to keep up.
Besides, food threatens to fail; soldiers and _pagazis_ would revolt
if their rations were diminished. They dare not retrench from them,
and then so much worse for the captives.

"Let them eat one another!" said the chief.

Then it follows that young slaves, still strong, die without the
appearance of sickness. I remember what Dr. Livingstone has said on
that subject: "Those unfortunates complain of the heart; they put
their hands there, and they fall. It is positively the heart
that breaks! That is peculiar to free men, reduced to slavery
unexpectedly!"

To-day, twenty captives who could no longer drag themselves along,
have been massacred with axes, by the _havildars_! The Arab chief is
not opposed to massacre. The scene has been frightful!

Poor old Nan has fallen under the knife, in this horrible butchery!
I strike against her corpse in passing! I cannot even give her a
Christian burial! She is first of the "Pilgrim's" survivors whom God
has called back to him. Poor good creature! Poor Nan!

I watch for Dingo every night. It returns no more! Has misfortune
overtaken it or Hercules? No! no! I do not want to believe it! This
silence, which appears so long to me, only proves one thing--it is
that Hercules has nothing new to tell me yet. Besides, he must be
prudent, and on his guard.

* * * * *

CHAPTER IX.

KAZOUNDE.

ON May 26th, the caravan of slaves arrived at Kazounde. Fifty per
cent. of the prisoners taken in the last raid had fallen on the road.
Meanwhile, the business was still good for the traders; demands were
coming in, and the price of slaves was about to rise in the African
markets.

Angola at this period did an immense trade in blacks. The Portuguese
authorities of St. Paul de Loanda, or of Benguela, could not stop it
without difficulty, for the convoys traveled towards the interior
of the African continent. The pens near the coast overflowed with
prisoners, the few slavers that succeeded in eluding the cruisers
along the shore not being sufficient to carry all of them to the
Spanish colonies of America.

Kazounde, situated three hundred miles from the mouth of the Coanza,
is one of the principal "lakonis," one of the most important markets
of the province. On its grand square the "tchitoka" business is
transacted; there, the slaves are exposed and sold. It is from this
point that the caravans radiate toward the region of the great lakes.