"He must be a Hindu with that name, and I judge also by the sing-song English he uses. But what is he doing here? That's what I want to know."
"Advance friends," once more the Mahatma spoke. "The men of the Kungoras are brave warriors, they will not harm you for I have given them promise that you are my friends."
"Let's go!" said Dick, touching his horse's sides with his heels, sending the animal trotting into the clearing where the savages had ranged themselves in a huge semicircle.
A file of the Taharan and Gorol warriors followed Dick and Dan into the clearing.
There was a tense pause.
It seemed as though a battle might follow at any moment, for the Taharans and Gorols looked upon all strangers as foes and the blacks were dangerous looking fellows. The Kungora tribe was warlike and powerful, which accounted for the slave raiders leaving them alone.
Tall, well formed and athletic, each man was like an ebony statue, armed with a long bow or else with a slender lance tipped with a leaf-shaped iron point and a broad shield of buffalo hide. The shields were painted with fantastic designs and light as they were could turn a spear thrust or withstand an arrow.
The black warriors were scantily clad with strips of hide and adorned with copper bracelets and neckbands. Their round heads were covered with little pointed caps, under which their rolling eyes and shiny negro features looked fiercely hostile, as they glared at the strange blond savages and the ape-like Gorols.
As Dick reached the center of the cleared space, he wheeled his horse suddenly and looked up at the lowest branches of the trees above the jungle path he had just left, but a dense tangle of vines and moss hung from limb to limb. There was no sign of the man who had spoken to them.
"Raal and his people would say this was black magic," exclaimed Dick, "and I'm half inclined to think it is. Who ever heard of such a strange coincidence? It doesn't happen."