CHAPTER XIV.

Ali, our interpreter, was with us in a few seconds.

"I see by your eyes," I exclaimed, as soon as he reached us, "that you have succeeded in your mission."

"Yes," replied the Arab triumphantly, "I have succeeded."

"You have discovered M. de Guéran?"

"I have found him, seen him, spoken to him."

"What did he tell you to say to us?"

"Nothing; he was not able to say a word, but I have something to give you."

He put his hand into the leather bag which hung from his waist-belt, pulled out a small sheet of paper, and handed it to us.

I opened it. Yes—it was the handwriting of M. de Guéran, the same handwriting as that of the letter given to us at Khartoum by Nassar, the same as that of the placard we found in the Domondoo hut.

I did not feel myself justified in reading the letter before Madame de Guéran had seen it. Though her health had improved from the moment she quitted Kadjoro's residence to accompany the army to the frontier, she was still too weak to leave the camp, and she was consequently ignorant of the arrival of the caravan. On Delange devolved the duty of telling her the news, which would have indeed been a hard task for de Morin or myself, and of giving her the letter sent by her husband.

When we were alone with Ali we began our enquiries. De Morin, very nervous, very much agitated, but, at the same time, very clear and precise in his questions, opened the ball.

"Why," he asked, "have you been so long away? You have been absent now for more than six weeks, and the journey there and back, according to what the King has told us, as a rule does not take more than a month. Did the Queen detain you, as prisoners, any time?"

"No," said Ali, "but her people would scarcely let us pass. All the chiefs of districts made us wait for orders before they would allow us to go on. Besides, the country is not at all like this; at every step we came across torrents flowing down from the mountains. Storms are of frequent occurrence at the end of the rainy season, and we lost a great deal of time in overcoming all these difficulties."

"Did you come across a large lake, marked on some of our maps as Lake Piaggia?"

"No, I never saw it. There is no such thing in the country."

"Is the territory of the Walindis of great extent?"

"Yes, twenty days' march before you get to the royal palace."

"Is it a fact, as we have been told, that the palace is on the eastern frontier of the kingdom?"

"It is at the foot of a lofty and impassable mountain."

Our interpreter, no doubt, meant that mountain which the latest African explorers call Mount Maccorly or M'Caroli.

"And behind that mountain," I asked, "are there others?"

"Yes, larger still, so large that they hide the sky. Their tops appear quite blue, and at night a great noise may be heard coming from their bowels, like the sound produced by a hundred torrents falling together from a lofty height."

"Those are the falls spoken of as being at the north end of Lake Albert," said de Morin to me. "The information given us by Ali leads to the inference that the residence of Walinda is situated at the foot of the Blue Mountains, in Lat. 2° N., and that Lake Albert is immediately behind those mountains. The noise heard by our interpreter evidently proceeds from the cascades, falls, or cataracts on the eastern shores of the lake, at the same elevation as Magungo, and called by certain geographers the Murchison Falls. All these details are valuable, for I certainly think," added de Morin, somewhat bitterly, "that we are now called upon to work on behalf of M. de Guéran by throwing him, as soon as possible, into the arms of his wife."

"My dear fellow," said I, "our first duty is to rescue our fellow-countryman. Suppose, for a moment, that we did not know him, and that, instead of being the husband of our companion, he were a stranger to us, should we hesitate for a moment to go to his rescue?"

"No," replied de Morin quickly, "certainly not. All Europeans who venture into these parts are mutually bound to aid and protect each other. Nevertheless," he added, after a momentary pause, "during the last few seconds, since the existence of M. de Guéran has been established, a queer, novel, perhaps unworthy idea has entered my head and worries me."

"Let us have your idea, by all means. Possibly I have one very like it."

"I guessed as much. You are asking yourself, as I am, whether M. de Guéran is really a prisoner with the Queen of the Walindis, endowed by common report with so much beauty, this Venus in ebony, as Delange will call her? You are tempted to believe that he is staying by her side of his own free will, and that he does not half like the idea of an expedition from Europe coming to interfere with his love-making?"

"I do not go quite to the same length that you do, my dear friend," I replied, smiling. "It is quite possible, indeed, that our compatriot has not always been insensible to the beauty of this female savage, and that she, on her side, is infatuated about the first white man she has ever seen, just as Munza is about the first white woman brought to his notice. This sort of thing is by no means rare in Africa. But a man of intellect like M. de Guéran, a Parisian, is not very likely to surrender the habits of a life-time, civilization, and a wife such as his, simply to spend his days in the society of a native of Ulindi! Depend upon it, I am right. Ask any Parisian you like who has visited Egypt, Palestine, and such-like places. M. de Guéran, whatever position he may occupy amongst the Walindis, is deserving of our sympathy. But, Ali, no doubt, can give us some information as to what that position is. Let us continue our cross-examination of him, and cut short our private reflections, which, after all, as you will admit, proceed from jealousy."

