Towards evening the king sent to "comfort" them; it was very condescending of him. The "comfort" lay in the information that at sunrise next day they would be led out to die, by spear or by knife, as they might choose. Meanwhile, poor Essequibo's chains were knocked off, and he was led away to his fattening pen. Such is life in Central Africa. But stranger things still befell our heroes. CHAPTER TWENTY. LAND OF DARKNESS. Scene: The interior of King 'Ntango's palace. The king seated on a mat in the middle of the floor of the principal apartment--a large square room with walls of mud and grass. The only furniture, a tall tom-tom, a mat-covered dais, and a heap of empty stone bottles in a corner. Those bottles once contained gin. It is near sunset, the king is alone. There is no sound to break the silence, except the tap, tap, tap the gecko lizards that crawl on the walls make, as they beat to death the moths they catch. Yes, the king is alone in his glory, though his spear-armed attendants wait outside. He is quite a study, this savage potentate, to any one fond of an anthropology. Look at him now! he is leaning his fat face on his podgy fingers, his elbows are resting on his knees--he is thinking. There are but two things in this world that this king dearly loves; one is to see human blood spilled, the other is to drink gin or rum. These last two words are the only English ones he can pronounce or understand. He learnt them from itinerant Arabs, unscrupulous scoundrels, who bought the youth and flower of his people for a bottle each. The king is thinking; the question that exercises his mind at present is this, "Shall I kill these white men, and laugh to see the red blood flow; or keep two, and send the others back for rum?" "Room," this is how he pronounces the word "rum," and "gin" he calls "geen." "Room, room, room," he mutters to himself, "geen, geen, geen." He rises; a thought strikes him. May it not be possible that one, just one full bottle remains still among that heap of empty ones? He goes straight to the heap, and turns them over. No, not one. Still, he has a glimmering notion that in a dazed moment he hid one. Ha! he remembers all of a sudden. He seizes the stick with which he is wont to beat the tom-tom, and hies him to a corner, and speedily unearths, not one bottle, but two. He is a joyful king now. He whacks the tom-tom, and summons two of his wives to squat beside him; not to help him to drink, but to _see_ him drink. Then he summons Essequibo, and launches questions at him. "How long will he take to fatten? How long before he be ready to kill? Do the white men tremble to die?" "No," Keebo tells him; "they rejoice to die because their spirits will go to a glorious land of flowers and sunshine."