CHAPTER XLIII.

The first visit paid by the members of our expedition was to the Telegraph Office, to announce to their friends in France and England their safe arrival at Khartoum. The despatches had to be couched in Arabic, and were forwarded by Assouan, in Upper Egypt, to Alexandria, whence the clerks, after having translated them, transmitted them to Europe.

From the telegraph office, the whole party proceeded to the French Consulate, where each one found his or her expected letter. Even M. de Morin's valet had a missive or two, addressed to Mohammed-Abd-el-Gazal, dragoman, but Joseph, after his misadventures in El-Hejaz, had renounced all claim to this style and title. He loathed the Bedouins as much as he had formerly loved them, and he at once, without reading it, tore up the letter addressed to him by his former instructor in Arabic.

Amongst their correspondence, MM. de Morin, Périères, and Delange found a letter from M. de Pommerelle, addressed to all three of them, and together they perused the latest news from their beloved city. The very paper had a perfume of Paris, wafted to them through space into the centre of Africa, and was, in itself, a source of enjoyment.

"You are angels!", wrote M. de Pommerelle. "Forgive my former abuse, for I am heart-broken at the idea of having written a harsh word to such friends as you. I thank you a thousand times for your letters, and the records of your travel. As yet I have only read Périères, but I feel that de Morin and Delange are on their way to me. I put implicit faith in their promises, and I am revelling in a foretaste of their narrations.

"If you only knew with what delight I welcome the arrival of the post from Egypt! Do not, however, imagine that I am selfish enough to reserve to myself the pleasure of living with you. No—I share that with another of my friends, and there are two of us to read you. Read you, did I say? We spell you, syllable by syllable, and follow you step by step on the maps which are hung in every corner of my room.

"I need hardly tell you the name of this friend, for you must have guessed it already—it is the trusty Doctor Desrioux, who longed to accompany you, and whom duty alone retained in France. I only knew him slightly before—knew him as a genial, charming companion, sincere and worthy of all respect. The wish to talk about you, and to amuse ourselves with your interesting trip has drawn us together, and now we are inseparable.

"'Where are they?' says the Doctor. 'At Berber, I suppose.' 'No,' I reply, 'I know de Morin, he is an eccentric genius; by this time he has involved them in some fresh scrape, and they are still far from the Nile.' 'Perhaps you are right,' answers the Doctor. 'Let us find the exact spot where they halted last.' Behold us, armed with our eye-glasses, bending over the maps and on the road with you.

"Our journey is not as fatiguing as yours, I admit. Instead of pitching our tents in the desert or on the mountains we content ourselves with sticking large-headed, many-coloured pins to mark your different halting-places. Of late we have been ashamed of this passive travelling, and, after a good dinner, excited by your letters, and enamoured of your descriptions, we suddenly conceived the idea of joining you. Yes, my dear friends, joining you in Africa, at Khartoum!' They were screwed,' you will exclaim. I was, perhaps, a little gone, but I assure you that Desrioux was as sober as a judge. He spoke quite seriously, adding that his usual patients, the poor, were, for the time being, in the enjoyment of perfect health, that his mother had never been better in her life, and that he could, without fear or imprudence, leave her for a few months.

"'How long would it take us to reach Khartoum?' he continued. 'Five or six weeks at the most, if we do not stop anywhere, but hurry through the country and scatter our money by the handfull. We could spend a fortnight with our friends and be back in Paris within three months.'

"He grew quite hot and excited over the idea, and so did I, so much so that when we separated, at about 3 a.m., our prompt departure was all arranged.

"On the following morning, when I was still in bed, and cogitating over our plans, not quite so enthusiastic, perhaps, as I had been the night before, but still firm in my purpose, the Doctor was announced. He came to tell me that since the previous evening several cases of small-pox had been brought into hospital, that there were fears of an epidemic, and that he did not think himself justified in leaving Paris before these fears had subsided. I can assure you that this was no protest for getting out of the affair, for he appeared very doleful, and repeated over and over again.

"'This idea had made me so happy, and here I am dying of despondency and grief!'

