of the cunning Usanga, but would not
his woman suspect something of his intentions? She was no fool and,
further, being imbued with insane jealousy she was ever looking
for some overt act upon the part of her ebon lord. Bertha Kircher
felt that only she might save her and that she would save her if
word could be but gotten to her. But how?

Left alone and away from the eyes of her captors for the first time
since the previous night, the girl immediately took advantage of
the opportunity to assure herself that the papers she had taken
from the body of Hauptmann Fritz Schneider were still safely sewn
inside one of her undergarments.

Alas! Of what value could they now ever be to her beloved country?
But habit and loyalty were so strong within her that she still clung
to the determined hope of eventually delivering the little packet
to her chief.

The natives seemed to have forgotten her existence--no one came
near the hut, not even to bring her food. She could hear them at
the other end of the village laughing and yelling and knew that
they were celebrating with food and native beer--knowledge which
only increased her apprehension. To be prisoner in a native village
in the very heart of an unexplored region of Central Africa--the
only white woman among a band of drunken Negroes! The very thought
appalled her. Yet there was a slight promise in the fact that she
had so far been unmolested--the promise that they might, indeed,
have forgotten her and that soon they might become so hopelessly
drunk as to be harmless.

Darkness had fallen and still no one came. The girl wondered if
she dared venture forth in search of Naratu, Usanga's woman, for
Usanga might not forget that he had promised to return. No one was
near as she stepped out of the hut and made her way toward the part
of the village where the revelers were making merry about a fire.
As she approached she saw the villagers and their guests squatting
in a large circle about the blaze before which a half-dozen naked
warriors leaped and bent and stamped in some grotesque dance.
Pots of food and gourds of drink were being passed about among
the audience. Dirty hands were plunged into the food pots and the
captured portions devoured so greedily that one might have thought
the entire community had been upon the point of starvation. The
gourds they held to their lips until the beer ran down their chins
and the vessels were wrested from them by greedy neighbors. The
dr