“Miserable boy!” exclaimed the Portuguese, exasperated.  “Miserable boy!  Dingo died from a ball that I fired at it.  It is dead, like Mrs. Weldon and her son; dead, as all the survivors of the ‘Pilgrim’ shall die!”

“And as you yourself shall die before long,” replied Dick Sand, whose tranquil look made the Portuguese grow pale.

Negoro, beside himself, was on the point of passing from words to deeds, and strangling his unarmed prisoner with his hands.  Already he had sprung upon him, and was shaking him with fury, when a sudden reflection stopped him.  He remembered that he was going to kill his victim, that all would be over, and that this would spare him the twenty-four hours of torture he intended for him.  He then stood up, said a few words to the overseer, standing impassive, commanded him to watch closely over the prisoner, and went out of the barrack.

Instead of casting him down, this scene had restored all Dick Sand’s moral force.  His physical energy underwent a happy reaction, and at the same time regained the mastery.  In bending over him in his rage, had Negoro slightly loosened the bands that till then had rendered all movement impossible?  It was probable, for Dick Sand thought that his members had more play than before the arrival of his executioner.  The young novice, feeling solaced, said to himself that perhaps it would be possible to get his arms free without too much effort.  Guarded as he was, in a prison firmly shut, that would doubtless be only a torture—­only a suffering less; but it was such a moment in life when the smallest good is invaluable.

Certainly, Dick Sand hoped for nothing.  No human succor could come to him except from outside, and whence could it come to him?  He was then resigned.  To tell the truth, he no longer cared to live.  He thought of all those who had met death before him, and he only aspired to join them.  Negoro had just repeated what Harris had told him:  “Mrs. Weldon and little Jack had succumbed.”  It was, indeed, only too probable that Hercules, exposed to so many dangers, must have perished also, and from a cruel death.  Tom and his companions were at a distance, forever lost to him—­Dick Sand ought to believe it.  To hope for anything but the end of his troubles, by a death that could not be more terrible than his life, would be signal folly.  He then prepared to die, above all throwing himself upon God, and asking courage from Him to go on to the end without giving way.  But thoughts of God are good and noble thoughts!  It is not in vain that one lifts his soul to Him who can do all, and, when Dick Sand had offered his whole sacrifice, he found that, if one could penetrate to the bottom of his heart, he might perhaps discover there a last ray of hope—­that glimmer which a breath from on high can change, in spite of all probabilities, into dazzling light.

The hours passed away.  Night came.  The rays of light, that penetrated through the thatch of the barrack, gradually disappeared.  The last noises of the “tchitoka,” which, during that day had been very silent, after the frightful uproar of the night before—­those last noises died out.  Darkness became very profound in the interior of the narrow prison.  Soon all reposed in the city of Kazounde.