"The fact is that Desrioux is a right-down good fellow, but cheeriness is not one of his strong points. I believe that his wandering instincts are as strong as my sedentary ones, that he is weary of being tied down to the same spot, and that his burning desire is to see those countries about which you discourse so charmingly.

"The small-pox epidemic was only too serious, and, out of regard for you, it had evidently awaited your departure to declare itself. It is committing fearful havoc, and is, this year, more than usually malignant and contagious. Consequently the poor Doctor no longer thinks about leaving; he is too busy for that. He visits every hospital, garret, and den; and, thanks to his entire forgetfulness of self, his science, and the calm courage with which he confronts and braves every danger, he has succeeded in saving a number of poor sufferers who had been given over by their regular attendants.

"As for myself, always an outrageously useless member of society, but especially so in times of epidemic, I hinted to myself one day that the air of Paris was becoming unwholesome, and I made up my mind to betake myself to some more genial clime.

"You don't believe me? You remember what I wrote to you about Trouville. Well, this time, I got as far as—I will not tell you all at once, lest you should be unjust enough not to believe me. Either your example made me brave, or the small-pox made a coward of me— whichever it was, I packed up my traps. Yes, I did, with all due deference to you, and I took my ticket for Lyons, so as to be nearer to you. One never knows, said I to myself, what may happen; once on the shores of the Mediterranean, I may, perhaps, eventually find myself at Khartoum.

"Moreover, I hit upon a capital plan for getting away as far as possible. Instead of taking a morning train, as I did when I went—I mean, when I attempted to go to Trouville, I followed your example and took the night mail. I engaged a sleeping compartment all to myself, and went regularly to bed. You see my idea, do you not? I reckoned on my habitual laziness to prevent my attempting to rise when once I had laid down. And so it happened that 11 a.m., on the following day found me still asleep—at Marseilles!

"Yes, I, Pommerelle, I have set eyes on Carcassonne. I beg your pardon, I was thinking of the song. I mean, I have seen Marseilles!

"Since I arrived I have been strolling on the quay _de la Jolliette_, and watching the steamers of the Messageries Maritimes. If one of them had only taken it into its head to get up steam and start at once I should have jumped on board, and the thing would have been over, because, unless I threw myself into the sea, which is against my principles, I must have gone as far as Egypt. But there was no steamer for forty-eight hours, and that was asking too much of me. Home-sickness once more claimed me for its own; I sought for Paris, and Paris only, at every turn. I cried aloud for Paris, and the echoes of the Cannebière alone responded. From that moment I was lost.

"Nevertheless, I did not withdraw myself from you too abruptly. I went to the railway station and took my ticket for Monte-Carlo, where I was sure to stumble across some acquaintance, good, bad, or indifferent.

"What splendid vegetation! What a sky! What flowers! What trees! What an idea all this gives one of the tropics! How wonderfully happy you fellows must be, living in the midst of nature, real, unsophisticated nature. I was in the seventh heaven of delight, and I said, 'If it is so pretty here, what sights they must be seeing beyond there!' And, upon my word, without any further ado I sent Doctor Desrioux a whole series of telegrams in the laconic, or negro style—'I determined— start—Africa. You leave small-pox—join me—Monte-Carlo.'

"But Desrioux did not turn up, and, whilst I was waiting for him I was cleaned out at roulette and trente-et-quarante. I was, therefore, obliged to set out speedily on my return to Paris, where I found the small-pox on the decline, and Doctor Desrioux in the zenith of his fame, for from chevalier he had just been promoted to be an officer of the Legion of Honour.

"And that, my dear fellows, is all that I have to say to you. You see that I have been very close to you. Scarcely four hundred leagues divided us. I do not despair of joining you one day. What I have already done is stupendous! As far as Monte-Carlo! I cannot get over it! Let me come to it by degrees—every year I will manage a few extra kilometres, and, in twenty years' time, I shall be up to a journey worth talking about."

MM. de Morin and Périères, like men of honour, or, at all events, adversaries who no longer feared a rival, read to Madame de Guéran the passages in this letter which referred to Dr. Desrioux.