CHAPTER XXXI.

The ascent of the rock, that bond of union between the plain and the mountain, was as easy as possible for the able-bodied men of the expedition, bat the work of conveying the wounded up it was perilous in the extreme. Every obstacle, however, was overcome, thanks to the ropes in possession of the Desrioux caravan. These were tied one to the other, and thus made a sort of railing, firmly fixed on the plateau by the first arrivals there, and descending along the whole length of the granite bridge right down to the plain. By the aid of this support, M. de Guéran was carried in a hammock, borne on poles.

The use of her legs was restored to Queen Walinda, by order of M. Delange, who was answerable for her, and four Nubians, strictly enjoined to watch her narrowly, made her walk in front of them. Contrary to the expectation of everybody, she did not make the slightest resistance, but scaled the rock deliberately, without a murmur or even turning her head, just as if she were leaving her dominions of her own free will. When she reached the plateau, she did not even glance back at the land of which, that very morning, she had been the sovereign. She appeared to have no eyes except for her former prisoner and for Madame de Guéran, who walked at his side.

The caravan by degrees wound along the defile traversed on the previous evening by MM. Desrioux and de Pommerelle. The Beluchs, who knew the road, formed the vanguard; then came the wounded, escorted by Drs. Desrioux and Delange, ever ready to aid them, and followed by the women and the bearers. The Nubians and Dinkas, commanded by Nassar and the Arab interpreters, brought up the rear.

Before joining the ranks, the Europeans acted on the hint given by M. Périères. Some soldiers, provided with lances to be used as levers, lifted the part of the rock which rested against the mountain, and by a resolute and united effort rolled the block of stone over on to the plain.

The amazons, however, did not seem disposed to follow up the Europeans and rescue their Queen; their whole attention was given to escaping from the Monbuttoos, who in the last hour or so had made themselves masters of the country. These people made a terrible use of the victory they had not gained, setting fire to all the villages and huts, dancing and frisking around the bonfires, and going into mourning for their King in the gayest fashion.

The Europeans, after having cast a sorrowful look over the field of carnage, and said a last adieu to the vast regions they had just traversed, followed the caravan. M. de Pommerelle walked beside his two friends, de Morin and Périères, and gave them—for up to this moment they had not had any opportunity for chatting—the latest news from Paris. This news was rather stale, eight months old in fact, seeing that the Count and the doctor had left France in the month of March, but they were none the less welcome to his hearers, exiles since October, 1872. M. de Pommerelle also told them how, in reading their letters, following them on the map, and trying to live their life, he had felt himself gradually acquiring a taste for far-off adventures. These and other confidential communications were interrupted by Miss Poles, who had left her place, allowed the caravan to defile before her, and now joined the Count de Pommerelle, that very attractive man, as she had just confided to Dr. Delange.

Left to themselves, MM. de Morin and Périères lighted a couple of those excellent cigars of which they had been so long deprived, a gift from M. de Pommerelle. After a few moments' silent enjoyment of these luxuries, they looked at each other, and the painter, said to the man of letters—

"Well, we have found him at last!"

"Yes, we have found him," replied M. Périères. "And, moreover, we may safely say that for a year past we have not left a stone unturned in that direction."

"With a chivalrous disinterestedness," added M. de Morin, "worthy a place in the records of practical morality."

"We shall figure in them one of these days, I dare say, my dear fellow; that is one consolation."

"But we have another."

"What is that?"

"We might have found him strong, well-to-do, and in perfect health, which would, I admit, have been all very well for him, but rather disagreeable for us. On the contrary he is in a deplorable state, and, to speak frankly, our jealousy has no longer any _locus standi_."

"Our execution is only postponed," observed M. de Morin. "We have been told that none of his wounds are serious, and that the fever will leave him when he reaches the high ground. In a few days perhaps—"

"In a few days, my dear de Morin," added Périères, "the husband will doubtless be cured, but the wife will not."

"What do you mean?"

"My meaning is simple enough. To-day Madame de Guéran only beholds in her husband a wounded man, an invalid, almost at death's-door, whom it is her mission to recall to life. As soon as his health shall have been re-established, the husband will re-appear, and the sister of charity, a wife once more, will call him to account somewhat severely. She was only too ready to forget the errors, to use a mild word, of M. de Guéran, so long as she believed him dead or in captivity; she will remember them on the day of his restoration to life and health. She cannot conceal from herself that he left her very cavalierly, at the end of two years only of married life, to run about the world, and she already looks upon herself as having been rather a fool, believe me, for having taken so much trouble and encountered so many dangers to regain possession of an eccentric and fickle husband. Up to this time she has been fulfilling a duty, and she sees nothing but the heroism of her action. The heroism disappears with the fulfilment of the duty, and then the minor points of the subject will come to the surface.

