That white man was Dick Sand.  His body, half naked, bore the marks of the tortures he had already suffered by Negoro’s orders.  Tied to this post, he waited for death like a man who has no hope except in another life.

However, the moment had not yet arrived when the barricade would be broken.

On a signal from the queen, the fourth wife, she who was placed at the king’s feet, was beheaded by Kazounde’s executioner, and her blood flowed into the ditch.  It was the beginning of a frightful scene of butchery.  Fifty slaves fell under the executioner’s knife.  The bed of the river ran waves of blood.

During half an hour the victims’ cries mingled with the assistants’ vociferations, and one would seek in vain in that crowd for a sentiment of repugnance or of pity.

At last Queen Moini made a gesture, and the barricade that held back the upper waters gradually opened.  By a refinement of cruelty, the current was allowed to filter down the river, instead of being precipitated by an instantaneous bursting open of the dam.  Slow death instead of quick death!

The water first drowned the carpet of slaves which covered the bottom of the ditch.  Horrible leaps were made by those living creatures, who struggled against asphyxia.  They saw Dick Sand, submerged to the knees, make a last effort to break his bonds.  But the water mounted.  The last heads disappeared under the torrent, that took its course again, and nothing indicated that at the bottom of this river was dug a tomb, where one hundred victims had just perished in honor of Kazounde’s king.

The pen would refuse to paint such pictures, if regard for the truth did not impose the duty of describing them in their abominable reality.  Man is still there, in those sad countries.  To be ignorant of it is not allowable.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XIII.

THE INTERIOR OF A FACTORY.

Harris and Negoro had told a lie in saying that Mrs. Weldon and little Jack were dead.  She, her son, and Cousin Benedict were then in Kazounde.

After the assault on the ant-hill, they had been taken away beyond the camp on the Coanza by Harris and Negoro, accompanied by a dozen native soldiers.

A palanquin, the “kitanda” of the country, received Mrs. Weldon and little Jack.  Why such care on the part of such a man as Negoro?  Mrs. Weldon was afraid to explain it to herself.

The journey from the Counza to Kazounde was made rapidly and without fatigue.  Cousin Benedict, on whom trouble seemed to have no effect, walked with a firm step.  As he was allowed to search to the right and to the left, he did not think of complaining.  The little troop, then, arrived at Kazounde eight days before Ibn Hamis’s caravan.  Mrs. Weldon was shut up, with her child and Cousin Benedict, in Alvez’s establishment.

Little Jack was much better.  On leaving the marshy country, where he had taken the fever, he gradually became better, and now he was doing well.  No doubt neither he nor his mother could have borne the hardships of the caravan; but owing to the manner in which they had made this journey, during which they had been given a certain amount of care, they were in a satisfactory condition, physically at least.