I have not the right to abandon
them. I shall resist to the end. It is my duty.

Dreadful cries are heard in the night. Twenty soldiers have torn some
branches from resinous trees whose branches were above water. Livid
lights in the darkness.

This is the cause of the cries I heard. An attack of crocodiles;
twelve or fifteen of those monsters have thrown themselves in the
darkness on the flank of the caravan.

Women and children have been seized and carried away by the crocodiles
to their "pasture lands"--so Livingstone calls those deep holes where
this amphibious animal deposits its prey, after having drowned it, for
it only eats it when it has reached a certain degree of decomposition.

I have been rudely grazed by the scales of one of these crocodiles. An
adult slave has been seized near me and torn from the fork that held
him by the neck. The fork was broken. What a cry of despair! What a
howl of grief! I hear it still!

_May 7th and 8th_.--The next day they count the victims. Twenty slaves
have disappeared.

At daybreak I look for Tom and his companions. God be praised! they
are living. Alas! ought I to praise God? Is one not happier to be done
with all this misery!

Tom is at the head of the convoy. At a moment when his son Bat made a
turn, the fork was presented obliquely, and Tom was able to see me.

I search in vain for old Nan. Is she in the central group? or has she
perished during that frightful night?

The next day, passed the limit of the inundated plain, after
twenty-four hours in the water. We halt on a hill. The sun dries us
a little. We eat, but what miserable food! A little tapioca, a few
handfuls of maize. Nothing but the troubled water to drink. Prisoners
extended on the ground--how many will not get up!

No! it is not possible that Mrs. Weldon and her son have passed
through so much misery! God would be so gracious to them as to have
them led to Kazounde by another road. The unhappy mother could not
resist.

New case of small-pox in the caravan; the "ndoue," as they say. The
sick could not be able to go far. Will they abandon them?

_May 9th_.--They have begun the march again at sunrise. No laggards.
The overseer's whip has quickly raised those overcome by fatigue or
sickness. Those slaves have a value; they are money. The agents will
not leave them behind while they have strength enough to march.

I am surrounded by living skeletons. They have no longer voice enough
to complain. I