This was the method employed for all, and all were submitted to these humiliating trials.  Do not believe that these people are completely indifferent to this treatment!  No, excepting the children, who cannot comprehend the state of degradation to which they are reduced, all, men or women, were ashamed.

Besides, they were not spared injuries and blows.  Coimbra, half drunk, and Alvez’s agents, treated them with extreme brutality, and from their new masters, who had just paid for them in ivory stuffs and beads, they would receive no better treatment.  Violently separated, a mother from her child, a husband from his wife, a brother from a sister, they were not allowed a last caress nor a last kiss, and on the “lakoni” they saw each other for the last time.

In fact, the demands of the trade exacted that the slaves should be sent in different directions, according to their sex.  The traders who buy the men do not buy women.  The latter, in virtue of polygamy, which is legal among the Mussulmans, are sent to the Arabic countries, where they are exchanged for ivory.  The men, being destined to the hardest labor, go to the factories of the two coasts, and are exported either to the Spanish colonies or to the markets of Muscat and Madagascar.  This sorting leads to heart-breaking scenes between those whom the agents separate, and who will die without ever seeing each other again.

The four companions in turn submitted to the common fate.  But, to tell the truth, they did not fear this event.  It was better for them to be exported into a slave colony.  There, at least, they might have a chance to protest.  On the contrary, if sent to the interior, they might renounce all hope of ever regaining their liberty.

It happened as they wished.  They even had the almost unhoped for consolation of not being separated.  They were in brisk demand, being wanted by several traders.  Alvez clapped his hands.  The prices rose.  It was strange to see these slaves of unknown value in the Kazounde market, and Alvez had taken good care to conceal where they came from.  Tom and his friends, not speaking the language of the country, could not protest.

Their master was a rich Arab trader, who in a few days would send them to Lake Tanganyika, the great thoroughfare for slaves; then, from that point, toward the factories of Zanzibar.

Would they ever reach there, through the most unhealthy and the most dangerous countries of Central Africa?  Fifteen hundred miles to march under these conditions, in the midst of frequent wars, raised and carried on between chiefs, in a murderous climate.  Was old Tom strong enough to support such misery?  Would he not fall on the road like old Nan?  But the poor men were not separated.  The chain that held them all was lighter to carry.  The Arab trader would evidently take care of merchandise which promised him a large profit in the Zanzibar market.

Tom, Bat, Acteon, and Austin then left the place.  They saw and heard nothing of the scene which was to end the great “lakoni” of Kazounde.