"Let Benoni, the officer who arrested the strangers upon their arrival in Izreel, be summoned to give his evidence." The officer in charge of the prisoners stepped to the door, opened it, spoke a few words to someone on the other side, apparently giving an order, then closed the door again and returned to his former position in the hall. "Did you hear that, Dick--Benoni--Izreel? Don't those two names suggest anything to you?" murmured Grosvenor behind his hand. "N-o, I can't say that they do, except that they seem to be not altogether unfamiliar to me," answered Dick in a like low murmur. "Familiar!" ejaculated Grosvenor, incautiously raising his voice; "I should think they are. Why--" "Silence!" interposed the officer sternly, at this moment. Although Grosvenor's eyes blazed at the insult, and he looked more than half- inclined to forcibly resent it, he closed his lips with a fierce snap, and obeyed the injunction, at the restraining touch of Dick's hand. A moment later the officer who had brought them to the island entered, and, closing the door behind him, advanced, saluting as he faced the grille. "Benoni," said the deep voice from behind the screen, "say what you know concerning the strangers from afar whom ye yesterday brought across the water to Bethalia!" Again Benoni saluted. Then, facing toward the centre of the grille, he proceeded to relate how, in consequence of intelligence brought to him by runners from the frontier, he proceeded in search of the strangers, and, having taken them, brought them to Bethalia, in accordance with the general order providing for such a circumstance. Then he proceeded to describe in some detail the journey, making mention of the wonderful tubes that brought distant objects near, so long as one continued to gaze through them; and, from that, passed on to describe in full the incident of the infuriated buffalo, the consternation it had created among the wayfarers upon the road along which it had charged, its persistent pursuit of himself, the wonderful magic whereby the strangers had slain the animal, from a distance, at the precise moment when it had been about to toss him into the air; and how, finally, the younger stranger of the two had insisted upon interrupting the journey to succour the man who had been grievously hurt by the animal; adding that, in obedience to orders received, he had early that morning proceeded to the mainland to enquire into the condition of the injured man, whom, to his amazement, he found to be making favourable progress toward recovery. He spoke throughout in a clear, level voice, and seemed to be concerned only to convey an absolutely truthful impression of everything to his unseen audience behind the grille.