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!