"Go away!" she said to the Russian. "Go away and leave me in peace
with my dead. Have you not brought sufficient misery and anguish
upon me without attempting to harm me further? What wrong have I
ever done you that you should persist in persecuting me?"
"You are suffering for the sins of the monkey you chose when you
might have had the love of a gentleman--of Nikolas Rokoff," he
replied. "But where is the use in discussing the matter? We shall
bury the child here, and you will return with me at once to my own
camp. Tomorrow I shall bring you back and turn you over to your
new husband--the lovely M'ganwazam. Come!"
He reached out for the child. Jane, who was on her feet now, turned
away from him.
"I shall bury the body," she said. "Send some men to dig a grave
outside the village."
Rokoff was anxious to have the thing over and get back to his camp
with his victim. He thought he saw in her apathy a resignation
to her fate. Stepping outside the hut, he motioned her to follow
him, and a moment later, with his men, he escorted Jane beyond the
village, where beneath a great tree the blacks scooped a shallow
grave.
Wrapping the tiny body in a blanket, Jane laid it tenderly in the
black hole, and, turning her head that she might not see the mouldy
earth falling upon the pitiful little bundle, she breathed a prayer
beside the grave of the nameless waif that had won its way to the
innermost recesses of her heart.
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