‘I reached Marseilles disguised as an old man. I went to the house of my cousin — he in whom runs my grandfather’s heroic blood — and there sat Annette. It was the season of cherries. They took a double stalk. At each end was a cherry. My cousin put one into his mouth, Annette put the other in hers. Then they drew the stalks in till their eyes met — and alas, alas that I should have to say it! — they kissed. The game was a pretty one, but it filled me with fury. The heroic blood of my grandfather boiled up in me. I rushed into the kitchen. I struck my cousin with the old man’s crutch. He fell — I had slain him. Alas, I believe that I did slay him. Annette screamed. The gendarmes came. I fled. I reached the harbour. I hid aboard a vessel. The vessel put to sea. The captain found me and beat me. He took an opportunity. He posted a letter from a foreign port to the police. He did not put me ashore because I cooked so well. I cooked for him all the way to Zanzibar. When I asked for payment he kicked me. The blood of my heroic grandfather boiled within me, and I shook my fist in his face and vowed to have my revenge. He kicked me again. At Zanzibar there was a telegram. I cursed the man who invented telegraphs. Now I curse him again. I was to be arrested for desertion, for murder, and que sais-je? I escaped from the prison. I fled, I starved. I met the men of Monsieur le Cure. They brought me here. I am full of woe. But I return not to France. Better to risk my life in these horrible places than to know the Bagne.’He paused, and we nearly choked with laughter, having to turn our faces away.
‘Ah! you weep, messieurs,’ he said. ‘No wonder — it is a sad story.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Sir Henry, ‘the heroic blood of your grandparent will triumph after all; perhaps you will still be great. At any rate we shall see. And now I vote we go to bed. I am dead tired, and we had not much sleep on that confounded rock last night.’
And so we did, and very strange the tidy rooms and clean white sheets seemed to us after our recent experiences.
CHAPTER V
UMSLOPOGAAS MAKES A PROMISE
Next morning at breakfast I missed Flossie and asked where she was.
‘Well,’ said her mother, ‘when I got up this morning I found a note put outside my door in which — But here it is, you can read it for yourself,’ and she gave me the slip of paper on which the following was written: —
‘Dearest M–, — It is just dawn, and I am off to the hills to get Mr Q– a bloom of the lily he wants, so don’t expect me till you see me. I have taken the white donkey; and nurse and a couple of boys are coming with me — also something to eat, as I may be away all day, for I am determined to get the lily if I have to go twenty miles for it. — Flossie.’
‘I hope she will be all right,’ I said, a little anxiously; ‘I never meant her to trouble after the flower.’
‘Ah, Flossie can look after herself,’ said her mother; ‘she often goes off in this way like a true child of the wilderness.’ But Mr Mackenzie, who came in just then and saw the note for the first time, looked rather grave, though he said nothing.
After breakfast was over I took him aside and asked him whether it would not be possible to send after the girl and get her back, having in view the possibility of there still being some Masai hanging about, at whose hands she might come to harm.
‘I fear it would be of no use,’ he answered. ‘She may be fifteen miles off by now, and it is impossible to say what path she has taken. There are the hills;’ and he pointed to a long range of rising ground stretching almost parallel with the course followed by the river Tana, but gradually sloping down to a dense bush-clad plain about five miles short of the house.