With the return of consciousness came a feeling of intense gratification that he was still alive. This may seem a superfluous statement, yet not. Many a man waking to the consciousness that he was a helpless captive in the power of fierce and ruthless barbarians, has prayed with all his soul for the mercy of a swift and certain death, and has done so with a grim and terrible earnestness. Not so, however, Eustace Milne. He had something to live for now. While there was life there was hope. He was not going to throw away a single chance. To this end, then, he lay perfectly still, closing his eyes again, for he wanted to think, to clear his terribly aching and beclouded brain. And while thus lying, seemingly unconscious, his ears caught the subdued hum of his captors' conversation--caught the whispered burden of their superstitious misgivings, and he resolved to turn them to account. "It is a powerful `charm,'" one of them was saying. "We ought to find it--to take it away from him." "We had better not meddle with it," was the reply. "Wait and see. It may not be too powerful for Ngcenika, or it may. We shall see." "Ha! Ngcenika--the great prophetess. _Ewa, ewa_!" [Yes--yes] exclaimed several. A powerful charm? Ngcenika, the prophetess? What did they mean. Then it dawned upon him as in a flash. The uplifted assegai, the great leaping barbarian, grinning in bloodthirsty glee as the weapon quivered in his sinewy grasp: then the blow--straight at his heart. It all came back lo him now. Yet how had he escaped? The stroke had been straight, strong, and surely directed. He had felt the contact. Checking an impulse to raise his hand to his heart, he expanded his chest ever so slightly. No sharp, pricking pang, as of a stab or cut. He was unwounded. But how? And then as the truth burst upon him, such a thrill of new-born hope radiated throughout his being that he could hardly refrain from leaping to his feet then and there. The silver box--Eanswyth's gift at parting--this was what had interposed between him and certain death! The silver box--with its contents, the representation of that sweet face, those last lines, tear stained, "warm from her hand and heart," as she herself had put it--this was what had turned the deadly stroke which should have cleft his heart in twain. What an omen! A "charm," they had called it--a powerful "charm." Ha! that must be his cue. Would it prove too potent for Ngcenika? they had conjectured. The name was familiar to him as owned by Kreli's principal witch-doctress, a shadowy personage withal, and known to few, if any, of the whites, and therefore credited with powers above the average. Certain it was that her influence at that time was great.