose;
Marizano gave the word; a volley was poured forth which instantly killed
the chief and twenty of his men. The survivors fled in horror. The
young women and children were seized; the village was sacked--which
means that the old and useless members of the community were murdered in
cold blood, and the place was set on fire--and Marizano marched away
with his band of captives considerably augmented, leaving a scene of
death and horrible desolation behind him. [See Livingstone's _Zambesi
and its Tributaries_, pages 201, 202.]

Thus did that villain walk through the land with fire and sword
procuring slaves for the supply of the "domestic institution" of the
Sultan of Zanzibar.

By degrees the murderer's drove of black "cattle" increased to such an
extent that when he approached the neighbourhood of the village in which
Harold and Disco sojourned, he began to think that he had obtained about
as many as he could conveniently manage, and meditated turning his face
eastward, little dreaming how near he was to a thousand dollars' worth
of property, in the shape of ransom for two white men!

He was on the point of turning back and missing this when he chanced to
fall in with a villager who was out hunting, and who, after a hot chase,
was captured. This man was made much of, and presented with some yards
of cloth as well as a few beads, at the same time being assured that he
had nothing to fear; that the party was merely a slave-trading one; that
the number of slaves required had been made up, but that a few more
would be purchased if the chief of his village had any to dispose of.

On learning from the man that his village was a large one, fully two
days' march from the spot where he stood, and filled with armed men,
Marizano came to the conclusion that it would not be worth his while to
proceed thither, and was about to order his informant to be added to his
gang with a slave-stick round his neck, when he suddenly bethought him
of inquiring as to whether any white men had been seen in these parts.
As he had often made the same inquiry before without obtaining any
satisfactory answer, it was with great