The intimacy which, since their departure from Paris, had always
existed between Madame de Guéran, Miss Poles, and their three
fellow-travellers, at Khartoum appeared scarcely so close. The Baroness
had expressed a wish to live alone with her companion, and for that
purpose had taken a species of little villa on the bank of the Blue
River, surrounded by a magnificent garden, and almost hidden by a
mass of date and palm trees.
Madame de Guéran, however, did not seem to have isolated herself for
the sake of peace and quietness. If she did not frequent Khartoum to
any great extent, and very rarely left her own domicile, she
received, every day, a great number of visitors. Putting aside the
English and French Consuls and the various Consular agents, who
thought themselves bound to offer her their services, she opened her
doors eagerly to every European traveller who expressed a wish to be
introduced to her. Nor did she in many cases wait for the expression
of such a wish, but sent out her invitations spontaneously.
It was in this way that she became acquainted with an English
officer, who, after having left Baker south of Gondokoro, was on his
way to Cairo to take up an appointment in the service of the Khedive,
and, afterwards, with one of the members of the expedition under
Lieutenant Cameron, Dr. Dillon, and Mr. Murphy. This traveller had
entered Africa by Zanzibar, and had seen the great lakes, but fever
had compelled him to return northwards, and he had left his
companions.
Madame de Guéran was not satisfied with talking to these
distinguished guests only. She sent Miss Beatrice Poles, and Omar and
Ali, the two interpreters, in search of every person who, in any
capacity, had accompanied Europeans, during the preceding year, in
expeditions towards the south. She questioned them very closely and
at great length about the person or persons whom they had escorted,
and if the portrait they drew was devoid of personal interest to her,
she examined them on a thousand and one details, and made them go
into every minute particular of their travels.
The expedition of Schweinfurth, who had lived for several years
amongst the Nuehr, Djour, Bongo, and Niam-Niam tribes, was of special
interest to her, and she was loud in her expressions of gratitude to
Ali when, on a certain occasion, that interpreter brought with him an
old soldier of the Dinha tribe, who was reported to have accompanied
the great German traveller as far as the territory of the Monbuttoos,
within three degrees of the Equator, and who had returned to Khartoum
with his master in July of the preceding year, 1871. The conversation
of this man became of such engrossing interest to Madame de Guéran
that very soon she talked with him alone, and left all her other
visitors out in the cold.
At the same time her character appeared to become completely
metamorphosed. If, during the progress of the voyage, she had
occasionally seemed nervous, such occasions had been exceptional; as
a rule (nearly always, in fact) her manner had been easy, light-hearted
and frank.
She appeared to have forgotten that she was a woman and beloved, and,
without the least affectation, she treated MM. Morin and Périères as
friends, and set her wits to work to pass herself off with them as a
good fellow and a boon companion.
Now, on the contrary, she avoided their society, got out of their
way, and seemed actually to dread meeting them. Any one, seeing her,
would have said that she had some confidential communication to make
to them, some secret to unfold, but that she lacked the courage to
speak.
On their side, MM. de Morin and Périères were astonished at her mode
of treating them, and took umbrage at it. Their love for Madame de
Guéran was above suspicion and beyond doubt. Both of them young,
rich, clever, well-born and good style, they had asked her hand in
marriage; and, to please her, and in the hope of winning that hand,
they had given up their cherished Parisian habits, the pleasures of
the _beau monde_, and had undertaken a voyage, to the dangers of
which, as we have already recorded, they were fully alive. This love,
the main-spring of their entire conduct and conspicuous at every
turn, had naturally increased during the voyage. Men who are already
in love cannot with impunity be thrown into close intimacy with the
loved one, especially if they are ever of necessity summoned to her
side to undergo with her the innumerable vicissitudes of travel, to
follow her up hill and down dale, and to share her dangers.
* * * * * *
With a view to prevailing on them to accompany her to Africa, Madame
de Guéran had said to them—"I do not know you sufficiently yet, and I
look upon this journey as a method of instruction, so far as your
characters are concerned."
She had, perhaps, become as wise as she wished to be, but all the
time she was pursuing her studies they, in their turn, were learning
to know her better, and to appreciate her more fully. Every time they
halted she was seen in a new light. Yesterday, so to speak, she was
intrepid, cool, and resolute; to-day, in the desert, with the slave
caravan before her, she is once more the sympathizing, tender-hearted
woman. And, moreover, under the glorious sun of Africa, in the midst
of this so luxuriant Nature, her beauty was so transcendent—it burst
into full bloom—it positively shone! In the afternoon under a tent,
in the evening on board their vessel, she held them captive under the
spell of her feeling tones, her exquisite sensibility.
