The Great White Queen by William le Queux

IN darkness and anxiety I remained alone for many days in the foul subterranean prison. Had the fiendish tortures been repeated upon my hapless friend, I wondered; or had he succumbed to the injuries already inflicted? Hour by hour I waited, listening to the shuffling footsteps of my gaolers, but only once a day there came a black slave to hand me my meagre ration of food and depart without deigning to give answer to any of my questions.

I became sick with anxiety, and at last felt that I must abandon all hope of again seeing him. I was alone in the midst of the fiercest and most fanatical people of the whole of Africa, a people whose supreme delight it was to torture the whites that fell into their hands as vengeance for the many expeditions sent against them. Through those dismal days when silence and the want of air oppressed me, I remembered the old adage that when Hope goes out Death smiles and stalks in, but fortunately, although wearied and dejected, I did not quite abandon all thought of ever again meeting my companion. The hope of seeing him, of being able to escape and get into the land of Mo, was now the sole anchor of my life, yet as the monotonous hours passed, the light in the chink above grew brighter and time after time gradually faded into pitch darkness, I felt compelled to admit that my anticipations were without foundation, and that Omar, the courageous descendant of a truly kingly race, was dead.