“Yes, I expect so.”
The tone of his voice suggested far more than the words themselves expressed. It aroused my curiosity. “For long?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t suppose I shall see those peaks again. I saw them first twenty-seven years ago, a young priest on his first mission, and I have not seen them from the sea since. Now I have been ordered to India to my second mission, and it is not very likely that I shall be moved again. It is still less likely that I shall return. After so long an acquaintance, it is natural that I should want to say good-bye.”
I think I was slightly incredulous. “Do you mean you have been over twenty-seven years up there without leave?” I questioned.
“Twenty-seven next month, there and beyond.”
I have told you that I was young in those days, and I did not then know of the heroic sacrifices of Catholic missionaries. Moreover, I too was taking a first leave—after two years’ service, according to our plan. And I was eagerly looking forward to a visit to my married sister in India, and a journey home after that. Stupidly enough, it took me a few seconds to swallow those twenty-seven years; but for all that my mind worked quickly. Twenty-seven years of tinned food, mosquitoes, heat, natives, and packing-case furniture! That was how I read it. “Well,” I said at last, “I should think you were glad to go anywhere after all that time.”
“Eh? Oh, I don’t know. No, that’s wrong; I do know. I’m sorry, that’s the truth.”
“You like Africa?”
The Frenchman showed himself in the half-humorous shrug of the shoulders, but the missionary spoke. “It has become my home, and its people my people,” he said.
I turned the saying over in my mind before I spoke again. Then interest and attraction overcame my hesitation, and I abandoned all pretence of making a chance conversation. “Father,” I said, “I expect you have travelled a good deal up there and seen many things. Tell me a little about it all. I’ve seen enough to be very interested in your experiences. May I pull up a chair and may we talk?”