good at making them and using them. Hey, Kamudi! Come here!'
One of the black boys arose from the two calloused black heels he had been squatting upon and approached. 'Yes, Bwana-you call?'
'Say, can any of you boys kill game with a bow and arrow?'
Kamudi grinned. 'Yes, Bwana.'
'How about making them? Can any of you make bows and arrows?'
'Yes, Bwana-all can make.'
'Fine! Any of the stuff you use grow around here?' Van Eyk's tones were both eager and apprehensive.
'Down by the river-plenty.'
'Gee! That's bully. When the boys have finished supper take 'em down there and get enough stuff to make bows for every one and lots of arrows. Make a few tonight. If we don't have 'em, we don't eat tomorrow Sabe?'
'Yes, Bwana-after supper.'
The night was velvet soft. A full moon shone down upon the camp, paling the embers of dying fires where the men had cooked their simple meal. The blacks were busy fashioning crude bows and arrows, roughly hewn but adequate.
The whites were gathered in little groups. A shelter had been fashioned for Gonfala; and before this she and Wood and van Eyk lay upon skins that had been brought from Kaji and talked of the future. Gonfala of the wonders that awaited her in unknown civilization, for she was going to London. The men spoke of America, of their families, and old friends, who must long ago have given them up as dead.
'With the proceeds from the great emerald of the Zuli you will be a very rich woman, Gonfala.' Wood spoke a little regretfully. 'You will have a beautiful home, wonderful gowns and furs, automobiles, and many servants; and there will be men-oh, lots of men.'
'Why should I have men? I do not want but just one.'
'But they will want you, for yourself and for your money.' The thought seemed to sadden Wood.
'You will have to be very careful,' said van Eyk. 'Some of those chaps will be very fascinating.'
The girl shrugged. 'I am not afraid. Stanlee will take care of me. Won't you, Stanlee?'
'If you'll let me, but-'
' 'But' what?'
'Well, you see you have never known men such as you are going to meet. You may find someone who-' Wood hesitated.
' 'Someone who' what?' she demanded.
'Whom you'll like better than you do me.'
Gonfala laughed. 'I am not worrying.'
'But I am.'
'You needn't.' The girl's eyes swam with the moisture of adulation.
'You are so young and naive and inexperienced. You haven't the slightest idea what you are going to be up against or the types of men there are in the world-especially in the civilized world.'
'Are they as bad as Mafka?'
'In a different way they are worse.'
Van Eyk stood up and stretched. 'I'm going to get some sleep,' he said. 'You two'd better do the same thing. Good night.'
They said good night to him and watched him go; then the girl turned to Wood. 'I am not afraid,' she said, 'and you must not be. We shall have each other, and as far as I am concerned, no one else in the world counts.'
He took her hand and stroked it. 'I hope you will always feel that way, dear. It is the way I feel-it is the way I always shall.'
'Nothing will ever come between us then.' She turned her palm beneath his and pressed his fingers.
For a little time longer they talked and planned as lovers have from time immemorial; and then he went to lie down at a little distance, and Gonfala to her shelter; but she could not sleep. She was too happy. It seemed to her that she could not waste a moment of that happiness in sleep, lose minutes of rapture that she could not ever recall.
After a moment she got up and went into the night. The camp slept. The moon had dropped into the west, and the girl walked in the dense shadow of the ancient trees against which the camp had been made. She moved slowly and silently in the state of beatific rapture that was engendered not alone by her love but by the hitherto unknown sense of freedom that had come to her with release from the domination of Mafka.
No longer was she subject to the hated seizures of cruelty and vindictiveness that she now realized were no true characteristics of her own but states that had been imposed upon her by the hypnotic powers of the old magician.
She shuddered as she recalled him. Perhaps he was her father, but what of it? What of a father's love and tenderness had he ever given her? She tried to forgive him; she tried to think a kindly thought of him; but no, she could not. She had hated him in life; in death she still hated his memory.
With an effort she shook these depressing recollections from her and sought to center her thoughts on the happiness that was now hers and that would be through a long future.
Suddenly she became aware of voices near her. 'The bloke's balmy. The nerve of him, givin' the Gonfal back to them niggers. We ort to have it an' the emerald, too. Think of it, Troll-nearly five million pounds! That's wot them two together would have brought in London or Paris.'
'An he gives the emerald to that damn nigger wench. Wot'll she do with it? The American'll get it. She thinks he's soft on her, thinks he's goin' to marry her; but whoever heard of an American marryin' a nigger. You're right, Spike; it's all wrong. Why-'
The girl did not wait to hear more. She turned and fled silently through the darkness-her dream shattered, her happiness blasted.
* * *
Wood awakened early and called Kamudi. 'Wake the boys,' he directed; 'we're making an early start.' Then he called van Eyk, and the two busied themselves directing the preparations for the day's march. 'We'll let Gonfala sleep as long as we can,' he said; 'this may be a hard day.'
Van Eyk was groping around in the dim light of early dawn, feeling through the grasses on which he had made his bed. Suddenly he ripped out an oath.
'What's the matter?' demanded Wood.
'Stan, the Gonfal is gone! It was right under the edge of these skins last night.'
Wood made a hurried search about his own bed; then another, more carefully. When he spoke he seemed stunned, shocked. 'The emerald's gone, too, Bob. Who could have-'
'The Kaji!' Van Eyk's voice rang with conviction.
Together the two men hurried to the part of the camp where the warrior-women had bedded down for the night; and there, just rising from the skins upon which they had slept, were the three.
Without preliminaries, explanation, or apology the two men searched the beds where the women had lain.
'What are you looking for?' demanded one of them.
'The Gonfal,' replied van Eyk.
'You have it,' said the woman, 'not we.'
The brief equatorial dawn had given way to the full light of day as Wood and van Eyk completed a search of the camp and realized that Spike and Troll were missing.
Wood looked crestfallen and hopeless. 'We might have guessed it right off,' he said. 'Those two were sore as pups when Clayton gave the Gonfal back to the Kaji and the emerald to Gonfala.'
'What'll we do?' asked van Eyk.
'We'll have to follow them, of course; but that's not what's worrying me right now-it's telling Gonfala. She'd been banking a lot on the sale of the emerald ever since we kept harping on the wonderful things she could buy and what she could do with so much money. Poor kid! Of course, I've got enough for us to live on, and she can have every cent of it. But it won't be quite the same to her, because she wanted so much to be independent and not be a
