"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—"