CHAPTER XLIV.

The intimacy which, since their departure from Paris, had always existed between Madame de Guéran, Miss Poles, and their three fellow-travellers, at Khartoum appeared scarcely so close. The Baroness had expressed a wish to live alone with her companion, and for that purpose had taken a species of little villa on the bank of the Blue River, surrounded by a magnificent garden, and almost hidden by a mass of date and palm trees.

Madame de Guéran, however, did not seem to have isolated herself for the sake of peace and quietness. If she did not frequent Khartoum to any great extent, and very rarely left her own domicile, she received, every day, a great number of visitors. Putting aside the English and French Consuls and the various Consular agents, who thought themselves bound to offer her their services, she opened her doors eagerly to every European traveller who expressed a wish to be introduced to her. Nor did she in many cases wait for the expression of such a wish, but sent out her invitations spontaneously.

It was in this way that she became acquainted with an English officer, who, after having left Baker south of Gondokoro, was on his way to Cairo to take up an appointment in the service of the Khedive, and, afterwards, with one of the members of the expedition under Lieutenant Cameron, Dr. Dillon, and Mr. Murphy. This traveller had entered Africa by Zanzibar, and had seen the great lakes, but fever had compelled him to return northwards, and he had left his companions.

Madame de Guéran was not satisfied with talking to these distinguished guests only. She sent Miss Beatrice Poles, and Omar and Ali, the two interpreters, in search of every person who, in any capacity, had accompanied Europeans, during the preceding year, in expeditions towards the south. She questioned them very closely and at great length about the person or persons whom they had escorted, and if the portrait they drew was devoid of personal interest to her, she examined them on a thousand and one details, and made them go into every minute particular of their travels.

The expedition of Schweinfurth, who had lived for several years amongst the Nuehr, Djour, Bongo, and Niam-Niam tribes, was of special interest to her, and she was loud in her expressions of gratitude to Ali when, on a certain occasion, that interpreter brought with him an old soldier of the Dinha tribe, who was reported to have accompanied the great German traveller as far as the territory of the Monbuttoos, within three degrees of the Equator, and who had returned to Khartoum with his master in July of the preceding year, 1871. The conversation of this man became of such engrossing interest to Madame de Guéran that very soon she talked with him alone, and left all her other visitors out in the cold.

At the same time her character appeared to become completely metamorphosed. If, during the progress of the voyage, she had occasionally seemed nervous, such occasions had been exceptional; as a rule (nearly always, in fact) her manner had been easy, light-hearted and frank.

She appeared to have forgotten that she was a woman and beloved, and, without the least affectation, she treated MM. Morin and Périères as friends, and set her wits to work to pass herself off with them as a good fellow and a boon companion.

Now, on the contrary, she avoided their society, got out of their way, and seemed actually to dread meeting them. Any one, seeing her, would have said that she had some confidential communication to make to them, some secret to unfold, but that she lacked the courage to speak.

On their side, MM. de Morin and Périères were astonished at her mode of treating them, and took umbrage at it. Their love for Madame de Guéran was above suspicion and beyond doubt. Both of them young, rich, clever, well-born and good style, they had asked her hand in marriage; and, to please her, and in the hope of winning that hand, they had given up their cherished Parisian habits, the pleasures of the _beau monde_, and had undertaken a voyage, to the dangers of which, as we have already recorded, they were fully alive. This love, the main-spring of their entire conduct and conspicuous at every turn, had naturally increased during the voyage. Men who are already in love cannot with impunity be thrown into close intimacy with the loved one, especially if they are ever of necessity summoned to her side to undergo with her the innumerable vicissitudes of travel, to follow her up hill and down dale, and to share her dangers.

* * * * * *

With a view to prevailing on them to accompany her to Africa, Madame de Guéran had said to them—"I do not know you sufficiently yet, and I look upon this journey as a method of instruction, so far as your characters are concerned."

She had, perhaps, become as wise as she wished to be, but all the time she was pursuing her studies they, in their turn, were learning to know her better, and to appreciate her more fully. Every time they halted she was seen in a new light. Yesterday, so to speak, she was intrepid, cool, and resolute; to-day, in the desert, with the slave caravan before her, she is once more the sympathizing, tender-hearted woman. And, moreover, under the glorious sun of Africa, in the midst of this so luxuriant Nature, her beauty was so transcendent—it burst into full bloom—it positively shone! In the afternoon under a tent, in the evening on board their vessel, she held them captive under the spell of her feeling tones, her exquisite sensibility.

