The girl was almost crushed by terror and disappointment.To have been thus close to safety and then to have allhope snatched away by a cruel stroke of fate seemedunendurable. The man was disappointed, too, but more washe angry. He noted the remnants of the uniforms upon theblacks and immediately he demanded to know where weretheir officers.

"They cannot understand you," said the girl and so in thebastard tongue that is the medium of communication betweenthe Germans and the blacks of their colony, she repeated thewhite man's question.

Usanga grinned. "You know where they are, white woman,"he replied. "They are dead, and if this white man does notdo as I tell him, he, too, will be dead."

"What do you want of him?" asked the girl.

"I want him to teach me how to fly like a bird," repliedUsanga.

Bertha Kircher looked her astonishment, but repeated thedemand to the lieutenant.

The Englishman meditated for a moment. "He wants tolearn to fly, does he?" he repeated. "Ask him if he will give usour freedom if I teach him to fly."

The girl put the question to Usanga, who, degraded, cun-ning, and entirely unprincipled, was always perfectly willing topromise anything whether he had any intentions of fulfillinghis promises or not, and so immediately assented to the propo-sition.

"Let the white man teach me to fly," he said, "and I willtake you back close to the settlements of your people, but inreturn for this I shall keep the great bird," and he waved ablack hand in the direction of the aeroplane.

When Bertha Kircher had repeated Usanga's propositionto the aviator, the latter shrugged his shoulders and with awry face finally agreed. "I fancy there is no other way out ofit," he said. "In any event the plane is lost to the Britishgovernment. If I refuse the black scoundrel's request, there isno doubt but what he will make short work of me with theresult that the machine will lie here until it rots. If I accepthis offer it will at least be the means of assuring your safereturn to civilization and that" he added, "is worth more tome than all the planes in the British Air Service."

The girl cast a quick glance at him. These were the firstwords he had addressed to her that might indicate that hissentiments toward her were more than those of a companionin distress. She regretted that he had spoken as he had andhe, too, regretted it almost instantly as he saw the shadowcross her face and realized that he had unwittingly added tothe difficulties of her already almost unbearable situation.

"Forgive me," he said quickly. "Please forget what thatremark implied. I promise you that I will not offend again,if it does offend you, until after we are both safely out of thismess."

She smiled and thanked him, but the thing had been saidand could never be unsaid, and Bertha Kircher knew evenmore surely than as though he had fallen upon his knees andprotested undying devotion that the young English officerloved her.

Usanga was for taking his first lesson in aviation immedi-ately. The Englishman attempted to dissuade him, but im-mediately the black became threatening and abusive, since,like all those who are ignorant, he was suspicious that theintentions of others were always ulterior unless they perfectlycoincided with his wishes.

"All right, old top," muttered the Englishman, "I will giveyou the lesson of your life," and then turning to the girl:"Persuade him to let you accompany us. I shall be afraid toleave you here with these devilish scoundrels." But when sheput the suggestion to Usanga the black immediately suspectedsome plan to thwart him -- possibly to carry him against hiswill back to the German masters he had traitorously deserted,and glowering at her savagely, he obstinately refused to enter-tain the suggestion.

"The white woman will remain here with my people," hesaid. "They will not harm her unless you fail to bring meback safely."

"Tell him," said the Englishman, "that if you are not stand-ing in plain sight in this meadow when I return, I will notland, but will carry Usanga back to the British camp andhave him hanged."

Usanga promised that the girl would be in evidence upontheir return, and took immediate steps to impress upon hiswarriors that under penalty of death they must not harm her.Then, followed by the other members of his party, he crossedthe clearing toward the plane with the Englishman. Onceseated within what he already considered his new possession,the black's courage began to wane and when the motor wasstarted and the great propeller commenced to whir, hescreamed to the Englishman to stop the thing and permit himto alight, but the aviator could neither hear nor understandthe black above the noise of the propeller and exhaust. Bythis time the plane was moving along the ground and eventhen Usanga was upon the verge of leaping out, and wouldhave done so had he been able to unfasten the strap fromabout his waist. Then the plane rose from the ground and ina moment soared gracefully in a wide circle until it toppedthe trees. The black sergeant was in a veritable collapse ofterror. He saw the earth dropping rapidly from beneath him.He saw the trees and river and at a distance the little clearingwith the thatched huts of Numabo's village. He tried hardnot to think of the results of a sudden fall to the rapidly re-ceding ground below. He attempted to concentrate his mindupon the twenty-four wives which this great bird most as-suredly would permit him to command. Higher and higherrose the plane, swinging in a wide circle above the forest,river, and meadowland and presently, much to his surprise,Usanga discovered that his terror was rapidly waning, so thatit was not long before there was forced upon him a conscious-ness of utter security, and then it was that he began to takenotice of the manner in which the white man guided andmanipulated the plane.

