Looking down, the sentry saw his companion lying across the buttress. The sentry began to curse nervously. Then, with fumbling fingers, he shut off the arc lamp and the lights inside the stockade brightened. The sentry glanced out at the vast alien darkness beyond the wall. He whimpered in sudden, childish fear. * * * * * Within the forest, beyond the terrifying brilliance of the stockade light, the natives stopped running. After the light went off, they called to each other with piping, night bird whistles. Slowly they came together, forming a silent lonely group. "We must leave him there," one said, in the shrill, chattering native language. Reluctantly they turned their backs on the stockade. Leaves crackled under their feet. Branches whipped at their faces, bringing sharp tears. They hurried, and dry things rustled and startled animals fled. From time to time they grunted at each other, more for encouragement, more as protest against the tangle of vines than for communication. Neju carried the stolen stockade weapon pressed tightly to his chest. On they went, and finally the sun came up, penetrating the forest here and there, sending sharp rays of new light mottling the ground. Once they stopped to rest, but only for a short time. After two hours of sun they came to the natural clearing and the tribal village. The village was a crude thing by stockade standards. It was a cluster of mud and stick houses around the central more pretentious Chieftain's lodge. Before the lodge there was the large fireplace where the community roasted the hunters' kills on three huge spits. The ground around the fireplace was smooth and covered with white sand taken from the bottom of the fast running creek that at the far left of the clearing threaded its way off into the tangle of trees. Bones and other refuse were carried in reed baskets to a pit well back in the forest away from the clearing. The whole of the village was clean and orderly, and, in back of the lodge, there was a patch of flower-like plants most of which were dead with autumn and frost. Several meat animals were staked out near the stream and two tiny domesticated arboreal animals called _corlieu_ sat before their owners' huts, in the sunshine. When the four natives stepped into the clearing, all other activity ceased. Children broke off their cries, and adults turned from their labors. A great silence fell upon the village. Natives appeared at doors. Slowly the four walked toward the lodge; one limped slightly from a thorn in his naked foot. All eyes turned to mark their progress. The Chieftain sat at the door of his lodge. Upon their funeral-like approach, he rose. He stared at each one in turn as if trying to believe one of them were someone else. Then he shifted his eyes over their heads to the spot in the forest where they had emerged.