Into the Niger Bend: Barsac Mission, Part 1 Page 5

  Jane Blazon was the third to care for the aged nobleman, watching over his distress with almost a motherly love. She would have given her life to make him smile, and her hope of bringing a little happiness into her father's embittered soul never left her. This was the only aim of all her thoughts, of everything she did.

  She realized at once that her father was weeping not so much for the miserable end of a son subjected to just retribution as for his tarnished name and his violated honour. She, on the other hand, did not weep.

  Not that she did not feel the loss of her dearly-loved brother and the stain upon the family escutcheon. But even stronger than grief was the protest of her heart What! Lewis and her father to believe so readily in George's disgrace! Without checking it, without making any enquiry, they accepted as proved these accusations from far beyond the seas! What mattered the official reports? Against these reports, against the evidence itself, the whole history of George rose in protest That he should be a traitor, her splendid brother, so upright, so good, so pure, whose whole life bore witness to his heroism and loyalty, that was unthinkable! Let the whole world disown him, she at least would honour his memory, and her faith in him should never fail.

  Time served only to strengthen her belief. As the days passed, the firmer grew her conviction in her brother's innocence although there was no evidence to support it. The moment at last came, several years after the event, when she dared for the first time to break the absolute silence which, by tacit agreement, everyone in the castle maintained about the tragedy of Koubo.

  "Uncle?" she said one day, in an interrogative voice, to Agenor de St. Berain.

  Althought he was really her nephew, they usually reversed, in practice, the order of their relationship, so as to bring it more into line with their respective ages. This was why Agenor usually called Jane his niece, and she bestowed upon him the title of uncle; this was almost always so....

  Not always, however.

  If it happened by chance that this so-called uncle gave his pseudoniece any reason for complaint, or if he tried to resist her wishes, or even one of her whims, she would at once revert to her true status and indicate to her "nephew" that he ought to show proper respect to his "elders". Realizing the position, the "nephew" hastened to sing small and to appease his venerable "aunt". This clash of titles sometimes gave rise to remarkable dialogues. "Uncle?" Jane asked that day.

  "Yes, dear?" replied Agenor, lost in a treatise on angling. "I want to talk about George."

  Agerior was so startled that he put his book down. "About George?" he asked, somewhat perturbed. "What George?"

  "About my brother George," Jane informed him calm-

  Agenor grew pale. "But you know," he protested in a trembling voice, "that this name must not be spoken here."

  Jane repulsed the objection with a movement of her head.

  "That doesn't matter," she said quietly. "Tell me about George, uncle."

  "What do you want me to tell you?"

  "Everything about him...everything."

  "That I never will!" Jane frowned.

  "Nephew!" she said in menacing tones. Nothing more was needed.

  "All right! All right," babbled Agenor, and he began to relate the sad story.

  He related it in full detail. Jane listened in silence and did not ask any more questions. Thinking the matter was settled, Agenor heaved a sigh of relief.

  He was mistaken. A few days later, Jane returned to the charge.

  "Uncle?" she asked again.

  "Yes, dear?"

  "Suppose George wasn't guilty?"

  Agenor could hardly believe his ears.

  "Not guilty?" he repeated. "I'm sorry to say, my poor child, that there's no doubt about it. The wretched fellow, his guilt and his death are historic facts, proved up to the hilt."

  "How?" Jane asked.

  Agenor went over the ground again. He cited the articles in the papers, the official reports against which nobody had protested. Finally he invoked the absence of the accused, a definite proof of his death.

  "Of his death, yes," Jane objected, "but hardly of his treachery."

  "The one was the result of the other," Agerior replied, her obstinacy putting him at a loss.

  This obstinacy was even greater than he supposed. From that day onward she often returned to the painful subject, harassing Agerior with continual questions. From these he readily inferred that she still had faith in her brother's innocence.

  On this point, however, Agenor remained unmoved. In response to her best arguments, he contented himself with shaking his head sadly like a man who wished to avoid a useless discussion; Jane realized that his belief was not to be shaken.

  One day she lost patience and decided to put her foot down.

  "Uncle?" she began again.

  "Yes, dear?" he replied as usual.

  "I've been thinking things over, Uncle, and I've come to the conclusion that George is innocent."

  "But, my dear," Agenor began.

  "There's no *but' about it," Jane cut him short. "Uncle, George is innocent."

  "Yet..."

  Jane got up, her nostrils quivering. "I tell you, my nephew," she said grimly, "my brother George is innocent."

  Agenor gave in.

  "So he is, Aunt," he agreed, humbly.

  Since then, George's innocence had been an acknowledged fact, and Agenor de St. Berain never let himself dispute it. Moreover, Jane's certainty was not without some effect on his own mind. If he did not share her convictions of the recreant captain's innocence, at least they shook his belief in the reality of his guilt.

  In the years that followed, Jane's thoughts kept developing in the direction of a faith which, however ardent, was sentimental rather than reasoned. To have gained a fellow believer was indeed something, but not very much. What was the use of announcing the innocence of her brother when she could not prove it? And how was she to get any proof? At last she felt she had thought out a method.

  "It's understood then," she said one day to Agenor, "that George is innocent?"

  "Yes dear," replied Agenor, who none the less did not feel too certain about it.

  "He was far too intelligent," Jane continued, "to do anything so stupid, and too proud to degrade himself. He loved his country too much to betray it."

  "That's clear enough."

  "We've lived with him. I understood his thoughts as well as I do my own. He had no other motive than honour, no other love than for our father, no other ambition than the glory of our country. And you will have it that he had the idea of betraying it, of dishonouring it by turning filibuster, of covering himself and his family with shame? Tell me! That's how you want to have it, Agenor?"

