Dick Sand had been placed almost in the rear of the convoy.  He could neither perceive Tom, nor his companions, nor Nan.  The head of the long caravan was only visible to him when it was crossing some plain.  He walked, a prey, to the saddest thoughts, from which the agents’ cries hardly drew his attention.  He neither thought of himself, nor the fatigues he must still support, nor of the tortures probably reserved for him by Negoro.  He only thought of Mrs. Weldon.  In rain he sought on the ground, on the brambles by the paths, on the lower branches of the trees, to find some trace of her passage.  She could not have taken another road, if, as everything indicated, they were leading her to Kazounde.  What would he not give to find some indication of her march to the destination where they themselves were being led!

Such was the situation of the young novice and his companions in body and mind.  But whatever they might have to fear for themselves, great as was their own sufferings, pity took possession of them on seeing the frightful misery of that sad troop of captives, and the revolting brutality of their masters.  Alas! they could do nothing to succor the afflicted, nothing to resist the others.

All the country situated east of the Coanza was only a forest for over an extent of twenty miles.  The trees, however, whether they perish under the biting of the numerous insects of these countries, or whether troops of elephants beat them down while they are still young, are less crowded here than in the country next to the seacoast.  The march, then, under the trees, would not present obstacles.  The shrubs might be more troublesome than the trees.  There was, in fact, an abundance of those cotton-trees, seven to eight feet high, the cotton of which serves to manufacture the black and white striped stuffs used in the interior of the province.

In certain places, the soil transformed itself into thick jungles, in which the convoy disappeared.  Of all the animals of the country, the elephants and giraffes alone were taller than those reeds which resemble bamboos, those herbs, the stalks of which measure an inch in diameter.  The agents must know the country marvelously well, not to be lost in these jungles.

Each day the caravan set out at daybreak, and only halted at midday for an hour.  Some packs containing tapioca were then opened, and this food was parsimoniously distributed to the slaves.  To this potatoes were added, or goat’s meat and veal, when the soldiers had pillaged some village in passing.  But the fatigue had been such, the repose so insufficient, so impossible even during these rainy nights, that when the hour for the distribution of food arrived the prisoners could hardly eat.  So, eight days after the departure from the Coanza, twenty had fallen by the way, at the mercy of the beasts that prowled behind the convoy.  Lions, panthers and leopards waited for the victims which could not fail them, and each evening after sunset their roaring sounded at such a short distance that one might fear a direct attack.