s.

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

Usanga grinned. "You know where they are, white woman," he replied.
"They are dead, and if this white man does not do 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," replied Usanga.

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

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

The girl put the question to Usanga, who, degraded, cunning, and
entirely unprincipled, was always perfectly willing to promise
anything whether he had any intentions of fulfilling his promises
or not, and so immediately assented to the proposition.

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

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

The girl cast a quick glance at him. These were the first words he
had addressed to her that might indicate that his sentiments toward
her were more than those of a companion in distress. She regretted
that he had spoken as he had and he, too, regretted it almost
instantly as he saw the shadow cross her face and realized that
he had unwittingly added to the difficulties of her already almost
unbearable situation.

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

She smiled and thanked him, but the thing had b