On reaching their destination the prisoners (for such they evidently were) were carried to a new hut, which had all the appearance of having been specially constructed for them, and, once inside, the poles of the hammocks were carefully laid in the forked ends of upright posts, firmly fixed in the ground, the whole forming a sufficiently comfortable bed. Four young women then entered the building, and, taking their places, one at the head of each sleeper, proceeded, with the aid of large feather fans, to protect their helpless charges from the attacks of the mosquitoes and other insect torments with which the village swarmed; when the hammock-bearers filed out, and the white men were left to sleep off, undisturbed, the effects of the potent drug which had been artfully mingled with the milk with which their coffee had that day been prepared. The hut in which our four friends were thus left had been erected in a spacious palisaded quadrangle which surrounded the king's palace, so that M'Bongwele might, as it were, always have them under his own eye; and the fact that, having got them into his power, the king was determined, if possible, to keep them there, was made manifest by the presence of a strong cordon of guards, who, on the passage of the prisoners within the portal, immediately ranged themselves round the hut outside. The hut was only some twelve feet square, and entirely open at one end, the open end being, however, protected from the sun by a continuation of the roof in the form of a broad verandah supported at the eaves upon two stout verandah-posts; and round this diminutive structure were ranged twenty picked men, facing inward, fully armed with bow, spear, and shield; it was pretty evident, therefore, that, unless the prisoners had the power to render themselves invisible, or of paralysing their guards, there was little probability of their effecting their escape.