They were, consequently, but involuntarily, more in love than ever,
absolutely conquered and enslaved, and they suffered, in proportion,
from the coolness with which for some days past she had treated them.
If they had made up their minds together to find out the cause of
this, they might not, possibly, have been so uneasy, but,
unfortunately, they mutually distrusted each other.
A moment's confidence would have taught them that they had equal
grounds of complaint against her, and that she had put them both on
identically the same footing. But love would be love no longer if it
took to reasoning; it warps the finest natures, and inspires the
sincerest hearts with jealousy.
M. de Morin attributed the coldness of Madame de Guéran to the love
she was beginning to feel for M. Périères, and the latter in his
turn, persuaded that his friend was also his successful rival, so far
forgot himself as to positively detest him.
They rarely saw each other, and, when they did meet, all that passed
between them was a commonplace word or two, or a frigid shake of the
hand. Then each one went his own way, and, avoiding the town, betook
himself to the open country, and, on the banks of the White, or the
Blue River, hid his sorrow in his own breast and mourned over his
defeat.
Dr. Delange alone preserved his liberty of mind and action, and, as
the inquiring traveller, pried into every corner of Khartoum. He had
enlisted into his service a faki, who, for a piastre per diem, took
him all over Khartoum from morning till night, and from night till
morning, and initiated him into all the mysteries of that mysterious
place.
One evening, his guide proposed to take him to the house of an old
sorceress, or witch, of high renown throughout the district, and he
gladly accepted the offer. These Egyptian women, under the protection
of the authorities, to whom their various services are of great
value, enjoy very extensive privileges at Khartoum, and are in
constant communication with all classes of society, from the Pashas,
whose harems they help to fill, to the Arabian women who go to them
for medicine for their actual, and charms for their imaginary, ills.
To these secret sources of employment they add others even less
reputable, but equally connived at by the powers that be, one of them
being the proprietorship of music and dancing halls, where the dances
of the country are exhibited by a dozen or more young girls, for the
most part natives of the Soudan.
Into one of these dens M. Delange made his way, and, for a few
piastres, witnessed an entertainment which gold would not have
procured for him in any other town but Khartoum. He was shown into a
spacious room furnished with low and roomy Arab lounges. The walls,
painted white, were brilliant with resinous torches of great
illuminating power.
A door opened, and in walked the mistress of the place, a woman of
about thirty, tall, thin, copper-coloured, and hard-featured. Her
regular, but strange, cast of countenance, and the gold circlet, in
the shape of a diadem, which decked the long bands of her plaited
hair, drawn flat across her temples, made her look like some old
Egyptian queen. In her hand she held a small whip, her conductor's
_bâton_.
After having cringingly saluted M. Delange, she squatted down in a
corner, and, at a word from her, eight slaves, who had been awaiting
her summons, appeared on the scene. They were enveloped in the
_fezdah_, a large piece of linen fringed on both edges.
At a fresh signal they laid aside this garment and appeared in the
_raat_, their orthodox dancing costume, made of leather, and of
somewhat scanty dimensions.
They were black as ebony, but with nothing of the negro type about
them—on the contrary, their noses were straight, their mouths small,
and their faces oval. Their figures were perfect, and their beauty
altogether was on a par with their youth.
Each of them danced in turn, without any musical accompaniment, her
companions meanwhile grouping themselves in a circle round her, and
encouraging her with their savage shouts, and by clapping their hands
together. Gradually her body turns, her knees are bent, and her arms
become rigid. She seems to be trying to resist some magnetic force
which slowly draws her on towards one comer of the room. She
advances, step by step, trembling in every limb, always following the
gaze of her companions, and swayed by their shouts, which degenerate
into howls like those of a wild beast.
The woman in the diadem has not left her place; she squats in the
same corner, but her yells mingle with the others, and her gaze,
fixed on the dancer, seems to mesmerize her. Her right arm is
extended at full length, and her claw-like fingers nervously clutch
the leathern-thonged whip.
Finally, the dancer, weary of struggling, appears to yield to the
influences which surround her, and to obey orders mysteriously
conveyed to her, and she ends by falling exhausted at the feet of the
spectator in whose honour the entertainment has been given.
M. Delange might very well have had enough of dancing, but he was
bent on seeing everything and comparing everything. So having made
the acquaintance of these dancing slaves, he thought he would see
what the dancing girls, who are their own mistresses, the Almehs to
wit, were like. He wished to ascend from the black to the copper-coloured
votaries of Terpsichore, and his visit to this other
locality in Khartoum was within an ace of having a very disastrous
result.