Sharp at 8 o’clock, Mr. Hampton and Mr. Ransome set off the rockets in the square. And as they went up with their comet’s tail of fire, the “Ohs” and “Ahs” of the natives could be heard all over the big enclosure ringed by its grass-thatched huts and lighted by a fire flaming in the center.  
Then Mr. Hampton, who stood full in the glare, held up his hand for silence, and the interpreter cried that now the Great Spirit of the white men was about to speak.
 
To one side of the fire stood Chief Namla and beside him The Prophet, bespectacled and wrapped in a long white cotton robe. He looked both scornful and, to the keen discerning eyes of the only other white men, worried.
 
As for them, they were worried, too. They had cast all on this throw of the . Would they win or lose? Would everything go as planned? Or had failed to connect the radio properly? Or had Frank and Bob fallen down on their part of the job?
 
Silence filled the great square, a silence by the deep breathing of the hundreds assembled, who waited for they knew not what.
 
Then it came. And what a feeling of relieved thankfulness filled the hearts and minds of the white men. Except The Prophet. He started in , stared all about him as if in search of that strange voice—the voice of Samba speaking weighty words in the native tongue. As the voice concluded, amidst a silence which had fallen upon the multitude, leaving them breathless, awe-stricken, mute. The Prophet turned furiously toward Mr. Hampton.
 
“Pig, dog,” he cried, in a voice made squeaky by rage. “I might have known. It is only the radio. I shall show you up.”
 
But he went alone. Of all those hundreds of natives who heretofore had been his admirers, his , almost his slaves, none would have dreamed of invading The Prophet’s hut whence that voice came.
 
Mr. Hampton , and leaning close to his companion whispered:
 
“Jack was right. A scientific man couldn’t be fooled, but would realize we were using the radio. He is falling right into our trap.”
 
Just what he meant could have been understood by anyone inside The Prophet’s hut. For as the furious man, speeding to search for the radio receiving set which he now realized must have been somewhere within, entered the pitch black darkness of the interior, strong hands closed about his throat, all possibility of outcry. And then a gag was thrust into his mouth, and he was propelled through the parted of the rear wall, Where a half-score armed men tossed him up on a rude litter which they raised to their shoulders, after which they off down the between the huts and the wattled wall of the chief’s courtyard and were lost in the darkness.
 
As they melted away in the night, going in the direction of the mountain wall, eight miles away, upon which lay the expedition’s camp, Jack looking after them heaved a tremendous sigh of relief.
 
“Whew,” he remarked to Niellsen. “I’m glad that’s done. But it worked to perfection, didn’t it?”
 
Jack was correct. Men, women and children, every inhabitant of the village was in the square. And, therefore, none saw the shadowy forms of the guards pass between the last huts on the and disappear with their burden.
 
Nor were they ever to see The Prophet again. For, looking ahead, it may be stated that, kept ............