He put his hand into the leather bag which hung from his waist-belt, pulled out a small sheet of paper, and handed it to us.
I opened it. Yes—it was the handwriting of M. de Guéran, the same handwriting as that of the letter given to us at Khartoum by Nassar, the same as that of the placard we found in the Domondoo hut.
I did not feel myself justified in reading the letter before Madame de Guéran had seen it. Though her health had improved from the moment she quitted Kadjoro's residence to accompany the army to the frontier, she was still too weak to leave the camp, and she was consequently ignorant of the arrival of the caravan. On Delange devolved the duty of telling her the news, which would have indeed been a hard task for de Morin or myself, and of giving her the letter sent by her husband.
When we were alone with Ali we began our enquiries. De Morin, very nervous, very much agitated, but, at the same time, very clear and precise in his questions, opened the ball.
"Why," he asked, "have you been so long away? You have been absent now for more than six weeks, and the journey there and back, according to what the King has told us, as a rule does not take more than a month. Did the Queen detain you, as prisoners, any time?"
"No," said Ali, "but her people would scarcely let us pass. All the chiefs of districts made us wait for orders before they would allow us to go on. Besides, the country is not at all like this; at every step we came across torrents flowing down from the mountains. Storms are of frequent occurrence at the end of the rainy season, and we lost a great deal of time in overcoming all these difficulties."
"Did you come across a large lake, marked on some of our maps as Lake
Piaggia?"
"No, I never saw it. There is no such thing in the country."
"Is the territory of the Walindis of great extent?"
"Yes, twenty days' march before you get to the royal palace."