After half an hour of skillful maneuvering, the Englishmanrose rapidly to a considerable altitude, and then, suddenly,without warning, he looped and flew with the plane invertedfor a few seconds.

"I said I'd give this beggar the lesson of his life," he mur-mured as he heard, even above the whir of the propeller, theshriek of the terrified Negro. A moment later Smith-Oldwickhad righted the machine and was dropping rapidly towardthe earth. He circled slowly a few times above the meadowuntil he had assured himself that Bertha Kircher was there andapparently unharmed, then he dropped gently to the groundso that the machine came to a stop a short distance from wherethe girl and the warriors awaited them.

It was a trembling and ashen-hued Usanga who tumbledout of the fuselage, for his nerves were still on edge as aresultof the harrowing experience of the loop, yet with terra firmaonce more under foot, he quickly regained his composure.Strutting about with great show and braggadocio, he stroveto impress his followers with the mere nothingness of so triviala feat as flying birdlike thousands of yards above the jungle,though it was long until he had thoroughly convinced himselfby the force of autosuggestion that he had enjoyed everyinstant of the flight and was already far advanced in the art ofaviation.

So jealous was the black of his new-found toy that he wouldnot return to the village of Numabo, but insisted on makingcamp close beside the plane, lest in some inconceivable fashionit should be stolen from him. For two days they campedthere, and constantly during daylight hours Usanga compelledthe Englishman to instruct him in the art of flying.

Smith-Oldwick, in recalling the long months of arduoustraining he had undergone himself before he had been con-sidered sufficiently adept to be considered a finished flier,smiled at the conceit of the ignorant African who was alreadydemanding that he be permitted to make a flight alone.

"If it was not for losing the machine," the Englishman ex-plained to the girl, "I'd let the bounder take it up and breakhis fool neck as he would do inside of two minutes."

However, he finally persuaded Usanga to bide his time fora few more days of instruction, but in the suspicious mind ofthe Negro there was a growing conviction that the white man'sadvice was prompted by some ulterior motive; that it was inthe hope of escaping with the machine himself by night thathe refused to admit that Usanga was entirely capable ofhandling it alone and therefore in no further need of help orinstruction, and so in the mind of the black there formed adetermination to outwit the white man. The lure of the twenty-four seductive wives proved in itself a sufficient incentive andthere, too, was added his desire for the white girl whom hehad long since determined to possess.

It was with these thoughts in mind that Usanga lay downto sleep in the evening of the second day. Constantly, however,the thought of Naratu and her temper arose to take the keenedge from his pleasant imaginings. If he could but rid himselfof her! The thought having taken form persisted, but alwaysit was more than outweighed by the fact that the black sergeantwas actually afraid of his woman, so much afraid of her infact that he would not have dared to attempt to put her out ofthe way unless he could do so secretly while she slept. How-ever, as one plan after another was conjured by the strength ofhis desires, he at last hit upon one which came to him almostwith the force of a blow and brought him sitting upright amonghis sleeping companions.

When morning dawned Usanga could scarce wait for anopportunity to put his scheme into execution, and the momentthat he had eaten, he called several of his warriors aside andtalked with them for some moments.

The Englishman, who usually kept an eye upon his blackcaptor, saw now that the latter was explaining something indetail to his warriors, and from his gestures and his mannerit was apparent that he was persuading them to some newplan as well as giving them instructions as to what they wereto do. Several times, too, he saw the eyes of the Negroesturned upon him and once they flashed simultaneously towardthe white girl.

Everything about the occurrence, which in itself seemedtrivial enough, aroused in the mind of the Englishman a well-defined apprehension that something was afoot that boded illfor him and for the girl. He could not free himself of the ideaand so he kept a still closer watch over the black although, ashe was forced to admit to himself, he was quite powerless toavert any fate that lay in store for them. Even the spear thathe had had when captured had been taken away from him, sothat now he was unarmed and absolutely at the mercy of theblack sergeant and his followers.

Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick did not have longto wait before discovering something of Usanga's plan, foralmost immediately after the sergeant finished giving his in-structions, a number of warriors approached the Englishman,while three went directly to the girl.

Without a word of explanation the warriors seized the youngofficer and threw him to the ground upon his face. For amoment he struggled to free himself and succeeded in landinga few heavy blows among his assailants, but he was too greatlyoutnumbered to hope to more than delay them in the accom-plishment of their object which he soon discovered was to bindhim securely hand and foot. When they had finally securedhim to their satisfaction, they rolled him over on his side andthen it was he saw Bertha Kircher had been similarly trussed.

Smith-Oldwick lay in such a position that he could seenearly the entire expanse of meadow and the aeroplane a shortdistance away. Usanga was talking to the girl who was shakingher head in vehement negatives.

"What is he saying?" called the Englishman.

"He is going to take me away in the plane," the girl calledback. "He is going to take me farther inland to another coun-try where he says that he will be king and I am to be one of hiswives," and then to the Englishman's surprise she turned asmiling face toward him, "but there is no danger," she con-tinued, "for we shall both be dead within a few minutes -- justgive him time enough to get the machine under way, and if hecan rise a hundred feet from the ground I shall never needfear him more."

"God!" cried the man. "Is there no way that you can dis-suade him? Promise him anything. Anything that you want.I have money, more money than that poor fool could imaginethere was in the whole world. With it he can buy anythingthat money will purchase, fine clothes and food and women, allthe women he wants. Tell him this and tell him that if he willspare you I give him my word that I will fetch it all to him."

The girl shook her head. "It is useless," she said. "He wouldnot understand and if he did understand, he would not trustyou. The blacks are so unprincipled themselves that they canimagine no such thing as principle or honor in others, andespecially do these blacks distrust an Englishman whom theGermans have taught them to believe are the most treacherousand degraded of people. No, it is better thus. I am sorry thatyou cannot go with us, for if he goes high enough my deathwill be much easier than that which probably awaits you."

Usanga had been continually interrupting their brief con-versation in an attempt to compel the girl to translate it tohim,for he feared that they were concocting some plan to thwarthim, and to quiet and appease him, she told him that theEnglishman was merely bidding her farewell and wishing hergood luck. Suddenly she turned to the black. "Will you dosomething for me?" she asked. "If I go willingly with you?"

"What is it you want?" he inquired.

"Tell your men to free the white man after we are gone.He can never catch us. That is all I ask of you. If you willgrant him his freedom and his life, I will go willingly withyou.

"You will go with me anyway," growled Usanga. "It isnothing to me whether you go willingly or not. I am goingto be a great king and you will do whatever I tell you to do."

He had in mind that he would start properly with thiswoman. There should be no repetition of his harrowing experi-ence with Naratu. This wife and the twenty-four others shouldbe carefully selected and well trained. Hereafter Usanga wouldbe master in his own house.

Bertha Kircher saw that it was useless to appeal to thebrute and so she held her peace though she was filled withsorrow in contemplating the fate that awaited the youngofficer, scarce more than a boy, who had impulsively revealedhis love for her.

At Usanga's order one of the blacks lifted her from theground and carried her to the machine, and after Usanga hadclambered aboard, they lifted her up and he reached downand drew her into the fuselage where he removed the thongsfrom her wrists and strapped her into her seat and then tookhis own directly ahead of her.

The girl turned her eyes toward the Englishman. She wasvery pale but her lips smiled bravely.

"Good-bye!" she cried.

"Good-bye, and God bless you!" he called back -- his voicethe least bit husky -- and then: "The thing I wanted to say --may I say it now, we are so very near the end?"

Her lips moved but whether they voiced consent or refusalhe did not know, for the words were drowned in the whir ofthe propeller.

The black had learned his lesson sufficiently well so that themotor was started without bungling and the machine was soonunder way across the meadowland. A groan escaped the lips ofthe distracted Englishman as he watched the woman he lovedbeing carried to almost certain death. He saw the plane tiltand the machine rise from the ground. It was a good take-off-- as good as Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick couldmake himself but he realized that it was only so by chance. Atany instant the machine might plunge to earth and even if, bysome miracle of chance, the black could succeed in risingabove the tree tops and make a successful flight, there was notone chance in one hundred thousand that he could ever landagain without killing his fair captive and himself.

But what was that? His heart stood still.