Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/441



object of the Captain Glenn and Doctor Clary expedition was not at all to find Stas and Nell. It was a large and abundantly equipped government expedition despatched to explore the eastern and northern slopes of the gigantic mountain Kilima-Njaro, as well as the little-known vast regions lying north of that mountain. The captain as well as the doctor knew indeed about the abduction of the children from Medinet el-Fayûm, as intelligence of it was published in the English and Arabian papers, but they thought that both were dead or were groaning in slavery under the Mahdi, from whom thus far not a European had been rescued. Clary, whose sister married Rawlinson in Bombay and who was very much charmed by little Nell during the trip to Cairo, felt keenly her loss. But with Glenn, he mourned also for the brave boy. Several times they sent despatches from Mombasa to Mr. Rawlinson asking whether the children were found, and not until the last unfavorable reply, which came a considerable time before the starting of the caravan, did they finally lose all hope.

And it never even occurred to them that the children imprisoned in distant Khartûm could appear in that locality. Often, however, they conversed about them in the evening after finishing their daily labors, for the doctor could by no means forget the beautiful little girl.

In the meantime the expedition advanced farther and farther. After a long stay on the eastern slope of