Bones did not take this in for a moment, for he was gazing open-mouthed at Bucongo. On his head was an indubitable mitre, but around the mitre was bound a strip of skin from which was suspended a circle of dangling monkey tails. For cope he wore a leopard's robe. His face was streaked red with camwood, and around his eyes he had painted two white circles. He was in the midst of a frenzied address when the two white visitors came upon the scene, and his hand was outstretched to take the red branding-iron when the girl at Bones's side, with a little gasp of horror, broke into the circle, and wrenching the rough iron from the attendant's hand, flung it towards the circle of spectators, which widened in consequence. "How dare you--how dare you!" she demanded breathlessly, "you horrible-looking man!" Bucongo glared at her but said nothing; then he turned to meet Bones. In that second of time Bucongo had to make a great decision, and to overcome the habits of a lifetime. Training and education to the dominion of the white man half raised his hand to the salute; something that boiled and bubbled madly and set his shallow brain afire, something that was of his ancestry, wild, unreasoning, brutish, urged other action. Bones had his revolver half drawn when the knobbly end of the chief's killing-spear struck him between the eyes, and he went down on his knees. Thus it came about, that he found himself sitting before Bucongo, his feet and hands tied with native grass, with the girl at his side in no better case. She was very frightened, but this she did not show. She had the disadvantage of being unable to understand the light flow of offensive badinage which passed between her captor and Bones. "O Tibbetti," said Bucongo, "you see me as a god--I have finished with all white men." "Soon we shall finish with you, Bucongo," said Bones. "I cannot die, Tibbetti," said the other with easy confidence, "that is the wonderful thing." "Other men have said that," said Bones in the vernacular, "and their widows are wives again and have forgotten their widowhood." "This is a new ju-ju, Tibbetti," said Bucongo, a strange light in his eyes. "I am the greatest of all cross-God men, and it is revealed to me that many shall follow me. Now you and the woman shall be the first of all white people to bear the mark of Bucongo the Blessed. And in the days to be you shall bare your breasts and say, 'Bucongo the Wonderful did this with his beautiful hands.'" Bones was in a cold sweat and his mouth was dry. He scarcely dare look at the girl by his side. "What does he say?" she asked in a low voice. Bones hesitated, and then haltingly he stammered the translation of the threat. She nodded.