They were, consequently, but involuntarily, more in love than ever, absolutely conquered and enslaved, and they suffered, in proportion, from the coolness with which for some days past she had treated them. If they had made up their minds together to find out the cause of this, they might not, possibly, have been so uneasy, but, unfortunately, they mutually distrusted each other.

A moment's confidence would have taught them that they had equal grounds of complaint against her, and that she had put them both on identically the same footing. But love would be love no longer if it took to reasoning; it warps the finest natures, and inspires the sincerest hearts with jealousy.

M. de Morin attributed the coldness of Madame de Guéran to the love she was beginning to feel for M. Périères, and the latter in his turn, persuaded that his friend was also his successful rival, so far forgot himself as to positively detest him.

They rarely saw each other, and, when they did meet, all that passed between them was a commonplace word or two, or a frigid shake of the hand. Then each one went his own way, and, avoiding the town, betook himself to the open country, and, on the banks of the White, or the Blue River, hid his sorrow in his own breast and mourned over his defeat.

Dr. Delange alone preserved his liberty of mind and action, and, as the inquiring traveller, pried into every corner of Khartoum. He had enlisted into his service a faki, who, for a piastre per diem, took him all over Khartoum from morning till night, and from night till morning, and initiated him into all the mysteries of that mysterious place.

One evening, his guide proposed to take him to the house of an old sorceress, or witch, of high renown throughout the district, and he gladly accepted the offer. These Egyptian women, under the protection of the authorities, to whom their various services are of great value, enjoy very extensive privileges at Khartoum, and are in constant communication with all classes of society, from the Pashas, whose harems they help to fill, to the Arabian women who go to them for medicine for their actual, and charms for their imaginary, ills.

To these secret sources of employment they add others even less reputable, but equally connived at by the powers that be, one of them being the proprietorship of music and dancing halls, where the dances of the country are exhibited by a dozen or more young girls, for the most part natives of the Soudan.

Into one of these dens M. Delange made his way, and, for a few piastres, witnessed an entertainment which gold would not have procured for him in any other town but Khartoum. He was shown into a spacious room furnished with low and roomy Arab lounges. The walls, painted white, were brilliant with resinous torches of great illuminating power.

A door opened, and in walked the mistress of the place, a woman of about thirty, tall, thin, copper-coloured, and hard-featured. Her regular, but strange, cast of countenance, and the gold circlet, in the shape of a diadem, which decked the long bands of her plaited hair, drawn flat across her temples, made her look like some old Egyptian queen. In her hand she held a small whip, her conductor's _bâton_.

After having cringingly saluted M. Delange, she squatted down in a corner, and, at a word from her, eight slaves, who had been awaiting her summons, appeared on the scene. They were enveloped in the _fezdah_, a large piece of linen fringed on both edges.

At a fresh signal they laid aside this garment and appeared in the _raat_, their orthodox dancing costume, made of leather, and of somewhat scanty dimensions.

They were black as ebony, but with nothing of the negro type about them—on the contrary, their noses were straight, their mouths small, and their faces oval. Their figures were perfect, and their beauty altogether was on a par with their youth.

Each of them danced in turn, without any musical accompaniment, her companions meanwhile grouping themselves in a circle round her, and encouraging her with their savage shouts, and by clapping their hands together. Gradually her body turns, her knees are bent, and her arms become rigid. She seems to be trying to resist some magnetic force which slowly draws her on towards one comer of the room. She advances, step by step, trembling in every limb, always following the gaze of her companions, and swayed by their shouts, which degenerate into howls like those of a wild beast.

The woman in the diadem has not left her place; she squats in the same corner, but her yells mingle with the others, and her gaze, fixed on the dancer, seems to mesmerize her. Her right arm is extended at full length, and her claw-like fingers nervously clutch the leathern-thonged whip.

Finally, the dancer, weary of struggling, appears to yield to the influences which surround her, and to obey orders mysteriously conveyed to her, and she ends by falling exhausted at the feet of the spectator in whose honour the entertainment has been given.

M. Delange might very well have had enough of dancing, but he was bent on seeing everything and comparing everything. So having made the acquaintance of these dancing slaves, he thought he would see what the dancing girls, who are their own mistresses, the Almehs to wit, were like. He wished to ascend from the black to the copper-coloured votaries of Terpsichore, and his visit to this other locality in Khartoum was within an ace of having a very disastrous result.