Above this crowd, which composed the royal cortege, waved some flags and standards, then at the ends of spears the bleached skulls of the rival chiefs whom Moini Loungga had vanquished.

When the king had quitted his palanquin, acclamations burst forth from all sides.  The soldiers of the caravan discharged their old guns, the low detonations of which were but little louder than the vociferations of the crowd.  The overseers, after rubbing their black noses with cinnabar powder, which they carried in a sack, bowed to the ground.  Then Alvez, advancing in his turn, handed the king a supply of fresh tobacco—­“soothing herb,” as they call it in the country.  Moini Loungga had great need of being soothed, for he was, they did not know why, in a very bad humor.

At the same time Alvez, Coimbra, Ibn Hamis, and the Arab traders, or mongrels, came to pay their court to the powerful sovereign of Kazounde.  “Marhaba,” said the Arabs, which is their word of welcome in the language of Central Africa.  Others clapped their hands and bowed to the ground.  Some daubed themselves with mud, and gave signs of the greatest servility to this hideous majesty.

Moini Loungga hardly looked at all these people, and walked, keeping his limbs apart, as if the ground were rolling and pitching.  He walked in this manner, or rather he rolled in the midst of waves of slaves, and if the traders feared that he might take a notion to apportion some of the prisoners to himself, the latter would no less dread falling into the power of such a brute.

Negoro had not left Alvez for a moment, and in his company presented his homage to the king.  Both conversed in the native language, if, however, that word “converse” can be used of a conversation in which Moini Loungga only took part by monosyllables that hardly found a passage through his drunken lips.  And still, did he not ask his friend, Alvez, to renew his supply of brandy just exhausted by large libations?

“King Loungga is welcome to the market of Kazounde,” said the trader.

“I am thirsty,” replied the monarch.

“He will take his part in the business of the great ‘lakoni,’” added Alvez.

“Drink!” replied Moini Loungga.

“My friend Negoro is happy to see the King of Kazounde again, after such a long absence.”

“Drink!” repeated the drunkard, whose whole person gave forth a disgusting odor of alcohol.

“Well, some ‘pombe’! some mead!” exclaimed Jose-Antonio Alvez, like a man who well knew what Moini Loungga wanted.

“No, no!” replied the king; “my friend Alvez’s brandy, and for each drop of his fire-water I shall give him——­”

“A drop of blood from a white man!” exclaimed Negoro, after making a sign to Alvez, which the latter understood and approved.

“A white man!  Put a white man to death!” repeated Moini Loungga, whose ferocious instincts were aroused by the Portuguese’s proposition.