Now Jeekie, abandoning the main road, led them up a stream, walking in
the water so that their footsteps might leave no trace, and thus away
into the barren mountains which rose between them and the great swamp.
On the crest of these mountains Alan turned and looked back towards
Bonsa Town. There far across the fertile valley was the hateful,
river-encircled place. There fell the great cataract in the roar of
which he had lived for so many weeks. There were the black cedars and
there gleamed the roofs of the Gold House, his prison where dwelt the
Asika and the dreadful fetishes of which she was the priestess. To him
it was like the vision of a nightmare, he could scarcely think it real.
And yet by this time doubtless they sought him far and wide. What mood,
he wondered, would the Asika be in when she learned of his escape and
the fashion of it, and how would she greet him if he were recaptured and
taken back to her? Well, he would not be recaptured. He had still some
cartridges and he would fight till they killed him, or failing that,
save the last of them for himself. Never, never could he endure to be
dragged back to Bonsa Town there to live and die.

They went on across the mountains, till in the afternoon once more they
saw the road running beneath them like a ribbon, and at the end of it
the lagoon. Now they rested a while and held a consultation while they
ate. Across that lagoon they could not escape without a canoe.

"Lord," said the Mungana presently, "yesterday when these cannibals
were let go a swift runner was sent forward commanding that a good boat
should be provisioned and made ready for them, and by now doubtless this
has been done. Let them descend to the road, walk on to the bay and ask
for the boat. Look, yonder, far away a tongue of land covered with trees
juts out into the lake. We will make our way thither and after nightfall