pression on his face.

Presently the tension passed.

"It _was_ a drink," said Bones. "Excuse me whilst I make a note." He
pulled out his pocket-book and wrote: "'Do da' means 'child wants
drink.'"

He walked back to the Residency with her, giving her a remarkable
insight into Henry's vocabulary. It appeared that babies have a language
of their own, which Bones boasted that he had almost mastered.

She lay awake for a very long time that night, thinking of Bones, his
simplicity and his lovableness. She thought, too, of Sanders, grave,
aloof, and a little shy, and wondered....

She woke with a start, to hear the voice of Bones outside the window.
She felt sure that something had happened to Henry. Then she heard
Sanders and her brother speaking, and realized that it was not Henry
they were discussing.

She looked at her watch--it was three o'clock.

"I was foolish to trust that fellow," Sanders was saying, "and I know
that Bosambo is not to blame, because he has always given a very wide
berth to the Kulumbini people, though they live on his border."

She heard him speak in a strange tongue to some unknown fourth, and
guessed that a spy of the Government had come in during the night.

"We'll get away as quickly as we can, Bones," Sanders said. "We can take
our chance with the lower river in the dark; it will be daylight before
we reach the bad shoals. You need not come, Hamilton."

"Do you think Bones will be able to do all you want?" Hamilton's tone
was dubious.

"Pull yourself together, dear old officer," said Bones, raising his
voice to an insubordinate pitch.

She heard the men move from the verandah, and fell asleep again,
wondering who was the man they spoke of and what mischief he had been
brewing.

* * * * *

On a little tributary stream, which is hidden by the island of bats, was
the village of Kulumbini. High elephant grass hid the poor huts even
from they who navigate a cautious way along the centre of the narrow
stream. On the shelving beach one battered old canoe of ironwood, with
its sides broken and rusted, the indolence of its proprietor made plain
by the badly spliced panels, was all that told the stranger that the
habitations of man were nigh.

Kulumbini was a term of reproach along the great river and amongst the
people of the Akasava, the Isisi, and the N'gombi, no less than among
that most tolerant of tribes the Ochori. They were savage people,
immens