So utterly inexplicable and uncanny had the entire occurrence been
that there was not a one of them who could find a ray of comfort
penetrating the dead blackness of its ominous portent. What had
happened to one of their number each conceived as being a wholly
possible fate for himself--in fact quite his probable fate. If such
a thing could happen in broad daylight what frightful thing might
not fall to their lot when night had enshrouded them in her mantle
of darkness. They trembled in anticipation.
The white girl in their midst was no less mystified than they; but
far less moved, since sudden death was the most merciful fate to
which she might now look forward. So far she had been subjected
to nothing worse than the petty cruelties of the women, while, on
the other hand, it had alone been the presence of the women that
had saved her from worse treatment at the hands of some of the
men--notably the brutal, black sergeant, Usanga. His own woman
was of the party--a veritable giantess, a virago of the first
magnitude--and she was evidently the only thing in the world of
which Usanga stood in awe. Even though she was particularly cruel
to the young woman, the latter believed that she was her sole
protection from the degraded black tyrant.
Late in the afternoon the band came upon a small palisaded village
of thatched huts set in a clearing in the jungle close beside
a placid river.
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