Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/258



N returning to England, a long and dreary interval of fifteen months ensued. Isabel spent it for the most part with her parents in London, working all the time for her husband in one way or another. The separation was broken this time by one or two voyages which she made from England to Teneriffe, where she and her husband met for a space when he could snatch a week or two from Fernando Po. She had one very anxious time; it was when Burton was sent on a special mission to the King of Dahomé, to impress upon that potentate the importance the British Government attached to the cessation of the slave-trade, and to endeavour by every possible means to induce him to discontinue the Dahoman customs, which were abominable cruelties. Burton succeeded in some things, and his dusky majesty took a great fancy to him, and he made him a brigadier-