"You, White Man?" said in reply the soldier unconcernedly. "No, our ordersare to take you to the king, but what he will do with you I do notknow. There is to be war between your people and ours, so perhaps hemeans to pound you into medicine for the use of the witch-doctors, orto peg you over an ant-heap as a warning to other white men."

Hadden received this information in silence, but its effect upon hisbrain was bracing, for instantly he began to search out some means ofescape.