Kinene answered: “It is the will of Kibonge. I must obey him.”
Three persons stepped forward and held Emin securely as he tried to free himself. When he saw that his efforts were useless, he said: “This is a mistake. Here is a letter from Kibonge which promises me safe conduct.”
Kinene replied: “Pasha, if you can read Arabic, read this letter.”
And Emin read the second letter of the false Kibonge, which ordered him to be killed. He gave a deep sigh, then frowned and said: “Well, you will kill me, but do not think that I am the only white man in this country. Many will come to avenge my death and believe me, in two years there will not be a single Arab left in this region to tell the story of the destruction of his people.”
Kinene remained unmoved and when Emin saw there was no hope of escape he protested no longer and Ismaili, his treacherous guide, severed the head of the defenseless one from his body.
Two years elapsed before definite news of Emin’s fate was received, and as nothing was heard of him all that time, it was generally believed that he had been killed by Arabs, and that the truth had been concealed. At last Baron Dhanis, at the head of a Belgian expedition, came to the vicinity of Kinene’s possessions. There by chance Emin’s trunk and diary were found in a cabin, and the discovery led to the arrest of Ismaili and three others, who had participated in the murder, and their confession. The murderers were condemned to be hanged. A year later the treacherous Kibonge was made to pay for his infamy, for he was taken prisoner by a European expedition and put to death.
Thus Emin, the quiet, genial man, who never did an injury to anyone, but conferred almost endless benefactions, died as he had lived—alone. The serious, strenuous work of his life brought him little gratitude. He lived to see the collapse of his great creation—the Equatorial Provinces. But the one thing which was his consolation in all his hard days and which was occupying him at the very hour of his death was his devotion to science, which did not die with him, but has been and always will be of great value to the world. The museums of Europe tell of the activity of this collector, and scholars who have studied his diaries are amazed at the richness of their contents. He will never die in the memory of his own people or of the civilized world; his name is indelibly engraved upon the tablets of history.
Footnotes
[1]Dr. Wilhelm Junker was born at Moscow in 1846 and died at St. Petersburg in 1892. Between 1873 and 1886 he explored Algeria, Tunis, Lower Egypt, and a considerable part of Central Africa.
[2]Lado is in Central Africa on the White Nile, near Gondokoro, and was founded by General Gordon in 1874.