No protestation was made, neither at court nor from the natives.  Alvez and the other traders had nothing to fear from the accession of this Queen Moini.  With a few presents, a few flattering remarks, they would easily subject her to their influence.  Thus the royal heritage was transmitted without difficulty.  There was terror only in the harem, and not without reason.

The preparatory labors for the funeral were commenced the same day.  At the end of the principal street of Kazounde flowed a deep and rapid stream, an affluent of the Coango.  The question was to turn this stream aside, so as to leave its bed dry.  It was in that bed that the royal grave must be dug.  After the burial the stream would be restored to its natural channel.

The natives were busily employed in constructing a dam, that forced the stream to make a provisional bed across the plain of Kazounde.  At the last tableau of this funeral ceremony the barricade would be broken, and the torrent would take its old bed again.

Negoro intended Dick Sand to complete the number of victims sacrificed on the king’s tomb.  He had been a witness of the young novice’s irresistible movement of anger, when Harris had acquainted him with the death of Mrs. Weldon and little Jack.

Negoro, cowardly rascal, had not exposed himself to the same fate as his accomplice.  But now, before a prisoner firmly fastened by the feet and hands, he supposed he had nothing to fear, and resolved to pay him a visit.  Negoro was one of those miserable wretches who are not satisfied with torturing their victims; they must also enjoy their sufferings.

Toward the middle of the day, then, he repaired to the barrack where Dick Sand was guarded, in sight of an overseer.  There, closely bound, was lying the young novice, almost entirely deprived of food for twenty-four hours, weakened by past misery, tortured by those bands that entered into his flesh; hardly able to turn himself, he was waiting for death, no matter how cruel it might be, as a limit to so many evils.

However, at the sight of Negoro he shuddered from head to foot.  He made an instinctive effort to break the bands that prevented him from throwing himself on that miserable man and having revenge.

But Hercules himself would not succeed in breaking them.  He understood that it was another kind of contest that was going to take place between the two, and arming himself with calmness, Dick Sand compelled himself to look Negoro right in the face, and decided not to honor him with a reply, no matter what he might say.

“I believed it to be my duty,” Negoro said to him it first, “to come to salute my young captain for the last time, and to let him know how I regret, for his sake, that he does not command here any longer, as he commanded on board the ‘Pilgrim.’”

And, seeing that Dick Sand did not reply: 

“What, captain, do you no longer recognize your old cook?  He comes, however, to take your orders, and to ask you what he ought to serve for your breakfast.”