lar grudge against
you."

"It seemed so, Harris, but it will have a grudge against me no
longer!"

"And why did it detest you so much, comrade?"

"Oh! an old affair to settle between it and me."

"An old affair?" replied Harris.

Negoro said no more about it, and Harris concluded that the Portuguese
had been silent on some past adventure, but he did not insist on
knowing it.

A few moments later, both, descending the course of the brook, went
toward the Coanza, across the forest.

* * * * *

CHAPTER III.

ON THE MARCH.

Africa! That name so terrible under the present circumstances, that
name which he must now substitute for that of America, was not for an
instant out of Dick Sand's thoughts. When the young novice traced back
the last weeks, it was to ask himself how the "Pilgrim" had ended
by reaching this dangerous shore, how it had doubled Cape Horn, and
passed from one ocean to the other! He could now explain to himself
why, in spite of the rapid motion of his vessel, land was so long
coming in sight, because the length of the distance which he should
have made to reach the American coast had been doubled without his
knowledge.

"Africa! Africa!" Dick Sand repeated.

Then, suddenly, while he called up with tenacious mind all the
incidents of this inexplicable voyage, he felt that his compass must
have been injured. He remembered, too, that the first compass had been
broken, and that the log-line had snapped--a fact which had made it
impossible for him to establish the speed of the "Pilgrim."

"Yes," thought he, "there remained but one compass on board, one only,
the indications of which I could not control! And one night I was
awakened by a cry from old Tom. Negoro was there, aft. He had just
fallen on the binnacle. May he not have put it out of order?"

Dick Sand was growing enlightened. He had his finger on the truth. He
now understood all that was ambiguous in Negoro's conduct. He saw
his hand in this chain of incidents which had led to the loss of the
"Pilgrim," and had so fearfully endangered those on board of her.

But what, then, was this miserable man? Had he been a sailor and known
so well how to hide the fact? Was he capable of contriving this odious
plot which had thrown the ship on the coast of Africa?

At any rate, if obscure points still existed in the past, the present
could offer no more of them. The young novice knew only too well that
he