Three weeks go by, but no Lefébure! So I naturally avail myself of the

delay, for pushing on a bit into Darfour; when, lo and behold! just like

my luck, on the ninth day, as I am entering the outskirts of El-Obeid in

Kordofan, I am met by a predatory tribe of Changallas! They surround me;

I try to defend myself, and a great burly rascal jumps at my throat, and

trips me up. I feel that I am being strangled by him; I deal him a blow

in the stomach with my fist, and he tumbles backwards; only, as his hand

still grips my throat, he drags me down with him; the others attack me

at the same time, and I am captured! My blow appears to have been the

death of the negro--which did not mend matters for me. They thrust me,

bound fast like a bundle of wood, into a sort of shed, after robbing me

of all my gold.

I was carefully guarded. At the end of eight days I said to myself,

'Barbassou, your ship lies in the harbour of Aden; you have business to

attend to, and you won't get out of your present scrape without

conciliatory negotiations. You must resign yourself to a sacrifice!' I

send for the chief, and offer him as my ransom a cask containing fifty

bottles of rum, ten muzzle-loading guns, and two complete uniforms of an

English general. This offer tempts him; but as I ask him first of all to

have me safe conducted to the King of Nubia, he answers that if once I

got there I should send him about his business. They confined me in a

pit, where I had only rice and bananas to eat, to which I am not at all

partial. As to the women, they are monkeys. However, after four months

of negotiations we came to an agreement that I should be conveyed back

to Sennaar, where I engaged upon my word of honour to give guarantees.

I set off, still bound fast, with ten men to guard me. After a fortnight

we arrive in the town. I enquire for Lefébure.--No Lefébure. I then go

to the king's palace--but he had just started off on a week's hunting

expedition. However, I find the sheik who was in command of the town,

and relate my difficulty to him. He informs me that the treasury is

closed. I tell my guards that they can return, and that I will have my

ransom sent from Aden, but that does not content them; one of them

seizes hold of me by the arm, but I gave him a good hiding. Finally the

sheik furnishes me with an escort, and I return to Gondar. The English

had gone back, and I started on my voyage across to Aden. When I reached

Adoua, where I had left my friend Lefébure, I asked for him. Again no

Lefébure! However, I had the luck to find his Arabian sweetheart, whom I

questioned about him. Her reply is, that the very day I left him, the

stupid fellow went and caught a sunstroke, of which he died the same

day. I inquire after my baggage and my camels.--No baggage, no camels!

They had all been forwarded to the Governor of Aden.




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