“One of Alvez’s agents has been killed by this white man,” returned Negoro.

“Yes, my agent, Harris,” replied the trader, “and his death must be avenged!”

“Send that white man to King Massongo, on the Upper Zaire, among the Assonas.  They will cut him in pieces.  They will eat him alive.  They have not forgotten the taste of human flesh!” exclaimed Moini Loungga.

He was, in fact, the king of a tribe of man-eaters, that Massongo.  It is only too true that in certain provinces of Central Africa cannibalism is still openly practised.  Livingstone states it in his “Notes of Travel.”  On the borders of the Loualaba the Manyemas not only eat the men killed in the wars, but they buy slaves to devour them, saying that “human flesh is easily salted, and needs little seasoning.”  Those cannibals Cameron has found again among the Moene-Bongga, where they only feast on dead bodies after steeping them for several days in a running stream.  Stanley has also encountered those customs of cannibalism among the inhabitants of the Oukonson.  Cannibalism is evidently well spread among the tribes of the center.

But, cruel as was the kind of death proposed by the king for Dick Sand, it did not suit Negoro, who did not care to give up his victim.

“It was here,” said he, “that the white man killed our comrade Harris.”

“It is here that he ought to die!” added Alvez.

“Where you please, Alvez,” replied Moini Loungga; “but a drop of fire-water for a drop of blood!”

“Yes,” replied the trader, “fire-water, and you will see that it well merits that name!  We shall make it blaze, this water!  Jose-Antonio Alvez will offer a punch to the King Moini Loungga.”

The drunkard shook his friend Alvez’s hands.  He could not contain his joy.  His wives, his courtiers shared his ecstasy.  They had never seen brandy blaze, and doubtless they counted on drinking it all blazing.  Then, after the thirst for alcohol, the thirst for blood, so imperious among these savages, would be satisfied also.

Poor Dick Sand!  What a horrible punishment awaited him.  When we think of the terrible or grotesque effects of intoxication in civilized countries, we understand how far it can urge barbarous beings.

We will readily believe that the thought of torturing a white could displease none of the natives, neither Jose-Antonio Alvez, a negro like themselves, nor Coimbra, a mongrel of black blood, nor Negoro either, animated with a ferocious hatred against the whites.

The evening had come, an evening without twilight, that was going to make day change tonight almost at once, a propitious hour for the blazing of the brandy.

It was truly a triumphant idea of Alvez’s, to offer a punch to this negro majesty, and to make him love brandy under a new form.  Moini Loungga began to find that fire-water did not sufficiently justify its name.  Perhaps, blazing and burning, it would tickle more agreeably the blunted papillas of his tongue.