she cried. "I am afraid."

But Esteban was afraid, too, and he had de­cided that the company of this little negro girl would be better than no company at all in the depths of the lonely jungle. Possibly when day­light came he would let her go back to her peo­ple, but tonight he shuddered at the thought of entering the jungle without human companion­ship.

Uhha tried to tear herself free from his grasp. She struggled like a little lion-cub, and at last would have raised her voice in a wild scream for help had not Miranda suddenly clapped his palm across her mouth, lifted her bodily from the ground and running swiftly across the clearing disappeared into the jungle.

Behind them the warriors of Obebe the can­nibal slept in peaceful ignorance of the sudden tragedy that had entered the life of little Uhha and before them, far out in the jungle, a lion roared thunderously.