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Chapter XII - The Black Flier
The girl was almost crushed by terror and disappointment. To have been thus
close to safety and then to have all hope snatched away by a cruel stroke of fate
seemed unendurable. The man was disappointed, too, but more was he angry. He
noted the remnants of the uniforms upon the blacks and immediately he
demanded to know where were their officers.
"
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."
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