“Perhaps,” she added, “it would have been better to have remained at Kazounde.”

“What a fool I was!” cried Hercules.

“No, Hercules, no!” said Dick Sand.  “These wretches would have found means to draw Mr. Weldon into some new trap.  Let us flee together, and without delay.  We shall reach the coast before Negoro can return to Mossamedes.  There, the Portuguese authorities will give us aid and protection; and when Alvez comes to take his one hundred thousand dollars—­”

“A hundred thousand blows on the old scoundrel’s skull!” cried Hercules; “and I will undertake to keep the count.”

However, here was a new complication, although it was very evident that Mrs. Weldon would not dream of returning to Kazounde.  The point now was to anticipate Negoro.  All Dick Sand’s projects must tend toward that end.

Dick Sand was now putting in practise the plan which he had long contemplated, of gaining the coast by utilizing the current of a river or a stream.  Now, the watercourse was there; its direction was northward, and it was possible that it emptied into the Zaire.  In that case, instead of reaching St. Paul de Loanda, it would be at the mouth of the great river that Mrs. Weldon and her companions would arrive.  This was not important, because help would not fail them in the colonies of Lower Guinea.

Having decided to descend the current of this river, Dick Sand’s first idea was to embark on one of the herbaceous rafts, a kind of floating isle (of which Cameron has often spoken), which drifts in large numbers on the surface of African rivers.

But Hercules, while roaming at night on the bank, had been fortunate enough to find a drifting boat.  Dick Sand could not hope for anything better, and chance had served him kindly.  In fact, it was not one of those narrow boats which the natives generally use.

The perogue found by Hercules was one of those whose length exceeds thirty feet, and the width four—­and they are carried rapidly on the waters of the great lakes by the aid of numerous paddles.  Mrs. Weldon and her companions could install themselves comfortably in it, and it was sufficient to keep it in the stream by means of an oar to descend the current of the river.

At first, Dick Sand, wishing to pass unseen, had formed a project to travel only at night.  But to drift twelve hours out of the twenty-four, was to double the length of a journey which might be quite long.  Happily, Dick Sand had taken a fancy to cover the perogue with a roof of long grasses, sustained on a rod, which projected fore and aft.  This, when on the water, concealed even the long oar.  One would have said that it was a pile of herbs which drifted down stream, in the midst of floating islets.  Such was the ingenious arrangement of the thatch, that the birds were deceived, and, seeing there some grains to pilfer, red-beaked gulls, “arrhinisgas” of black plumage, and gray and white halcyons frequently came to rest upon it.