Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/97

Rh transports of mortal terror; at the slightest sound I cried ' There's the Buchold,' and the sweat came out on my forehead; you understand I was a bit feverish still. At last day dawned. Nothing had happened, and I breathed more freely.

"The second night, still nothing. The third, the same. The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, nothing. I began to make giant strides towards recovery. So when my landlord came and asked me:

"'Come, are you well enough to start for Sainte-Marie?'

"'I should think so,' said I,— and in ten minutes I was ready.

"Our accounts were soon settled; he would not take a penny. I was not displeased to pay him in thanks instead of hard cash, seeing how much better provided I was with the first than the second. So I did not press him; we shook hands warmly and I went on board for Pointe-Larrée.

"It was not without trepidation that I found myself again at sea. Every fish I caught sight of I thought was my wife. They wanted to fish on the way, but I begged them so hard not to, that the crew had not the heart to drop a line. I was not really at ease till we reached Pointe-Larreé. The sea was the Buchold's element; but as I had not seen her during the passage I told myself, 'good! she has lost the scent.'

"All the same I resolved that I would go overland from Pointe-Larreé to Tintingue. The land was my element, and I felt that I was the stronger there. It was funny all the same, for up to now I had never seen what good the land was except for filling watercasks and drying fish. So I struck a bargain with two blacks, who for a knife and fork I had, which could be put together and separated into two again, agreed to guide me from Pointe-Larreé to Tintingue. You understand I was bound to spare my hundred and forty francs all I could.

"Next day we started. It could hardly be called going overland, mind you; for everywhere the road was intersected with rivers and marshes, where we had the water up to our middles. Here and there we could see islands of firm ground, which were swarming with game.

"Are you a sportsman, sir?"

"Yes, I am."

"Well, if you had been there, you would have had a fine time. Guinea-fowl, turtle-doves, quails, green pigeons, blue pigeons, were flying about in thousands, so that merely by using our sticks Ave got materials for a dinner fit for a king. At mid-day we called a halt under a clump of palm-trees and prepared our meal. I plucked the guinea-fowl, my negroes lit a fire and we shook down a shower of dates—the King of Holland never ate better—and so fell to. I here was only one thing we lacked, a good bottle of Bordeaux or Edinburgh ale, but as I am a philosopher and can dispense with what I have not got, I made my way to a brook to satisfy my thirst.

"Seeing this, one of my guides said:

"'No good drink water, massa.'

"'Why certainly,' I told him, 'I know it's not good; I would much rather have wine.'

"'Massa rather hab wine?'

"'Why, of course, massa much rather have wine,' I returned impatiently.

"'Well den, me gib him some.'

'"What, wine?'

"'Yes, massa, new wine; come wid me.'

"I followed the fellow, muttering to myself:

"'Ah, my joker, if you are going to play me a trick, I will make it hot for you when we get to our journey's end.'

"'I said when we get to our journey's end, look you, because en route my rascals might easily have turned the tables upon me, whereas once there. ..

"Yes, yes, I understand."

"Well, I followed him; after going thirty or forty yards, he stopped, and looking about him:

"'Come 'long, massa, come 'long, massa, here is the cask,' he said pointing to a tree.

"I was still muttering to myself, 'Ah, my joker, if you are playing me a trick.'"

"Well, it was a ravenala the tree he pointed out to you," put in Biard.

Olifus looked at him with wide eyes of wonder.

"What, you know that, do you?"

"'Know that? of course I do."

"Yes, as you say, it was a ravenala, otherwise called the Traveller's Tree. Well, I had knocked about the world a bit, I had, yet I did not know the tree; so when he plucked a leaf which he gave me folded up into a cup, saying to me:

"'Lay hold, massa, and no spill a