Alas! Of what value could they now ever be to her beloved country?
But habit and loyalty were so strong within her that she still clung
to the determined hope of eventually delivering the little packet
to her chief.
The natives seemed to have forgotten her existence--no one came
near the hut, not even to bring her food. She could hear them at
the other end of the village laughing and yelling and knew that
they were celebrating with food and native beer--knowledge which
only increased her apprehension. To be prisoner in a native village
in the very heart of an unexplored region of Central Africa--the
only white woman among a band of drunken Negroes! The very thought
appalled her. Yet there was a slight promise in the fact that she
had so far been unmolested--the promise that they might, indeed,
have forgotten her and that soon they might become so hopelessly
drunk as to be harmless.
Darkness had fallen and still no one came. The girl wondered if
she dared venture forth in search of Naratu, Usanga's woman, for
Usanga might not forget that he had promised to return. No one was
near as she stepped out of the hut and made her way toward the part
of the village where the revelers were making merry about a fire.
As she approached she saw the villagers and their guests squatting
in a large circle about the blaze before which a half-dozen naked
warriors leaped and bent and stamped in some grotesque dance.
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