howled Negoro. "You count on help of some
kind, perhaps--help at Kazounde, where Alvez and I are all-powerful!
You are a fool! You say to yourself, perhaps, that your companions are
still there, that old Tom and the others. Undeceive yourself. It is a
long time since they were sold and sent to Zanzibar--too fortunate if
they do not die of fatigue on the way!"

"God has a thousand ways of doing justice," replied Dick Sand. "The
smallest instrument is sufficient for him. Hercules is free."

"Hercules!" exclaimed Negoro, striking the ground with his foot; "he
perished long ago under the lions' and panthers' teeth. I regret
only one thing, that is, that those ferocious beasts should have
forestalled my vengeance!"

"If Hercules is dead," replied Dick Sand, "Dingo is alive. A dog like
that, Negoro, is more than enough to take revenge on a man of your
kind. I know you well, Negoro; you are not brave. Dingo will seek for
you; it will know how to find you again. Some day you will die under
his teeth!"

"Miserable boy!" exclaimed the Portuguese, exasperated. "Miserable
boy! Dingo died from a ball that I fired at it. It is dead, like Mrs.
Weldon and her son; dead, as all the survivors of the 'Pilgrim' shall
die!"

"And as you yourself shall die before long," replied Dick Sand, whose
tranquil look made the Portuguese grow pale.

Negoro, beside himself, was on the point of passing from words to
deeds, and strangling his unarmed prisoner with his hands. Already
he had sprung upon him, and was shaking him with fury, when a sudden
reflection stopped him. He remembered that he was going to kill his
victim, that all would be over, and that this would spare him the
twenty-four hours of torture he intended for him. He then stood up,
said a few words to the overseer, standing impassive, commanded him to
watch closely over the prisoner, and went out of the barrack.

Instead of casting him down, this scene had restored all Dick Sand's
moral force. His physical energy underwent a happy reaction, and at
the same time regained the mastery. In bending over him in his rage,
had Negoro slightly loosened the bands that till then had rendered all
movement impossible? It was probable, for Dick Sand thought that his
members had more play than before the arrival of his executioner. The
young novice, feeling solaced, said to himself that perhaps it would
be possible to get his arms free without too much effort. Guarded
as he was, in a prison fi