"Well!" exclaimed Miss Poles, "and what of that? your explanation, so far from being satisfactory, gives me a still worse opinion of Mr. Munza. Fancy degrading a wife to the position of a cook! It is monstrous, and only worthy of a barbarian."
"You forget, Miss Poles," said Delange, "that in two-thirds of the households both in Paris and London, the wife not only does the cooking but also scrubs the floors."
"Quite so, but that is when people cannot afford to keep a servant, which is not the case with this Mr. Munza."
Miss Poles pronounced the words "Mr. Munza" with a degree of contempt which must have annihilated that monarch if he had heard them.
This conversation was, fortunately, interrupted by the deafening noise of the horns and drums, announcing that the King had returned from the market and regained his palace. We saw him in the distance, accompanied by his guards and followed by his subjects, who saluted his ears with the cry, "Ee, Ee, tchupy, tchupy, Ee, Munza, Ee," which answers to the English, "Hip, hip, hurrah!"
We were now shown into the audience chamber.
CHAPTER XXIX.
The building in which we found ourselves was destitute of walls, but was completely surrounded by a breast high palisading. A roof supported on gigantic tree-stems covered its entire length, about sixty metres, and a firm floor was obtained by means of layers of red clay.
Officers in full war costume, dignitaries of the kingdom, in their bark garments and with plumes of feathers in their bats, were seated on the low stools which, according to the African custom, they had brought with them. These individuals took up about two-thirds of the hall. The remaining portion was occupied by the throne, a bench furnished with a back and arms. On a leopard skin our presents were displayed to view, but, as if the monarch wished us to understand that he was accustomed to the generosity of white men, other objects of European manufacture appeared interspersed amongst our offerings, such as a silver platter, a porcelain vase, a telescope, a book with gilt edges, and a double mirror, which magnified on one side and diminished on the other.
The sight of these things produced a lively impression upon Madame de Guéran. Had they belonged to her husband, and been given by him to the African monarch? But de Morin, who was seated by her side, reminded her that Munza must have received these presents from Schweinfurth, and, indeed, that explorer expressly mentions the astonishment called forth by the mirror, and the King's error in taking the silver for white iron, and the porcelain for ivory.