Stasch gave an exact account of everything, and while telling of the journey from Fashoda to the waterfall, a great load fell from his chest, for when he told how he had shot Gebhr and his followers, he stopped and looked uneasily at his father—but Mr. Tarkowski frowned, thought a while, and then said gravely:
“Listen, Stasch! One ought never kill any one, but if any one threaten your country, or the life of your mother or sister, or the life of a woman placed in your care, then unquestionably shoot him, and without any qualms of conscience—and never feel any remorse.”
On arriving at Port Said Mr. Rawlison and Nell went to England, where they took up their residence. Stasch’s father sent him to a school in Alexandria, for there his deeds and adventures were not so well known. The children wrote to each other almost every day, but it so happened that they did not see each other for ten years. After the boy had completed his studies in Egypt he attended the Polytechnic School in Zürich, and on receiving his diploma engaged in tunnel work in Switzerland.
It was ten years later, when Mr. Tarkowski retired, that they both visited their friends in England. Mr. Rawlison invited them to spend the entire summer at his house near Hampton Court. Nell had passed her eighteenth birthday, and had grown up a lovely girl, blooming like a rose; and Stasch found, at the cost of his peace of mind, that a man of twenty-four is not too young to think of the ladies. In fact, he thought so continually of the beautiful and well-beloved Nell that he felt like running off wherever his eyes would lead him and his feet would carry him.
But one day Mr. Rawlison, laying both his hands on the young man’s shoulders, looked into his eyes and said:
“Stasch, tell me. Is there any one in the world but you to whom I could trust her so well?”
The young Tarkowski couple remained in England till the death of Mr. Rawlison. A year later they started on a long journey. They had promised themselves the pleasure of revisiting the places where they had spent their childhood and had wandered as youngsters, so they first went to Egypt. The kingdom of the Mahdi and Abdullah had long since disintegrated, and after its ruin there came, as Captain Glen had said, “England.” A railroad had been built from Cairo to Khartum. The places which used to be overflowed by the Nile had been cleaned up, so that the young couple were able to travel in a comfortable steamer not only as far as Fashoda, but even to the large Victoria-Nyanza Lake. From the town of Florence, which lay on the banks of this lake, they took the train to Mombasa. Captain Glen and Dr. Clary had moved to Natal, but under the good care of the English officials in Mombasa lived—King. The giant immediately recognized his former masters, and he welcomed Nell with such joyous trumpeting that the neighboring mangrove trees shook as though before a wind. He also knew old Saba, who had lived to almost twice the age allotted to dogs, and, though half blind now, accompanied Stasch and Nell wherever they went.
Stasch also learned while there that Kali was doing well, that he ruled under English protection over the whole territory south of Rudolf Lake, and that he had invited missionaries to come into his land to preach Christianity among the savage natives.