Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/333

 Rh baobab tree, for it was associated with the recollection of Nell's illness. On the other hand, the little girl gazed with sad eyes at the rocks, at the trees, at the waterfall, and announced that she would return there when she should be "big."

Sadder still was little Nasibu, who had loved sincerely his former master, and, at present riding on the donkey in the rear, he turned around every little while and looked with tears in his eyes towards the place where poor Linde would remain until the day of the great judgment.

The wind blew from the north and the day was unusually cool. Thanks to this they did not have to stop and wait from ten to three, until the greatest heat was over, and they could travel a longer distance than is customary with caravans. The road was not long, and a few hours before sunset Stas espied the mountain towards which they were bound. In the distance on the background of the sky was outlined a long chain of other peaks, and this mountain rose nearer and lonely, like an island in a jungle sea. When they rode closer it appeared that its steep sides were washed by a loop of the river near which they previously had settled. The top was perfectly flat, and seen from below appeared to be covered by one dense forest. Stas computed that since the promontory, on which their baobab tree grew, was about twenty-three hundred feet high and the mountain about twenty-six hundred feet, they would dwell at an elevation of about forty-nine hundred feet and in a climate not much warmer, therefore, than that of Egypt. This thought encouraged him and urged him to take possession of this natural fortress as quickly as possible.

They easily found the only rocky ridge which led to it and began the ascent. After the lapse of half an hour they stood on the summit. That forest seen from below