Couldn't help just throwing it in.—

    Ed.

   The character of their language—which was borne to us on the pure breeze of morning—their costume, their floating house, in which these scourges of the water highway commonly reside—everything combined to demonstrate that they belonged to the Barghîz, the most powerful and most dreaded of the native populations.

   '

    Me umslopogey

   ,' whispered Ustâni in his native language, meaning that he would retreat.

   'Eyes in the boat,' cried Leonora, in her clear, commanding tones; 'paddle on all!'

   The Boshman, cowed by her aspect, and the mere slave of discipline (he had pulled in the St. Catherine's second torpid), obeyed her command, and presently we were abreast of the Barghîz.

   'Hi, Miss,' cried the Barghî chief, a man of colossal stature, 'Can't yer look where yer a shovin' to?'

   Though his words were unintelligible, his tone was insulting.

   Leonora rose to her feet, and to the occasion.

   By virtue of her rare acquaintance with savage customs, she was able to taunt the Barghîz with the horrors of their tribal mystery, to divulge which is

    Death

   !

   She openly insulted the secret orgies of the tribe.

   She denounced the Dog-Feast!

   '

    Who ate the puppy pie under Marlowe Bridge?

   ' shrilled Leonora in her proud sweet young voice.

 Prev. P 19/57 next