The first visit paid by the members of our expedition was to the
Telegraph Office, to announce to their friends in France and England
their safe arrival at Khartoum. The despatches had to be couched in
Arabic, and were forwarded by Assouan, in Upper Egypt, to Alexandria,
whence the clerks, after having translated them, transmitted them to
Europe.
From the telegraph office, the whole party proceeded to the French
Consulate, where each one found his or her expected letter. Even M.
de Morin's valet had a missive or two, addressed to Mohammed-Abd-el-Gazal,
dragoman, but Joseph, after his misadventures in El-Hejaz, had
renounced all claim to this style and title. He loathed the Bedouins
as much as he had formerly loved them, and he at once, without
reading it, tore up the letter addressed to him by his former
instructor in Arabic.
Amongst their correspondence, MM. de Morin, Périères, and Delange
found a letter from M. de Pommerelle, addressed to all three of them,
and together they perused the latest news from their beloved city.
The very paper had a perfume of Paris, wafted to them through space
into the centre of Africa, and was, in itself, a source of enjoyment.
"You are angels!", wrote M. de Pommerelle. "Forgive my former abuse,
for I am heart-broken at the idea of having written a harsh word to
such friends as you. I thank you a thousand times for your letters,
and the records of your travel. As yet I have only read Périères, but
I feel that de Morin and Delange are on their way to me. I put
implicit faith in their promises, and I am revelling in a foretaste
of their narrations.
"If you only knew with what delight I welcome the arrival of the post
from Egypt! Do not, however, imagine that I am selfish enough to
reserve to myself the pleasure of living with you. No—I share that
with another of my friends, and there are two of us to read you. Read
you, did I say? We spell you, syllable by syllable, and follow you
step by step on the maps which are hung in every corner of my room.
"I need hardly tell you the name of this friend, for you must have
guessed it already—it is the trusty Doctor Desrioux, who longed to
accompany you, and whom duty alone retained in France. I only knew
him slightly before—knew him as a genial, charming companion, sincere
and worthy of all respect. The wish to talk about you, and to amuse
ourselves with your interesting trip has drawn us together, and now
we are inseparable.
"'Where are they?' says the Doctor. 'At Berber, I suppose.' 'No,' I
reply, 'I know de Morin, he is an eccentric genius; by this time he
has involved them in some fresh scrape, and they are still far from
the Nile.' 'Perhaps you are right,' answers the Doctor. 'Let us find
the exact spot where they halted last.' Behold us, armed with our
eye-glasses, bending over the maps and on the road with you.
"Our journey is not as fatiguing as yours, I admit. Instead of
pitching our tents in the desert or on the mountains we content
ourselves with sticking large-headed, many-coloured pins to mark your
different halting-places. Of late we have been ashamed of this
passive travelling, and, after a good dinner, excited by your
letters, and enamoured of your descriptions, we suddenly conceived
the idea of joining you. Yes, my dear friends, joining you in Africa,
at Khartoum!' They were screwed,' you will exclaim. I was, perhaps, a
little gone, but I assure you that Desrioux was as sober as a judge.
He spoke quite seriously, adding that his usual patients, the poor,
were, for the time being, in the enjoyment of perfect health, that
his mother had never been better in her life, and that he could,
without fear or imprudence, leave her for a few months.
"'How long would it take us to reach Khartoum?' he continued. 'Five
or six weeks at the most, if we do not stop anywhere, but hurry
through the country and scatter our money by the handfull. We could
spend a fortnight with our friends and be back in Paris within three
months.'
"He grew quite hot and excited over the idea, and so did I, so much
so that when we separated, at about 3 a.m., our prompt departure was
all arranged.
"On the following morning, when I was still in bed, and cogitating
over our plans, not quite so enthusiastic, perhaps, as I had been the
night before, but still firm in my purpose, the Doctor was announced.
He came to tell me that since the previous evening several cases of
small-pox had been brought into hospital, that there were fears of an
epidemic, and that he did not think himself justified in leaving
Paris before these fears had subsided. I can assure you that this was
no protest for getting out of the affair, for he appeared very
doleful, and repeated over and over again.
"'This idea had made me so happy, and here I am dying of despondency
and grief!'
