"The professor, however, had still another card up his sleeve, and when at length we returned to the spot from which we had started--by which time it was nearly dark--he played it. He ordered a number of M'Bongwele's warriors to build a large fire, not very far from the ship, and when this was well alight, and throwing out a dense cloud of smoke, our friend von Schalckenberg used the smoke as a magic-lantern screen, upon which he projected two pictures, the first showing M'Bongwele himself and his warriors at the moment when they halted opposite the ship upon their arrival from his village earlier on in the afternoon-- photographed by Mildmay and developed and printed during our trip out to sea--and the second, a coloured slide, showing a review of a number of our own British troops. This, as you may imagine, reduced the king-- only temporarily, as it proved--to a condition of servile submission, and he went home that night a humble and terrified man. "But, later, he got even with us, for a time, at least; for while pretending to assist us in our exploration of the ruins, by lending us a number of women to do such digging as we required, he got an old hag to drug our coffee, one day; and, while we were all lying insensible, had us carried up to his village. Matters looked rather bad for us for a few days, but we eventually contrived to escape--how, I must tell you some other time; and we then deposed and banished him, putting another man, named Seketulo, in his place. If events have gone well with this fellow, I have no doubt we shall have a visit from him to-morrow morning." CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. EVIL TIDINGS.