The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-01-13
CHAPTER XVII.
Left In the JunaIe.

~LOWLY Jane turned and walk
 %mM ed back to the cabin. She tried to imagine her wood god by her
 side in the saloon of an ocean liner. She saw him eating with his hands, tearing his food like beast of prey and wiping his greasy fingers upon his thighs. She shuddered-
 She saw him as she introduced him to her friends uncouth, ilIiterate, a boor-and she winced.
 She had reached her room now, and as she sat upon the edge of her bed of ferns and grasses, with one hand rest ing upon her rising and falling bosom, she felt the hard outlines of the mans iocket beneath her waist She drew 1t out, holding it in the palm of her hand for a moment with tear blurred eyes bent upon it. Then she raised it to her lips and, crushing it there, buried her face in the soft ferns, sobbing.
 s.Beast2s she murmured .1Then
 heaven make me, beast, for, man or
 beast am yoursr'
 She did not see Clayton again that day Esmeralda brought her supper to her, and she sent word to her father that she was suffering from the reac- ton following her adventure.
 The next morning Clayton left early with the relief expedition in search of i lieutenant d'Arnot. There were 200 armed men this time, with ten officers and two surgeons and provisions for week. They carried bedding and hammocks, the latter for transporting their sick and wounded
 It was a determined and angry com
  one of relief. They reached the scene Of the skirmish Of the previous expedf- ton shortly after noon, for they were now travelling known trail, and no time was lost in exploring. From there on the elephant trail led straight to Mbonga's village. It was but 2 o'clock when the head of the col umn halted upon the edge of the clear ing
 In a few minutes the village street
 was filled with armed men fighting in an inextricabfe tangle. The revolvers, carbines and cutlasses of the French l men crumpled the native spearmen and struck down the black archers with their bolts half drawn. Soon the battle turned to wild rout and then to grim massacre. for the French sailors had seen bits of DAT not's uniform upon several of the black warriors who opposed them-
 They spared the children and those 1 of the women whom they were not | forced to kill in self defense, but when at length they stopped, panting, blood covered and sweating, it was because 1 there lived to oppose them no single warrior of all the savage village of l AIbonga. | I,v1% l and corner of the village, but no sign of D'Arnot could they find. They l questioned the prisoners by signs. 1 Only excited gestures and expressions 1 of fear could they obtain in response 1 to their inquiries concerning their fel- l low.
 At length all hope left them, and l they prepared to camp for the night 1 within the village.
 kThe prisoners were herded into three l huts, where they were heavily guard 1 ed. Sentries were posted at the barred 1 gates, and finally the village was wrap l ped in the silence of slunber except for the wailing of the native women l for their dead.
 The next morning they set out upon
 the return march. Their original inten- ] ton had been to burn the village, but | this idea was abandoned, and the pris- l oners were left behind, weeping and l moaning, but with roofs to cover them l and a palisade for refuge from the Beasts of the jungle.
 1 Slowly the expedition retraced it's 1 steps of the preceding day. Ten load i ed hammoclxs retarded it's pace In 1 eight of them lay the more seriously wounded, while two swung beneath the weight of the dead