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AN EXCITING CHASE. 423 Kazonndé, and had no apprehensions about herself on her way to Mossamedes, knowing that it was to the interest of Alvez and Negoro alike to attend carefully to her wants.

Upon the terms of the covenant being thus arranged, Mrs. Weldon wrote such a letter to her husband as she knew would bring him with all speed to Mossamedes, but she left it entirely to Negoro to represent himself in whatever light he chose. Once in possession of the document, Negoro lost no time in starting on his errand. The very next morning, taking with him about twenty negroes, he set off towards the north, alleging to Alvez as his motive for taking that direction, that he was not only going to embark somewhere at the mouth of the Congo, but that he was anxious to keep as far as possible from the prisonhouses of the Portuguese, with which already he had been involuntarily only too familiar.

After his departure, Mrs. Weldon resolved to make the best of her period of imprisonment, aware that it could hardly be less than four months before he would return. She had no desire to go beyond the precincts assigned her, even had the privilege been allowed her; but warned by Negoro that Hercules was still free, and might at any time attempt a rescue, Alvez had no thought of permitting her any unnecessary liberty. Her life therefore soon resumed its previous monotony.

The daily routine went on within the enclosure pretty much as in other parts of the town, the women all being employed in various labours for the benefit of their husbands and masters. The rice was pounded with wooden pestles; the maize was peeled and winnowed, previously to extracting the granulous substance for the drink which they call mtyellé; the sorghum had to be gathered in, the season of its ripening being marked by festive observances; there was a fragrant oil to be expressed from a kind of olive named the mpafoo; the cotton had to be spun on spindles, which were hardly less than a foot and a half in length; there was the bark of trees to be woven into textures for wearing; the manioc had to be dug up, and