ON May 26th, the 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 authorities of St. Paul de Loanda, or of Benguela, could not stop it without difficulty, for the traveled towards the interior of the African continent. The pens near the coast with prisoners, the few slavers that succeeded in the cruisers along the shore not being sufficient to carry all of them to the Spanish colonies of America.
 
Kazounde, 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 ; there, the slaves are exposed and sold. It is from this point that the radiate toward the region of the great lakes.
 
Kazounde, like all the large towns of Central Africa, is divided into two distinct parts. One is the quarter of the Arab, Portuguese or native traders, and it contains their pens; the other is the residence of the negro king, some crowned drunkard, who through terror, and lives from supplies furnished by the .
 
At Kazounde, the commercial quarter then belonged to that Jose-Antonio Alvez, of whom Harris and Negoro had spoken, they being simply agents in his pay. This 's principal establishment was there, he had a second at Bihe, and a third at Cassange, in Benguela, which Cameron visited some years later.
 
Imagine a large central street, on each side groups of houses, "tembes," with flat roofs, walls of baked earth, and a square court which served as an enclosure for cattle. At the end of the street was the vast "tchitoka" surrounded by slave-pens. Above this collection of buildings rose some enormous banyans, whose branches swayed with movements. Here and there great palms, with their heads in the air, drove the dust on the streets like brooms. Twenty birds of watched over the public health. Such is the business quarter of Kazounde.
 
Near by ran the Louhi, a river whose course, still undetermined, is an , or at least a sub-affluent, of the Coango, a of the Zoire.
 
The residence of the King of Kazounde, which borders on the business quarter, is a confused collection of ill-built hovels, which spread over the space of a mile square. Of these hovels, some are open, others are inclosed by a palisade of reeds, or bordered with a hedge of fig-trees. In one particular enclosure, surrounded by a fence of , thirty of these huts served us for the chief's slaves, in another group lived his wives, and a "tembe," still larger and higher, was half hidden in a of cassada. Such was the residence of the King of Kazounde, a man of fifty—named Moini Loungga; and already almost deprived of the power of his . He had not four thousand of soldiers there, where the principal Portuguese traders could count twenty thousand, and he could no longer, as in former times, decree the sacrifice of twenty-five or thirty slaves a day.
 
This king was, besides, a prematurely-aged man, by , crazed by strong drink, a ferocious , mutilating his subjects, his officers or his ministers, as the seized him, cutting the nose and ears off some, and the foot or the hand from others. His own death, not unlooked for, would be received without regret.
 
A single man in all Kazounde might, perhaps, lose by the death of Moini Loungga. This was the contractor, Jose-Antonio Alvez, who agreed very well with the drunkard, whose authority was recognized by the whole province. If the accession of his first wife, Queen Moini, should be contested, the States of Moini Loungga might be invaded by a neighboring competitor, one of the kings of Oukonson. The latter, being younger and more active, had already seized some villages belonging to the Kazounde government. He had in his services another trader, a rival of Alvez Tipo-Tipo, a black Arab of a pure race, whom Cameron met at N'yangwe.
 
What was this Alvez, the real sovereign under the of an imbruted negro, whose he had developed and served?
 
Jose-Antonio Alvez, already advanced in years, was not, as one might suppose, a "msoungou," that is to say, a man of the white race. There was nothing Portuguese about him but his name, borrowed, no doubt, for the needs of commerce. He was a real negro, well known among traders, and called Kenndele. He was born, in fact, at Donndo, or the borders of the Coanza. He had commenced by being simply the agent of the slave-brokers, and would have finished as a famous trader, that is to say, in the skin of an old , who called himself the most honest man in the world.
 
Cameron met this Alvez in the latter part of 1874, at Kilemmba, the capital of Kassonngo, chief of Ouroua. He guided Cameron with his caravan to his own establishment at Bihe, over a route of seven hundred miles. The of slaves, on arriving at Kazounde, had been conducted to the large square.
 
It was the 26th of May. Dick Sand's calculations were then verified. The journey had lasted thirty-eight days from the departure of the army encamped on the banks of the Coanza. Five weeks of the most fearful that human beings could support.
 
It was noon when the train entered Kazounde. The drums were beaten, horns were blown in the midst of the of fire-arms. The soldiers guarding the caravan discharged their guns in the air, and the men employed by Jose-Antonio Alvez replied with interest. All these bandits were happy at meeting again, after an absence which had lasted for four months. They were now going to rest and make up for lost time in excesses and idleness.
 
The prisoners then formed a total of two hundred and fifty, the majority being completely exhausted. After having been driven like cattle, they were to be shut up in pens, which American farmers would not have used for pigs. Twelve or fifteen hundred other captives awaited them, all of whom would be exposed in the market at Kazounde on the next day but one. These pens were filled up with the slaves from the caravan. The heavy forks had been taken off them, but they were still in chains.
 
The "pagazis" had stopped on the square after having disposed of their loads of ivory, which the Kazounde would deliver. Then, being paid with a few yards of calico or other stuff at the highest price, they would return and join some other caravan.
 
Old Tom and his companions had been freed from the iron collar which they had carried for five weeks. Bat and his father embraced each other, and all shook hands; but no one ventured to speak. What could they say that would not be an expression of despair. Bat, Acteon and Austin, all three vigorous, accustomed to hard work, had been able to resist ; but old Tom, weakened by privations, was nearly exhausted. A few more days and his would have been left, like poor Nan's, as food for the beasts of the province.
 
As soon as they arrived, the four men had been placed in a narrow pen, and the door had been at once shut upon them. There they had found some food, and they awaited the trader's visit, with whom, although quite in vain, they intended to urge the fact that they were Americans.
 
Dick Sand had remained alone on the square, under the special care of a keeper.
 
At length he was at Kazounde, where he did not doubt that Mrs. Weldon, little , and Cousin Benedict had preceded him. He had looked for them in crossing the various quarters of the town, even in the depths of the "tembes" that lined the streets, on this "tchitoka" now almost .
 
Mrs. Weldon was not there.
 
"Have they not brought her here?" he asked himself. "But where could she be? No; Hercules cannot be mistaken. Then, again, he must have learned the secret designs of Negoro and Harris; yet they, too—I do not see them."
 
Dick Sand felt the most painful anxiety. He could understand that Mrs. Weldon, retained a prisoner, would be from him. But Harris and Negoro, particularly the latter, should hasten to see him, now in their power, if only to enjoy their triumph—to insult him, torture him, perhaps themselves. From the fact that they were not there, must he conclude that they had taken another direction, and that Mrs. Weldon was to be conducted to some other point of Central Africa? Should the presence of the American and the Portuguese be the signal for his punishment, Dick Sand impatiently desired it. Harris and Negoro at Kazounde, was for him the certainty that Mrs. Weldon and her child were also there.
 
Dick Sand then told himself that, since the night when Dingo had brought him Hercules's note, the dog had not been seen. The young man had prepared an answer at great risks. In it he told Hercules to think only of Mrs. Weldon, not to ............