CHAPTER VIII.

De Morin and Delange joined me, and assisted me in providing for the safety of the inhabitant of the hut. We entrusted him, as well as the other unfortunates rescued by us, to Nassar, and then made the best of our way back to our camp. Madame de Guéran was on the look out for us, and, after explaining to her in a few words what had taken place, I handed her the sheet of paper with the small, close handwriting of her husband.

She took it, glanced at it, and handed it back to me, saying, in a broken voice—

"I cannot read it; read it for me, and aloud, for I have no secrets from any of you."

By the light of the flames, which had enveloped the entire Domondoo village, had attacked the neighbouring woods, and were extinguished only about a hundred yards from where we were, I contrived to decipher this precious document.

I copy it word for word in the journal of the Expedition—

"How long have I lingered through my enduring agony? Am I in the middle or at the end of 1872? I cannot answer that question precisely.

"If I look around me, the cloudless, deep blue sky, the warm colouring of the trees, the masses of red which overtop the tall grass, and the haze rising from the parched ground and spreading upwards like a cloud in the horizon, all tell me that the dry season has returned.

"My illness, my long lethargy, must therefore have lasted for four months at the very least! Indeed, I remember having been still in possession of my senses during the rainy season; I can recollect the beginning of July, but from that time all is a blank.

"I must needs consult Nature's page. Who can tell me, if she cannot, anything about the time that has escaped me? I am alone—long, very long ago my interpreters and all my servants were massacred before my eyes. As for my soldiers and bearers, some are dead, and the rest, more fortunate than I, fled away.

"Alone—yes, I am alone, and so far from my country, so far from those I love, so far from her!

"How I have been punished for having left you, my loved companion! for having preferred the novelty and excitement of distant travel to the calm joy of our dear fireside; for having dared to let my love of science outweigh my love for you! You deem me at this moment dead, and are weeping for me. You may, indeed, weep for me; I live still, but I am so weak, so utterly destitute of resources, and so disheartened, that I shall not go much farther; you may wear mourning for me; it is only a little premature.

"But I will not die without having said good-bye to you. I will tear this page out of my note-book, I will fasten it to the partition of my hut, and I will try to impress upon the unfortunate invalid who inhabits it, the only being who, in this country, has shown me one grain of pity, that this piece of paper is a fetish able to protect him. He will never tear it down, and some day, perhaps, other travellers, following the same route that I have done, will find these lines and take them back to my country.

"What has happened to me?—If my enfeebled memory would only come back to my assistance! Let me try.

"I made a great mistake in allowing Degberra's soldiers to enter the territory of the Domondoos. I very soon succeeded, as I had always intended to do, in getting rid of my compromising escort, and in alarming them to such a degree that they were glad to make the best of their way to their own country. But the Domondoos had recognised their mortal enemies in the midst of my caravan, the men who, every year, plunder them, kill them, and carry them away into captivity. I and my people were destined to bear their vengeance on the Monbuttoos.

"Day after day they attacked us, harassed us with their arrows, and killed some of my men. Then we fell into an ambush, and, in spite of our determined resistance, we were overwhelmed by numbers. They seized upon everything I possessed, baggage, provisions, and arms; my ammunition they could not take, for it was exhausted, and for a long time we had been fighting with side-arms. With ten rifles I could have routed the whole tribe!

"Instead of vanquishing them, I am become their slave, the slave of a tribe of wild beasts! The Monbuttoos are right in stigmatising them with the degrading title, the _Momvoos_. The Monbuttoos! They are the refinement of civilisation compared with this tribe. The wretches have but one merit; they are not cannibals. On this side of Africa, cannibalism appears to cease on their frontier. But if they do not eat their prisoners, they make them suffer horribly, and I almost think they would display more humanity if they did eat them!

"One day, worn out by privation and fatigue, tortured in mind and body, broken down and utterly overcome, I fell in one of the streets of the village, and I did not get up again.

"What happened then I know not, and never shall know. They, no doubt, thought I was dead; I must have been thrown aside in some corner, where, later on, I was picked up and brought here. What was the nature of my illness? Sunstroke, I imagine, or malignant typhoid fever. Who looked after me? Nobody—I only remember a negro, a poor invalid, the sole inhabitant of the hut, dragging himself occasionally to my side, and putting to my lips a gourd filled with a beverage of his own brewing. How came an angel of mercy into this Domondoo hell? I owe him my life, and T cannot show him my gratitude. May God reward him; may He watch over the awakening of this benighted soul, and bring it to the full knowledge of Himself!

"Afterwards, long afterwards, I was able to open my eyes, and look around me; I felt that I still lived, and that was all—I could neither move, speak, nor think.