"If she had found him still in the power of some terrible African potentate, reduced to slavery and more or less in durance vile, she would have been satisfied. But she surprised him in the midst of a tribe of very attractive women, or very uncommon, as you will admits One of them, their Queen by right both of birth and beauty, appears to love him to the verge of criminality. For fear he should escape her, she throws herself upon him, tears him in pieces like a wild beast, and if she does not kill him it is only because she is robbed of her prey. Madame de Guéran is fully alive to these—petty details, shall we call them? She is very keen, and nothing escapes her. She has divined what she has not seen, and she admits, as we do, that the Baron, to have inspired so sanguinary a passion, must for his part have afforded some grounds for it.

"She does not look upon him as criminal; so much I will concede. She is far too intelligent not to understand the difficulties of the situation, and the necessities of slavery; but she will for a long, long time, perhaps for ever, resent his having placed himself in such a position. There was nothing to compel him to leave Paris and expose himself to all these adventures. 'He ought not to have been, and gone, and done it,' she will say to herself, if she is aware of that vulgar phrase. We must also make due allowance for womanly pride, and the peculiar delicacy of Madame de Guéran. She cannot feel flattered at being the successor of a native of equatorial Africa. Rest assured that the recollection of this female savage will haunt her throughout the remainder of her life, and will be a perpetual moral shower bath. Queen Walinda is lovely in our eyes, and especially so in those of the susceptible Dr. Delange, but, as a woman, she does not exist, so far as Madame de Guéran is concerned. She is a being of some sort, a fine animal of the ape tribe, overlooked by naturalists in their classifications, and the Baroness will ever experience a feeling of repulsion towards the man who for six months took up his abode in the den of this semi-wild animal.

"I bring my long harangue to a close, my dear fellow, with these words. On the score of health M. de Guéran is not now formidable, and he will never be so for the simple reason that his wife is disillusionized."

"He is none the less her husband," observed M. de Morin. "He has been found, he lives, and his widow, whom we wished to marry, is out of our reach. But you are not so calm as you would have me believe. Whilst I was giving way to-day to my bad temper, you remained quiet and all smiles, but you did not suffer any the less. Come, make a clean breast of it."

"I admit it," exclaimed M. Périères. "I feel precisely as you do. I suffer, and I am jealous, not of the husband, rescued by us this morning on the plain, but of the rival who fell upon us from the top of the mountain. He is about to benefit by the state of mind and heart in which he finds the Baroness, and which I have just explained. He will benefit also by the rivalry of both of us, by that equality between us which has allowed Madame de Guéran to remain undecided and wavering, and by the love we have displayed for her, a love which has not roused any corresponding feeling in her heart, but has nevertheless prepared it for the reception of somebody else.

"Finally, rely upon it, he will benefit by the unexpected fashion of his appearance amongst us. The imagination of women is always taken by the marvellous, especially when it does not come to pass by design, when he who appears surrounded by fireworks has not consciously produced the illumination, and especially when he is as modest as he is brilliant. For I will do Desrioux justice, it was not his fault that he did not arrive by rail with his carpet bag in his hand. If he blew up the mountain, it was simply because he was without the means of scaling it; if he appeared to me in a cloud, duly furnished with wings, it was merely because chance, that great scene-painter, was pleased on this occasion to furnish a fairy-like tableau. Madame de Guéran was none the less moved by the explosion and its attendant apotheosis; even we were surprised into admiration. In a word, my dear fellow, and to make a long story short—we have been pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for the past year, and now Desrioux is going to eat them."

"You take it very smilingly, at all events."

"I laugh to keep myself from crying."

"And you accept the situation?"

"Just as you will have to accept it. What can we do? Any display of jealousy would be out of place and futile. Shall we quarrel with Desrioux? Have we dared to quarrel with each other? No, we recoiled from such an act of injustice, and we shall recoil again. Moreover, as I have already said, Desrioux, thanks to his _coup de theâtre_, has saved our lives, and people as a rule do not fall foul of their saviours. Reflection must show us that we have only one thing to do— to get back to Paris as soon as possible, and console ourselves as best we may, and if we can."

Just as this conversation came to an end, the caravan emerged from the defile through which it had been wending its way. After a day so full of incident the moment for well-earned repose had arrived. Tents were pitched for the Europeans on a plateau of some extent, whilst the people of Khartoum and Zanzibar sought a sleeping place in the clefts of the mountain, or lay down on the rocks, huddling close together to keep out the cold. The centigrade thermometers registered eighteen degrees, but the natives of central and southern Africa shiver in anything under twenty. This lowering of the temperature was on the contrary beneficial to M. de Guéran, and Dr. Desrioux, before quitting his patient, ascertained that the fever had decreased sensibly.

The camp was soon buried in repose—Venus in ebony alone, with her large eyes wide open, looked fixedly at the tent wherein reposed her former prisoner.