of his skin, and faint and weak with
the loss of blood from the flesh wound in his side, but for all that
cheerful as a cricket, and asking for some breakfast. Job and Ustane
got him on to the bottom, or rather the sacking of a litter, which was
removed from its pole for that purpose, and with the aid of old Billali
carried him out into the shade at the mouth of the cave, from which, by
the way, every trace of the slaughter of the previous night had now been
removed, and there we all breakfasted, and indeed spent that day, and
most of the two following ones.

On the third morning Job and myself were practically recovered. Leo also
was so much better that I yielded to Billali's often expressed entreaty,
and agreed to start at once upon our journey to Kor, which we were told
was the name of the place where the mysterious _She_ lived, though I
still feared for its effect upon Leo, and especially lest the motion
should cause his wound, which was scarcely skinned over, to break open
again. Indeed, had it not been for Billali's evident anxiety to get off,
which led us to suspect that some difficulty or danger might threaten us
if we did not comply with it, I would not have consented to go.

X

SPECULATIONS

Within an hour of our finally deciding to start five litters were
brought up to the door of the cave, each accompanied by four regular
bearers and two spare hands, also a band of about fifty armed Amahagger,
who were to form the escort and carry the baggage. Three of these
litters, of course, were for us, and one for Billali, who, I was
immensely relieved to hear, was to be our companion, while the fifth I
presumed was for the use of Ustane.

"Does the lady go with us, my father?" I asked of Billali, as he stood
superintending things in general.

He shrugged his shoulders as he answered--

"If she wills. In this country the women do what they please. We worship
them, and give them their way, because without them the world could not
go on; they are the source of life."

"Ah," I said, the matter never having struck me quite in that light
before.

"We worship them," he went on, "up to a point, till at last they get
unbearable, which," he added, "they do about every second generation."

"And then what do you do?" I asked, with curiosity.

"Then," he answered, with a faint smile, "we rise, and kill the old
ones as an example to the young ones, and to show them that we are the
strongest. My poor wife was killed