Page:Dick Sands the Boy Captain.djvu/349

 A SLAVE CARAVAN. 321 some five hundred men. Some of the non-fruit-bearing kind of banyan-trees formed the background of the land- scape. Bcneath the shelter of the sycamore, the caravan whîch had been referred to in the conversation between Negoro and Harris had just made a hait. Torn from thcir villages by the agents of the slave-dealer Alvez, the large troop of natives was on its way to the market of Kazonndé, thence to be sent as occasion rcquired cither to the west coast, or to Nyangwé, in the great lake district, to be dispersed into Upper Egypt or Zanzibar. Immediately on rcaching the camp, the four negrocs and old Nan were placed undcr precisely the same treatment as the rest of the captives. In spite of a dcsperate résistance, they were deprived of their weapons, and fastened two and two, one behind another, by means of a pôle about six feet long, forked at each end, and attached to their necks by an iron boit Their arms were left free, that they might carry any burdens, and in order to prevent an attempt to escape a heavy chain was passed round their waists. It was thus in single file, unable to turn either right or left, they would hâve to march hundreds of miles, goaded along their toil- some road by the havildar's whip. The lot of Hercules seemed préférable, exposed though undoubtedly he would be in his flight to hunger, and to the attacks of wild beasts, and to ail the périls of that dreary country. But solitude, with its worst privations, was a thing to be cnvied in com- parison to being in the hands of those pitiless drivers, who did not speak a word of the language of their victims, but communicated with them only by threatening gcsturcs or by actual violence. As a white man, Dîck was not attached to any othcr captive. The drivers were probably afraid to subject him to the same treatment as the negrocs, and he was left unfettered, but placed under the strict surveillance of a havildar. At first he felt considérable surprise at not seeing Harris or Negoro in the camp, as he could not enter- tain a doubt that it was at their instigation the attack had beeo made upon their retreat ; but when he came to rcflect Y