The fourth morning, as they went through a bit of uncleared forest, suddenly at a turn in the path a spear whizzed past Ngon, and he saw among the trees the face of Bibane and the Amvom. He raised his gun and pulled the trigger; but the white man’s weapon failed him this time. The powder flashed in the pan and that was all. At the same moment hearing a cry behind him, he turned to see his little son pierced with the spear that had missed himself, and dying in his mother’s arms. The Amvom sprang out upon him; and it was all he could do to break from them and escape into the forest, leaving his wife a captive and his son dead. It was now in the Esen villages that the wailing was heard; while there was dancing and drumming among the Amvom. But Ngon Nzwi again felt _olun_. In the dusk of the following morning while the people were still in their beds, his voice was heard in the street, rousing them from their sleep. “People of this village,” he cried, “descendants of Ndong Amvam, who first came from the east and founded this settlement, I am Ngon Nzwi, son of Nzwi Amvam, son of Amvam Ndong, son of Ndong Amvam; I am head man of this village. Bibane of the Amvom killed my father, Nzwi Amvam, and now he has killed my child, captured my wife, and tried to take my own life. May that man of the family of Amvam who fails to help me in my revenge see his own people dead corpses! And my revenge will not be complete until I have eaten the flesh of the arm that threw the spear yesterday.” The gruesome threat was literally fulfilled. Many seasons passed before the opportunity came; but it came at last and the dead body of Bibane lay at his feet. His wives knew what was to be done with the right arm and they prepared the feast for Ngon. Some of his closest friends joined him in it, but there was no dancing or story-telling, and not many words were spoken about it by his people. For the memory of it weighed upon their spirits. The personal independence of the savage does not constitute the _simple life_ of our idealizing imagination. There still are foes without and _olun_ within,—not to speak of hostile spirits and the fear of witchcraft. Guizot in his _History of Civilization_ defines civilization as _progress_, the progress of _society_, and the progress of _individuals_; the melioration of the social system and the expansion of the intellectual and moral faculties of man. And these two elements, according to Guizot, are so intimately connected that they reciprocally produce one another. When we speak of the authority of example and the power of habit we admit, perhaps unconsciously, that a world better governed, a world in which justice more fully prevails, renders man himself more just.