"Just now," said he, "I heard mention of a sheikh. Is the man's name by any chance Bayram; for he is a devil, in truth."
"That is the name of the man who is with von Hardenberg."
"I did not know," said the other, and remained silent for a long time.
"You did not know?" repeated Harry.
"When I agreed to come with you I did not know that the Black Dog of the Cameroons—as I and my brother call him—was to be our enemy. In all the hills and plains and forests of this huge, amazing continent, from the Sahara to Kilima-Njaro, from the Niger to the Nile, there is no man more greatly to be feared than the Black Dog of the Cameroons. He knows neither pity nor fear. There is hardly a valley in these mountains with which he is not acquainted. Small wonder he discovered our hiding-place! He is a foe who cannot be despised. Single-handed he could keep an army of natives at bay. Almost every cartridge in his bandolier, almost every bullet in the chamber of his rifle, means the life's blood of a human being. At one time he was the richest slave-trader in Africa. But I heard the English hunted him down, and that he was starving and penniless in London."
"It was he!" cried Harry, turning sharply to Braid. "He was the man we saw that morning on the mountain-side, who fired into the German bivouac at dawn."
"The sheikh was the man," said the guide. "You should have told me before."
"I blame myself," said Harry. "I know now that I can trust you and your brother with even more than life."
Fernando continued to speak in slow deliberate tones.
"If we are to come out of this alive," said he, "you will do well to take me into your counsels. Moreover, you must follow my advice. I and the Black Dog have an old score to pay. For myself, I am determined to be a debtor no longer." Then, without changing his voice, he turned calmly to Peter Klein. "You must go back to von Hardenberg," said he.