at of a rat or a spider. Don't let me ever see your hideous face here
again, or I shall rid the earth of you."

As she was speaking, she had taken out her revolver and was pointing it
at him. In the immediate presence of death his impudence forsook him,
and he made a weak effort to justify himself. His speech was short,
consisting of single words. To Lady Arabella it sounded mere gibberish,
but it was in his own dialect, and meant love, marriage, wife. From the
intonation of the words, she guessed, with her woman's quick intuition,
at their meaning; but she quite failed to follow, when, becoming more
pressing, he continued to urge his suit in a mixture of the grossest
animal passion and ridiculous threats. He warned her that he knew she
had tried to steal his master's treasure, and that he had caught her in
the act. But if she would be his, he would share the treasure with her,
and they could live in luxury in the African forests. But if she
refused, he would tell his master, who would flog and torture her and
then give her to the police, who would kill her.

CHAPTER XIV--BATTLE RENEWED

The consequences of that meeting in the dusk of Diana's Grove were acute
and far-reaching, and not only to the two engaged in it. From Oolanga,
this might have been expected by anyone who knew the character of the
tropical African savage. To such, there are two passions that are
inexhaustible and insatiable--vanity and that which they are pleased to
call love. Oolanga left the Grove with an absorbing hatred in his heart.
His lust and greed were afire, while his vanity had been wounded to the
core. Lady Arabella's icy nature was not so deeply stirred, though she
was in a seething passion. More than ever she was set upon bringing
Edgar Caswall to her feet. The obstacles she had encountered, the
insults she had endured, were only as fuel to the purpose of revenge
which consumed her.

As she sought her own rooms in Diana's Grove, she went over the whole
subject again and again, always finding in the face of Lilla Watford a
key to a problem which puzzled her--the problem of a way to turn
Caswall's powers--his very existence--to aid her purpose.

When in her boudoir, she wrote a note, taking so much trouble over it
that she destroyed, and rewrote, till her dainty waste-basket was half-
full of torn sheets of notepaper. When quite satisfied, she copied out
the last sheet afresh, and then carefully burned all the spoi