Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/459

 Rh he was engaged in the construction of tunnels in Switzerland.

When ten years had passed, Pan Tarkowski retired from the service of the Canal Company, and he and Stas visited their friends in England. Mr. Rawlinson invited them to his home, near Hampton Court, for the whole summer. Nell had finished her eighteenth year and had grown into a maiden as charming as a flower, and Stas became convinced, at the expense of his own peace, that a man, who had completed twenty-four years, could nevertheless still think of ladies. He even thought of beautiful and dear Nell so incessantly that finally he decided to run away to whatever place his eyes would lead him.

But while in that state of mind, Mr. Rawlinson one day placed both of his palms on Stas' shoulders and, looking him straight in the eyes, said with an angelic benignity:

"Tell me, Stas, whether there is a man in the world to whom I could give my treasure and darling with greater confidence?"

The young couple married and remained in England until Mr. Rawlinson's death and a year later they started upon a long journey. As they promised to themselves to visit those localities in which they had spent their earliest years and afterwards at one time had wandered as children, they proceeded first of all to Egypt. The state of the Mahdi and Abdullahi had already been overthrown, and after its fall England, as Captain Glenn stated, "succeeded." A railroad was built from Cairo to Khartûm. The "sudds," or the Nilotic obstructions of growing water plants, were cleared so that the young couple could in a comfortable steamer reach not only Fashoda but the great Lake Victoria Nyanza. From the city of Florence lying on the shores of that lake they proceeded by a