“Why,” said Leith, speaking slowly and distinctly, “you are in the hands of the Wizards of the Centipede.  I am their head, and if you are not extremely lucky you will make a sacrifice to—­”

Something fell upon my head with tremendous force at that moment, but as the blow descended Holman fired, and even as I fought to escape the grip of the strong fingers that twined themselves around my neck, I realized with a great wave of happiness that the bulk in front of me had pitched forward when the shot had shattered the silence.

In a wild bedlam of oaths and shouts we fought and struggled.  The “tivo” dancers had followed upon our track through the long afternoon, and the time that we had lost in locating Leith had given them an opportunity to come up with us.  In the gloom we threshed backward and forward, but our efforts to escape were vain.  The one-eyed white man appeared mysteriously out of the shadows to help the huge natives, and in three minutes Holman and I were tied hand and foot and stretched out near the unfortunate Professor, who, with bound limbs, was sitting up in the centre of the grassy clearing where Leith and he had been exchanging personalities.  There were no signs of the girls, and I wondered, as my brain recovered from the effects of the blow, what had happened to them.

Holman’s voice put a question that roused me from my half stupor.

“Did I kill him?” cried the young fellow.  “Tell me!”

The question was answered by a stream of blasphemy that came from Leith himself.  The big ruffian had fallen into a bunch of ribbon-grass, but now, with the assistance of One Eye, he got to his feet and staggered toward us.  From the actions of his white partner, I surmised that Holman’s bullet had struck him in the left shoulder, and the surmise proved true.  The attack of the dancers had jerked the youngster’s arm, and the wound was twelve inches above the point that Holman had aimed at.

With One Eye and the three dancers holding him upon his feet, and the blood dripping from the wound, he kicked us furiously, howling unspeakable imprecations as he drove his heavy boots against our ribs.  We had met the real Leith at last.  The devilishness that we had sensed behind the lustreless eyes blazed forth in full fury, and to me, familiar as I was with all the weird and wonderful curse phraseology used by the skippers and mates of the island boats, his anathemas impressed me as being the most blood curdling oaths that had ever come to my ears.  The man was a devil at that minute.  His tremendous strength made the restraining efforts of the other four useless, and we were in danger of being kicked to death if a merciful interruption had not stopped him.  The horrified Professor, who was sitting upright during the exhibition of brutality, lifted up his voice in protest, and his shrill denunciations brought a cry out of the surrounding gloom.

“Father! father!  Where are you, father?”