An hour passed and I had hardly moved. By groups the creatures slunk away to their huddling places. The groans of many wounded, unnoted before in the chatter, arose to chorus with the distant sounds of the jungle. Regularly, like a marker of time, came the rumble and grumble from the cauldron of gold. Around the largest fire, a grim old warrior hovered for an interminable time, after all the others had departed. I had no patience with his pretence of cogitating over all the problems of the universe; I wished him safely abed and snoring. He pothered about for an age, and finally stretched himself near the embers and went to sleep. I waited and waited, expecting every moment to be rewarded by a vision of the prisoner, gliding toward me. The moon arose above the trees behind me and made the place altogether too bright for any good. To allay my impatience I watched the matchless orb sailing above the jungle. Turning at last from the brilliant picture, my heart leaped wildly. The goddess was almost there! Slipping quickly, but noiselessly forth, I emerged from the vines on hands and knees and started to arise. The girl gave a scream and fled like a startled doe. “Don’t be scared,” I half shouted, guardedly, “it’s only a skin,” but my assurance was then too late. On the instant the Blacks bounded up, alert and alarmed. Club in hand, the grim old fighter near the fire came running toward me. The shadows were with us, by great good fortune. The girl, moreover, had the presence of mind to disappear in the trees and emerge further up toward her shelter. Realising that now or never I must act my part, I fell on all fours like a plummet. Browsing about unconcernedly, I moved a little in the grass at the edge of the growth, and then, having made myself sure that I had been seen by the Links who came dashing excitedly up, I slowly rooted back into the thicket and disappeared. It worked like magic. Chattering a lot of drivel which was plainly eulogistic of all the bear family and congratulatory to all the black Links in existence—who had thus been honoured in the night—the savages kow-towed on the ground and otherwise wrote themselves down as unmitigated asses for a longer period by far than they need have done for my satisfaction. Indeed it began to look as if they had taken a notion to spend the remainder of the night in adoration of the ground I had condescended to spurn with my hands and knees. When at last I heard them go, I crept silently back to the edge of the growth and watched them stir up the fire and blunder off to bed. “Confound the skin!” I muttered to myself. “Why didn’t I tell her what a beastly old bear I am?”