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.