In Afric’s Forest and Jungle 
I rebuked them sharply for thus wanting to kill 
an unarmed man and the officer appeared to ap¬ 
prove what I said. But they stood looking at 
me in profound silence. Not a single word had 
been spoken by one of them during this whole 
time. That dreadful silence was their sentence 
of death. But the officer firmly cleared the way 
to my horse and commanded me to mount. On 
hearing this command, the cutthroats seemed to 
fear that they were about to be cheated of their 
lawful prey and the uproar that followed was 
more appalling even than their strange silence 
had been. 
At this juncture, my companion was brought 
up, still mounted, but a prisoner. The sight of 
his face confirmed me in my belief that 1 was to 
be killed. He was from a friendly town, but 
his face plainly showed that he was expecting to 
be murdered. He understood their language 
perfectly, and knew what they were saying in all 
this din. I saw and heard enough to chill my 
blood. One man yelled, “We can’t sell them. 
If we take them to Ebekoonleh, we will not get 
anything. Let us kill them now.” For several 
moments we waited in sickening suspense the 
decision of the commander-in-chief as to our 
fate. Then a young man, with the bearing of 
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