no pity was to be expected from their masters.

Nan was not better treated. She made part of a group of women who
occupied the middle of the convoy. They had chained her with a young
mother of two children, one at the breast, the other aged three years,
who walked with difficulty. Nan, moved with pity, had burdened herself
with the little creature, and the poor slave had thanked her by a
tear. Nan then carried the infant, at the same time, sparing her the
fatigue, to which she would have yielded, and the blows the overseer
would have given her. But it was a heavy burden for old Nan. She felt
that her strength would soon fail her, and then she thought of little
Jack. She pictured him to herself in his mother's arms. Sickness had
wasted him very much, but he must be still heavy for Mrs. Weldon's
weakened arms. Where was she? What would become of her? Would her old
servant ever see her again?

Dick Sand had been placed almost in the rear of the convoy. He could
neither perceive Tom, nor his companions, nor Nan. The head of the
long caravan was only visible to him when it was crossing some plain.
He walked, a prey, to the saddest thoughts, from which the agents'
cries hardly drew his attention. He neither thought of himself, nor
the fatigues he must still support, nor of the tortures probably
reserved for him by Negoro. He only thought of Mrs. Weldon. In rain
he sought on the ground, on the brambles by the paths, on the lower
branches of the trees, to find some trace of her passage. She could
not have taken another road, if, as everything indicated, they
were leading her to Kazounde. What would he not give to find some
indication of her march to the destination where they themselves were
being led!

Such was the situation of the young novice and his companions in body
and mind. But whatever they might have to fear for themselves, great
as was their own sufferings, pity took possession of them on seeing
the frightful misery of that sad troop of captives, and the revolting
brutality of their masters. Alas! they could do nothing to succor the
afflicted, nothing to resist the others.

All the country situated east of the Coanza was only a forest for over
an extent of twenty miles. The trees, however, whether they perish
under the biting of the numerous insects of these countries, or
whether troops of elephants beat them down while they are still young,
are less crowded here than in the country next to the seacoast. The
ma