have
lost a brave; but what then?"

"The evil eye has done it. The white men have bewitched their enemy,
and he is dead."

The full danger of the situation dawned on the missionary's mind as
Masheesh said this, and turning to Hughes, he told what had passed. The
latter only laughed.

"Since we have been in Africa," he replied, "I have not seen one
instance of violence or bloodthirstiness. A more gentle race I never
met with. Why it is the custom even among the warriors who have shed
blood in battle, to consider themselves unclean, and a native who has so
much as touched a dead body is thought so. What is there to fear?"

"The whole native population of South Africa is superstitious, and these
Amatongas are a low caste tribe, more superstitious than most. You
heard Umhleswa ask about the rain?"

"Yes, I know he did."

"Well, not only have they their rain makers, but their sorcerers; and
they believe firmly in witches, ghouls, the evil eye, and vampires.
They will kill all their cattle on the order of one of these sorcerers,
and starve by hundreds."

"Well, if that is the case, it certainly is enough to excite them, that
the very man who was the most bitter against us should die thus
suddenly. It is a very strange circumstance that Luji should have
denounced him."

While they were talking the shouting and yelling seemed to approach
rapidly, and now a band of Amatonga, their naked bodies smeared with
paint, came rushing down from among the huts. In a moment more than a
hundred yelling savages surrounded the tree, shouting, screaming, and
brandishing their assegais. The rifles could do nothing against such a
number.

"Our only hope is in Umhleswa," whispered the missionary, as he bent his
calm face over his note book, apparently unconcerned. They were a
terrible looking set, those dark-skinned Amatongas, and the two
Europeans felt themselves completely in their power.

Hideously ugly, with their enormous mouths, woolly hair, and receding
foreheads, they had still further disfigured themselves with paint
Masheesh did all a man could do to quiet them, but it was no use; the
white men were seized, separated, and their rifles taken from them,
their hands being firmly tied together. Luji shared their fate, and the
monkey very much frightened, jumped to his usual place on his shoulders,
jabbering and grimacing. Several blows with the wood of the assegais
were given, and thus ill-treated, with the whole b