"Da yourself, Henry!" squawked his foster-father. "Do da!" said Henry. The smile vanished from Bones's face, and he bit his lip thoughtfully. "Do da!" he repeated. "Let me see, what is 'do da'?" "Do da!" roared Henry. "Dear old Miss Hamilton," he said gently, "I don't know whether Henry wants a drink or whether he has a pain in his stomach, but I think that we had better leave him in more experienced hands." He nodded fiercely to the native woman nurse and made his exit. Outside they heard Henry's lusty yell, and Bones put his hand to his ear and listened with a strained expression on his face. Presently the tension passed. "It _was_ a drink," said Bones. "Excuse me whilst I make a note." He pulled out his pocket-book and wrote: "'Do da' means 'child wants drink.'" He walked back to the Residency with her, giving her a remarkable insight into Henry's vocabulary. It appeared that babies have a language of their own, which Bones boasted that he had almost mastered. She lay awake for a very long time that night, thinking of Bones, his simplicity and his lovableness. She thought, too, of Sanders, grave, aloof, and a little shy, and wondered.... She woke with a start, to hear the voice of Bones outside the window. She felt sure that something had happened to Henry. Then she heard Sanders and her brother speaking, and realized that it was not Henry they were discussing. She looked at her watch--it was three o'clock. "I was foolish to trust that fellow," Sanders was saying, "and I know that Bosambo is not to blame, because he has always given a very wide berth to the Kulumbini people, though they live on his border." She heard him speak in a strange tongue to some unknown fourth, and guessed that a spy of the Government had come in during the night. "We'll get away as quickly as we can, Bones," Sanders said. "We can take our chance with the lower river in the dark; it will be daylight before we reach the bad shoals. You need not come, Hamilton." "Do you think Bones will be able to do all you want?" Hamilton's tone was dubious. "Pull yourself together, dear old officer," said Bones, raising his voice to an insubordinate pitch. She heard the men move from the verandah, and fell asleep again, wondering who was the man they spoke of and what mischief he had been brewing. * * * * * On a little tributary stream, which is hidden by the island of bats, was the village of Kulumbini. High elephant grass hid the poor huts even from they who navigate a cautious way along the centre of the narrow stream. On the shelving beach one battered old canoe of ironwood, with its sides broken and rusted, the indolence of its proprietor made plain by the badly spliced panels, was all that told the stranger that the habitations of man were nigh.