At this statement each in turn exclaimed—
“Wood? Leslie Wood? It’s impossible. It is ten years since he was seen in Paris. Nobody knows what’s become of him.”
“The story goes that he has established a black republic on the shores of the Victoria Nyanza.”
“What a tale! You know, of course, that he is fabulously wealthy, and that he is a past master in achieving the impossible. Well, he is living in Ceylon, in a fairy palace, in the midst of enchanted gardens, where the bayadères never cease dancing night and day.”
“How can any one believe such balderdash? The truth is, that Leslie Wood has gone off with a Bible and a carbine to convert the Zulus.”
Monsieur B—— interrupted in an undertone—
“There he is; there, do you see?”
And he drew our attention by a slight movement of the head and eyes to a man leaning against the doorway, dominating by his lofty stature the heads of the crowd huddled in front of him. He seemed engrossed in the performance.
That athletic carriage, the ruddy face with the white whiskers, the penetrating eyes and calm gaze, they could belong to no one else but Leslie Wood.
Recalling the inimitable letters which for ten years he contributed to the World, I said to Monsieur B——