"A drop of a white man's blood!" suggested Negoro, glancing at Alvez.
"Yes, yes; kill a white man," assented Moené Loonga, his ferocious instincts all aroused by the proposition.
"There is a white man here," said Alvez, "who has killed my agent. He must be punished for his act."
"Send him to King Masongo!" cried the king; "Masongo and the Assuas will cut him up and eat him alive."
Only too true it is that cannibalism is still openly practised in certain provinces of Central Africa. Livingstone records that the Manyuemas not only eat men killed in war, but even buy slaves for that purpose; it is said to be the avowal of these Manyuemas that "human flesh is slightly salt, and requires no seasoning." Cameron relates how in the dominions of Moené Booga dead bodies were soaked for a few days in running water as a preparation for their being devoured; and Stanley found traces of a widely-spread cannibalism amongst the inhabitants of Ukusu.
But however horrible might be the manner of death proposed by Moené Loonga, it did not at all suit Negoro's purpose to let Dick Sands out of his clutches.
"The white man is here," he said to the king; "it is here he has committed his offence, and here he should be punished."
"If you will," replied Moené Loonga; "only I must have fire-water; a drop of fire-water for every drop of the white man's blood."
"Yes, you shall have the fire-water," assented Alvez, "and what is more, you shall have it all alight. We will give your majesty a bowl of blazing punch."
The thought had struck Alvez, and he was himself delighted with the idea, that he would set the spirit in flames. Moené Loonga had complained that the "fire-water" did not justify its name as it ought, and Alvez hoped that perhaps, administered in this new form, it might revivify the deadened membranes of the palate of the king.