"The fact is that Desrioux is a right-down good fellow, but
cheeriness is not one of his strong points. I believe that his
wandering instincts are as strong as my sedentary ones, that he is
weary of being tied down to the same spot, and that his burning
desire is to see those countries about which you discourse so
charmingly.
"The small-pox epidemic was only too serious, and, out of regard for
you, it had evidently awaited your departure to declare itself. It is
committing fearful havoc, and is, this year, more than usually
malignant and contagious. Consequently the poor Doctor no longer
thinks about leaving; he is too busy for that. He visits every
hospital, garret, and den; and, thanks to his entire forgetfulness of
self, his science, and the calm courage with which he confronts and
braves every danger, he has succeeded in saving a number of poor
sufferers who had been given over by their regular attendants.
"As for myself, always an outrageously useless member of society, but
especially so in times of epidemic, I hinted to myself one day that
the air of Paris was becoming unwholesome, and I made up my mind to
betake myself to some more genial clime.
"You don't believe me? You remember what I wrote to you about
Trouville. Well, this time, I got as far as—I will not tell you all
at once, lest you should be unjust enough not to believe me. Either
your example made me brave, or the small-pox made a coward of me—
whichever it was, I packed up my traps. Yes, I did, with all due
deference to you, and I took my ticket for Lyons, so as to be nearer
to you. One never knows, said I to myself, what may happen; once on
the shores of the Mediterranean, I may, perhaps, eventually find
myself at Khartoum.
"Moreover, I hit upon a capital plan for getting away as far as
possible. Instead of taking a morning train, as I did when I went—I
mean, when I attempted to go to Trouville, I followed your example
and took the night mail. I engaged a sleeping compartment all to
myself, and went regularly to bed. You see my idea, do you not? I
reckoned on my habitual laziness to prevent my attempting to rise
when once I had laid down. And so it happened that 11 a.m., on the
following day found me still asleep—at Marseilles!
"Yes, I, Pommerelle, I have set eyes on Carcassonne. I beg your
pardon, I was thinking of the song. I mean, I have seen Marseilles!
"Since I arrived I have been strolling on the quay _de la Jolliette_,
and watching the steamers of the Messageries Maritimes. If one of
them had only taken it into its head to get up steam and start at
once I should have jumped on board, and the thing would have been
over, because, unless I threw myself into the sea, which is against
my principles, I must have gone as far as Egypt. But there was no
steamer for forty-eight hours, and that was asking too much of me.
Home-sickness once more claimed me for its own; I sought for Paris,
and Paris only, at every turn. I cried aloud for Paris, and the
echoes of the Cannebière alone responded. From that moment I was
lost.
"Nevertheless, I did not withdraw myself from you too abruptly. I
went to the railway station and took my ticket for Monte-Carlo, where
I was sure to stumble across some acquaintance, good, bad, or
indifferent.
"What splendid vegetation! What a sky! What flowers! What trees! What
an idea all this gives one of the tropics! How wonderfully happy you
fellows must be, living in the midst of nature, real, unsophisticated
nature. I was in the seventh heaven of delight, and I said, 'If it is
so pretty here, what sights they must be seeing beyond there!' And,
upon my word, without any further ado I sent Doctor Desrioux a whole
series of telegrams in the laconic, or negro style—'I determined—
start—Africa. You leave small-pox—join me—Monte-Carlo.'
"But Desrioux did not turn up, and, whilst I was waiting for him I
was cleaned out at roulette and trente-et-quarante. I was, therefore,
obliged to set out speedily on my return to Paris, where I found the
small-pox on the decline, and Doctor Desrioux in the zenith of his
fame, for from chevalier he had just been promoted to be an officer
of the Legion of Honour.
"And that, my dear fellows, is all that I have to say to you. You see
that I have been very close to you. Scarcely four hundred leagues
divided us. I do not despair of joining you one day. What I have
already done is stupendous! As far as Monte-Carlo! I cannot get over
it! Let me come to it by degrees—every year I will manage a few extra
kilometres, and, in twenty years' time, I shall be up to a journey
worth talking about."
MM. de Morin and Périères, like men of honour, or, at all events,
adversaries who no longer feared a rival, read to Madame de Guéran
the passages in this letter which referred to Dr. Desrioux.