Along a damp passage he was conducted, the men carrying lighted candles to show them their way.
Suddenly they came to a halt in a large, cellar-like chamber, and deposited their prisoner on the ground.
"I say," pleaded Clancy, "let me go, won't you? I'll get out of your country right away, if you will."
"Silence! you dog of an Englishman," exclaimed one of the men. "You must die! You sealed your death warrant when you dared to enter the private apartment of one of our chiefs' daughters."
"Oh, I know you will save me," whined the wretch. "You can speak my language, and surely you will not see me killed just because I came to your city a stranger and made a mistake."
"It matters not whether I speak your language or not. To-morrow you must be thrown in the lion's den; you must beg him to spare you, not us."
As if to doubly seal Doc Clancy's death sentence, a terrible roar rang out close at hand.
The villain had journeyed far enough through the African wilds to know what caused it.
It was the roar of a hungry lion.
"That is the fellow you will have to meet in the morning," said the man who had before addressed him. "We will place you in this pit next to him. Sleep well!"