Having thus delivered myself, I turned towards our interpreter, and said to him—

"You were received by Queen Walinda?"

"Yes, sir; the caravan entered her palace, a mass of mud huts covered with branches."

"What did you think of her? Is she as pretty as everybody says she is?"

"Yes, and prettier still," replied the Arab quickly. "She is tall and majestic, with a light brown complexion, ruddy lips, teeth like ivory, and large eyes gleaming between the black fringe of her eye-lashes."

I was afraid that this enthusiasm might involve a waste of time, so I changed the subject.

"Was M. de Guéran with her," I asked, "when you saw him?"

"Yes, he never leaves her, or, really, she never leaves him. He walks by her side, and they are surrounded by fifty female warriors, all young, better made even than the Soudan women, supple as serpents, and—"

Ali, ever enthusiastic, was going to plunge into a fresh dissertation, but I stopped him.

"To come back to M. de Guéran," said I. "Did he appear to you to be in good health?"

"No, he was pale, with a hectic flush on his cheeks, and a disheartened look; he was evidently suffering from fever, for he walked with difficulty."

"Is the climate of Ulindi unhealthy?"

"Not in the northern portion of the kingdom, in the midst of the chains of hills we crossed; but a foreigner would find it so in the vast plain where the royal residence is situated. The surrounding mountains prevent the air from reaching it, and that causes a feeling of suffocation. I suffered more from the heat there than in the Nubian deserts."

I looked at de Morin, as much as to say to him, "You see, M. de Guéran is not quite as happy as you thought he was." Then, turning to Ali, I asked—

"How did you manage to get near our fellow-countryman?"

"The Queen," he replied, "went right through our caravan, in order to make a closer examination of the animals we brought her. I took advantage of the opportunity to get close to the white man and whisper to him, 'your friends send me to you; they wish to deliver you; drop your arm next to me and open your hand. I have a paper to give you.' He started when he heard these words spoken in his native tongue, but he soon recovered himself, and, without saying a word, did as I asked him. At the same moment the Queen rejoined him and they went away together."

"You saw him later on?"

"Yes, when the caravan took leave of Walinda. I managed to get close to him again; he had recognized me, and made a sign to me. I understood from it that he was not able to speak to me, but that he had something to give me. Our two hands met; he shook mine, in token of gratitude, no doubt, and slipped between my fingers the paper I gave you."

"And that is all? He did not say a single word to you?"

"Not a word."

I turned towards de Morin, and said to him—

"You see now, my dear fellow, that M. de Guéran is really a prisoner, and watched more narrowly than he would be on the hulks."

We had now only to thank our brave Ali for his services, and to send him to Madame de Guéran, who, after having read her letter, would certainly wish to question him.

As he was going away, Delange came up to us, and asked us whether we had heard the Queen's reply.

"What reply?" we enquired.

Having for the past hour been exclusively occupied with M. de Guéran and his concerns, we had forgotten all about the embassy sent by the King of the Monbuttoos to the Queen of Ulindi. Delange told us that, after having chatted for a moment with the Baroness, and handed her M. de Guéran's letter, he had joined Munza. The latter had just received the report of his ambassadors, which was to the effect that the Queen absolutely declined either an alliance or an interview with him.

"I do not wish"—to use her own words—"the tribes from the north to enter my kingdom and bring their manners and customs with them. I do not go to them, and why should they come to me? An alliance with them is of no use to me; I am quite strong enough to defend myself against all my neighbours put together. Tell your master to return to his own dominions, and not to send me another embassy, because, if he does, he will never see it again; I will have every man in it put to death, from the first to the last."

"This reply," said Delange, "as you may well suppose, has exasperated Munza. He wants to cross the frontier at once, and attack the insolent Queen of the Walindis."

"We must not prevent him," replied de Morin. "It is our only method now of rescuing the Baron."

"Perhaps he himself may have pointed out another," I suggested. "Let us go to Madame de Guéran; she must have finished her reading by this time, and will let us see what her husband says."

Without further delay we bent our steps towards the hut occupied by Madame de Guéran in the middle of the encampment.