g with all the usual
ceremony.

No protestation was made, neither at court nor from the natives. Alvez
and the other traders had nothing to fear from the accession of this
Queen Moini. With a few presents, a few flattering remarks, they would
easily subject her to their influence. Thus the royal heritage was
transmitted without difficulty. There was terror only in the harem,
and not without reason.

The preparatory labors for the funeral were commenced the same day. At
the end of the principal street of Kazounde flowed a deep and rapid
stream, an affluent of the Coango. The question was to turn this
stream aside, so as to leave its bed dry. It was in that bed that the
royal grave must be dug. After the burial the stream would be restored
to its natural channel.

The natives were busily employed in constructing a dam, that forced
the stream to make a provisional bed across the plain of Kazounde.
At the last tableau of this funeral ceremony the barricade would be
broken, and the torrent would take its old bed again.

Negoro intended Dick Sand to complete the number of victims sacrificed
on the king's tomb. He had been a witness of the young novice's
irresistible movement of anger, when Harris had acquainted him with
the death of Mrs. Weldon and little Jack.

Negoro, cowardly rascal, had not exposed himself to the same fate as
his accomplice. But now, before a prisoner firmly fastened by the feet
and hands, he supposed he had nothing to fear, and resolved to pay
him a visit. Negoro was one of those miserable wretches who are not
satisfied with torturing their victims; they must also enjoy their
sufferings.

Toward the middle of the day, then, he repaired to the barrack where
Dick Sand was guarded, in sight of an overseer. There, closely bound,
was lying the young novice, almost entirely deprived of food for
twenty-four hours, weakened by past misery, tortured by those bands
that entered into his flesh; hardly able to turn himself, he was
waiting for death, no matter how cruel it might be, as a limit to so
many evils.

However, at the sight of Negoro he shuddered from head to foot. He
made an instinctive effort to break the bands that prevented him from
throwing himself on that miserable man and having revenge.

But Hercules himself would not succeed in breaking them. He understood
that it was another kind of contest that was going to take place
between the two, and arming himself with calmness, Dick Sand compell