"By degrees my strength came back to me, and my host gave me now and then a banana or a little flour mixed with water. My weakness diminished, and I was once more becoming master of myself. In about ten days from this time I was able to walk about the hut, but my saviour made me understand that I must not cross the threshold. His countrymen thought me dead, and, thanks to this mistake, I might be able to escape during the night.

"Escape! Where can I go in my present state? Return to Degberra? It is too far, and I should have to pass through the country of the Domondoos; I should be recaptured, I should be their prisoner once more! No! no! I have suffered outrage and torture enough! And, besides, how should I be received by the despot whom I have misled, who has been deceived in his expectations?

"I have but one course before me; to gain the frontier of the Maleggas, a few miles only distant from this spot. That tribe, according to what I have been told, is more humane than the Domondoos; they will, perhaps, let me regain my strength in their country, recover my health, and, later on, continue my journey.

"My journey! As if I could think even of carrying out my project—as if, in my state of weakness and destitution, I could dream of filling up the blank between the discoveries of Schweinfurth and those of Speke and Grant!

"And yet—hope has not abandoned me altogether. I cannot have undergone all these perils to die now. It cannot be that, after having achieved so much, I am destined to leave my task unfinished. My terrible past is, in itself, a guarantee for my future.

"I will escape to-night! I will drag myself to the neighbouring frontier. May God have mercy on me, and be gracious to those who read these lines!"

As soon as I had finished reading I looked at Madame de Guéran. Her face was bathed in tears.

We were going discreetly to withdraw, when, drying her tears and mastering her emotion, she made a sign to beg us not to leave her, and as soon as she had thoroughly recovered her self-possession, she said—

"Is the negro of whom my husband speaks alive? Can we find him?"

"Certainly," I replied. "He is close to us, with our people. We were fortunate enough to save him and snatch him from the flames."

"Ah!" she exclaimed, holding out the paper I had handed back to her, "my husband was not mistaken! These lines have served as a talisman to this poor creature! I want to see him. I want to question him. Perhaps he can tell us more—perhaps—"

She stopped. We divined her unspoken thought.

"You had better let us question this man," said de Morin. "We will repeat to you every word he says, but if there should be bad news, we might break it to you less brusquely, less unfeelingly—"

"Be it so! Go, and I will wait for you here."

We found Nassar keeping watch and ward over our personal prisoners, _protegés_ would be the better word, and he brought us to the man who interested us so deeply. The poor wretch was awake, his fears preventing him from sleeping; it appeared to him impossible that he should have been rescued from the flames and made a prisoner without being destined to be eaten. The Monbuttoos enjoyed an unenviable reputation, and he tarred us with the same brush.

Nassar succeeded in explaining to him that, so far from wishing to do him harm, we were bent upon doing everything we could for him, and as soon as he had reassured him on this point, he questioned him about the white man, his guest for so long a time.

"What has become of him?" asked our interpreter. "Has he reached the frontier of the Maleggas?"

The negro considered for some time; the terrible fright he had just undergone had almost deprived him of the little memory he possessed. At length he gave us to understand that the white man had never reappeared.

"But," persisted the interpreter, "did he die before reaching the neighbouring tribe?"

"No," replied the sick man, "he arrived there, and, some time afterwards, sent me, as a present, an ox given to him by the King of that tribe."

We had this answer repeated and translated twice, as it appeared to us to be of the utmost importance. It, indeed, established the fact that not only had M. de Guéran been able to escape from his enemies and continue his journey, but that he had been received kindly by the Maleggas.

"And you have never heard of him since?" asked Nassar.

"Never," was the reply.

"Well," said de Morin, as we made our way back to the spot where we had left Madame de Guéran, "I begin to think that, one day or other, we shall stumble across this dear Baron."

"Yes," I replied, "the chances are in favour of it."

"So I think. But has it occurred to you that in proportion as those chances increase, ours diminish?"

"Clearly. How does that affect you?"

"How does it affect you?"

"My dear fellow," said de Morin to me, "it is very odd, but all the same it is a fact that I have ended by sharing the hopes, fears, doubts, and sufferings of our companion. I appear now to have a direct interest in finding her husband, whereas you might naturally suppose that all my interest would be centred in never setting eyes on him. In short, this charming woman has gained such a hold over me, and I esteem her so highly, that every now and then I am surprised at finding my own identity merged in hers, and my thoughts devoted to her happiness alone."

"That is precisely my feeling," I replied. "Only, I wish she would feel that to bring about my happiness would conduce to her own."

This philosophical dissertation was interrupted by the subject of it. She came to meet us as soon as she caught sight of us, and at once asked for our report. De Morin must have been right, for I experienced a real pleasure in imparting to her the good news we had just heard.

The night was far advanced when we separated, after having decided upon the line of conduct we were to pursue on the morrow.