I confess I was consumed with an intense curiosity to learn their history--even to see them.

I wondered if they could tell me anything of the great world now so remote in my mind.

As a matter of courtesy, however, I spent the greater part of the day with the chief, for any man who manifests a desire for women's society loses caste immediately; and in the evening, when the fact of my presence among the tribe had become more extensively known, and their curiosity aroused by the stories that Yamba had taken care to circulate, I attended a great _corroboree_, which lasted nearly the whole of the night.

As I was sitting near a big fire, joining in the chanting and festivities, Yamba noiselessly stole to my side, and whispered in my ear that _she had found the two white women_.
I remember I trembled with excitement at the prospect of meeting them.
They were very young, Yamba added, and spoke "my" language--I never said "English," because this word would have conveyed nothing to her; and she also told me that the prisoners were in a dreadful state of misery.

It was next explained to me that the girls, according to native custom, were the absolute property of the chief.