the field wireless of which Frank and Harry had been so proud. He
hacked it to atoms with one of the heavy axes. The tents and
provision boxes were next piled in a heap and set in a blaze.

As the column of dark smoke rose from the ruins of the once happy
camp into the clear sky the order to advance was given and the train
once more moved forward.

They had hardly deserted the clearing before, from the river bank,
half a hundred wild figures appeared.

They were similar in appearance--only even more wild-looking than
the savages fought off by Frank, Harry and Ben the previous day.
Like the others their slashed and scarred faces and clay-daubed lips
showed them to belong to one of the fierce cannibal tribes of the
Bambara region.

Their leader, a tall, thin savage of exceptionally repulsive
appearance, motioned with his fingers to his thick lips for absolute
silence among his followers.

Clutching their great broad-headed war-spears the next moment the
savages slipped into the forest in the direction the Arab and his
band had gone. Steadily they advanced with the quiet stealthy tread
of panthers on the track of their prey.




CHAPTER XIII