she could see nothing but the countenances of bloodthirsty and pitiless fiends. Oh, Heaven! would they never pass? The throb of her heart-beats seemed loud enough to attract their attention and cause them to stop. But no sooner had one squad glided by than another appeared; and with the advent of each, to those who lay there, it seemed that the bitterness of death had to be gone through again. Several passed so near to their hiding-place that the effluvium of their heated bodies reached the fugitives, musky and strong, but their attention was fixed upon the conversation of their fellows on the other side, and that peril was over. But not until nearly an hour had passed since the last of the savages had disappeared, and the lingering drawl of their deep-toned voices had died away, would John Ames suffer his companion even so much as to whisper, let alone move. Well, that peril had passed over their beads, and now, in the well-nigh uninhabited fastnesses of the Matopo, they felt comparatively safe. And Nidia, remembering, and observing her fellow-fugitive and protector, would find herself twenty times a day making comparisons between him and all the other men she had ever known in a sense which was sadly unflattering to the latter; and an unconscious softness would come into her voice in conversing with him which was not a little trying to John Ames. For if there was one point upon which the latter had made up his mind, it was that while Nidia was alone with him, and entirely under his care, he must never for a moment allow his feelings to get the better of him. To do so under the circumstances was, rightly or wrongly, to take an advantage of the position, against which his principles rose up in revolt. Yet there were times when his guard would insensibly slacken, and his tone, too, would take on an unconscious softening.