"Granted," replied M. Périères, "but how does it happen that the servant, to whom you have alluded, is better informed than his master? How did he manage to see amongst the Monbuttoos a European whom Schweinfurth could not possibly meet, because at that time he was in the midst of other tribes?"
"The reply to that is still easier. The man in question, whose name is Nassar, did not leave at the same time with the rest of the caravan, because Aboo-Sammit had entrusted him with the superintendence of one of those branches which, in furtherance of his business, he establishes in the various fresh countries to which he extends his operations. It was at this place, where he remained for eighteen months with the same Nubian soldiers, and which is situated between the third and fourth degree north of the Equator, and the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of longitude, east of the meridian of Paris—it was here that, in January, 1872, a caravan, under the command of a white man, asked for shelter for a few hours. This man, this European, was my husband! I could not doubt either the description of him given by Nassar, or the few hasty lines that M. de Guéran scribbled in his memorandum-book and entrusted to his host."
"And why," asked M. de Morin, "did not this man contrive in some way or other that those lines should reach you?"
"For many reasons, amongst which due allowance must be made for the apathy and indifference of Orientals in general, and negroes in particular. We in England were, at one time, for two years without news of Livingstone, and we believed him dead because a man, implicitly trusted by him, neglected to send his despatches to Europe. But the best reason of all is this: the address, written in pencil upon a scrap of paper, had, through constant exposure to tropical sun and rain, become partly illegible."
"He should have taken it, even if it had been only a single word, on his return to Khartoum, to some Consul," observed M. Périères, "who would doubtless have deciphered it, and would possibly have concluded that it came from M. de Guéran, in which case your mind would have been at rest long ago."
"Very true, but would the Consul have given Nassar his anticipated reward? Once more, my friend, you are excluding from your calculations the rapacity of certain negro tribes; you forget that they turn everything into money, that they sell the right of passing through and of remaining in their country, and that they will let you perish in misery and want if you cannot give them a piece of copper, or an armlet, or some cowries, in exchange for the meat and drink you so sorely need. Nassar preferred to wait until somebody came forward to purchase his letter, and his calculations were tolerably accurate, seeing that I have paid him a very high price for it."
"Then," asked M. de Morin, "you have no longer any doubt? It was really your husband's handwriting—you recognized it?"
"Perfectly; and, more than that, I recognize, too, the train of thought I knew so well for two years of my life. In a few touching lines, he asks my forgiveness again for having left me so abruptly, and having dared to undertake such a journey. He left me, he says, with the intention of revisiting, for the last time, the districts he had formerly explored, and of taking a final farewell of them. According to his first idea his absence would not have been of long duration, but the exploration fever, that species of madness which draws people towards the unknown, had seized upon him, carried him away like a whirlwind, and taken him far from his intended track. I have often heard discussions upon that strange attraction to which we owe many of the discoveries made during the last half century. When once a man has tasted Africa he longs to get back to it. Livingstone passed twenty years of his life there. Mdlle. Tinne returned thither three times, and Speke was on his way back when he was accidentally shot. Baker managed to get himself made a general in the Egyptian army and secured an official appointment as the leader of an expedition, in order to give himself an excuse for seeing again the sources of the Nile he is always seeking, and the splendid lakes he loves so well. Indeed, in my own case, I will not go so far as to say that I was not impelled onward by some irresistible force, independent, perhaps, of the end I had in view. But to return to the subject—in other words, my husband's letter.
"He had ascended the Nile, he writes, as far as the Gazelle River, which he thought would be completely blocked by floating vegetation, but, on the contrary, he had been able to navigate it with ease, and to reach the district of the Reks. There M. de Guéran confesses he might easily have turned back, but marvellous tales had been told him of the open districts in front of him. He could not fight against his longing, his morbid passion, his folly, whatever it may please you to call it, and he set out. He assures me that he wrote to me when with the Dinkas, the Djours, and the Niam-Niam. Not one of those letters have I ever received, and that is not to be wondered at, seeing that an accident alone has put me in possession of his last.
"He concludes by telling me that he has gone too far to put back, and that he has neither the courage nor the right to retrace his steps just at the moment when he is on the point of reaching his goal, and solving those problems which have so long been under investigation. Indeed, he is the first European who has passed beyond the Monbuttoo territory, and everything is conjecture in connection with the territories extending thence for some degrees south-east and south-west. If he succeeds, he says, in passing through certain districts, up to the present time supposed to be impassable, he does not despair of reaching the Blue Mountains, of which Baker speaks, of crossing the Albert Nyanza, and so reaching in succession the Victoria Nyanza, Kazé, and Zanzibar. If he is induced to penetrate still farther southwards, he will make for the Lake Tanganyika, explored by Livingstone; and if westward, for the banks of the Congo and the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, he bids me adieu, and asks me once more to forgive him."