ESCAPE
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 moldy 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.
Then, dry-eyed but suffering, she rose and fol-
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