The footsteps she had heard without the hut now halted before the
door. There was a whispered colloquy, and a moment later M'ganwazam,
chief of the tribe, entered. She had seen but little of him, as
the women had taken her in hand almost as soon as she had entered
the village.
M'ganwazam, she now saw, was an evil-appearing savage with every
mark of brutal degeneracy writ large upon his bestial countenance.
To Jane Clayton he looked more gorilla than human. He tried to
converse with her, but without success, and finally he called to
some one without.
In answer to his summons another Negro entered--a man of very
different appearance from M'ganwazam--so different, in fact, that
Jane Clayton immediately decided that he was of another tribe.
This man acted as interpreter, and almost from the first question
that M'ganwazam put to her, Jane felt an intuitive conviction that
the savage was attempting to draw information from her for some
ulterior motive.
She thought it strange that the fellow should so suddenly have
become interested in her plans, and especially in her intended
destination when her journey had been interrupted at his village.
Seeing no reason for withholding the information, she told him the
truth; but when he asked if she expected to meet her husband at
the end of the trip, she shook her head negatively.
Pages:
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168