  "Me! I don't want anything, Aunt," protested Agenor, thinking it more prudent to make use of that respectful title.

  "And you sit there, staring at me with those great round eyes, as if you'd never seen me before! You know quite well that so abominable an idea could never have entered his head! Well, if that's what you know, say it!"

  "I say it. Aunt, I do say it!"

  "That's not so bad! But as for those who invented that story, they are wretches." "Villains."

  "They ought to be sent to jail."

  "Or hung."

  "Along with the journalists whose lying stories brought us despair and shame!"

  "Yes, all the journalists! They ought to be hung! They ought to be shot!"

  "You feel quite sure of that!"

  "Absolutely!"

  "Well, I wanted to make sure you didn't doubt it!"

  "Never have I thought. . . ."

  "Good! If it wasn't for that, understand me, I'd have driven you from my presence and never set eyes on you again."

  "Heaven preserve me!" cried poor Agerior, greatly alarmed by this terrible threat.

  Jane paused and glanced at her victim out of the corner of her eye. Certainly she had thought things out, for she modified her violence in a way less sincere than calculated, and said more quietly, "It is
n't enough for the two of us to believe in George's innocence. We must find some way of proving it, Uncle dear, as you will see."

  Agerior's face lighted up. The storm must have passed.

  "That's clear," he agreed, with a sigh of relief.

  "Without that we could shout from the housetops that George is not guilty, but nobody would believe us."

  "That's only too certain, my poor dear."

  "When my father himself—his own father!—accepts the truth of a few rumours which began nobody knows where, when he's dying of grief and shame under our very eyes, without having repulsed these abominable rumour mongers, when he did not at once exclaim 'You're lying! George could never commit such a crime!' how can I expect to convince strangers without giving clear proofs of my brother's innocence?"

  "That's as clear as daylight," agreed Agenor, stroking his chin. "But there we are. . . . Those proofs . . . where are we to find them?"

  "Not here, that's plain." Jane paused, then added quietly, "Somewhere else, perhaps."

  "Somewhere else? Where, my dear child?"

  "Where the thing occurred. At Koubo."

  "At Koubo!"

  "Yes, at Koubo. There they can first find George's grave, because it was there that they say he died, and if so, there they can see how he died. Then they can hunt out the survivors, the troop he commanded was sizeable, and they can't all have vanished. These witnesses, they can question them, and so bring the truth to light."

  As Jane spoke, her face lit up, and her voice trembled with enthusiasm.

  "You're quite right, little one," cried Agenor, naively falling into the trap.

  Jane put on her stubborn look. "Well," she said, "if I'm right, someone must go there."

  "Where?" asked Agenor, startled.

  "Where ... to Koubo, Uncle."

  "To Koubo? And who the devil do you want to send to Koubo?"

  Jane threw her arms about his neck. "You, Uncle dear," she murmured sweetly.

  "Me!"

  Agenor freed himself. For once he was really annoyed.

  "You're crazy!" he replied, trying to get away.

  "Not so very crazy!" replied Jane, holding him back. "And why, if you please, shouldn't you go to Koubo? Don't you like travelling?"

  "I hate it. Having to be in time to catch a train, that's more than I can do."

  "And you hate fishing too, don't you?"

  "Fishing? I don't see what you're getting at?"

  "What do you say to fried fish-caught in the Niger? That would be something out of the way! In the Niger, where the gudgeons are the size of sharks, and the minnows are like tunny! And you won't even try it!"

  "I didn't say. . . . However. . . ."

  "And while you were fishing you could make your enquiries, you could ask the natives. . .."

  "In what language?" Agenor chaffed her. "I didn't know those coconuts spoke English!"

  Jane did not look amused. "That's why it would be better to ask them in Bambara."

  "In Bambara? Am I supposed to know Bambara?"

  "Well, you can learn it."

  "At my age?"

  "Well, I've learned it, and I'm your aunt."

  "You? Can you speak Bambara?"

  "Certainly. Just listen to this: 'Dfi lokho a bi na."

  "Whatever's that gibberish?"

  'That means I'm thirsty.' And 'dou, nono i mita.' "

  "I swear . .. nono .. . mita."

  "That means, 'Come in, I'll give you some milk. And 'Koiikho be na. Kounou ouarara ute a man doumou-ni.' Don't rack your brains. Translation: 'I'm very hungry, I've eaten nothing since yesterday morning.' "

  "And I've got to learn that?"

  "Yes, and a good deal more. And don't lose any time about it, for we'll soon have to be off."

  "What do you mean, be off? Because I'm not going, for one. What an idea! No, I can't see myself hobnobbing with your savages."

  Jane seemed to give up hope of persuading him. "Then I shall have to go by myself," she said sadly.

  "By yourself!" bleated Agenor, astonished. "You want to go by yourself."

  'To Koubo? Certainly."

  "A thousand miles inland?"

  "Over eleven hundred, my dear Uncle."

  "Face dangers like that! And by yourself?"

  "I shall have to, if you won't come with me," Jane answered dryly.

  "It's madness! It's absolute lunacy! It's delirium tremens," cried Agenor, who saw that the only thing to do was to dash out and slam the door.

  But when he wanted to talk to Jane next day, she refused to reply or pay attention, and so it went on for the next few days. Agenor wasn't strong enough to play that game. In four days he had to strike his flag.

  Thenceforward, whenever his young aunt suggested anything, he gradually came to share her views. That journey, which he had first regarded as crazy, he thought next clay to be dangerous, the third day feasible, and the fourth day quite easy.

  That was why, within four times twentyfour hours, he had apologized handsomely, admitted his error, and declared himself ready to set out.

  Jane was generous enough not to hold him to that.

  "First you've got to learn the language," she said, kissing him on both cheeks.

  From that time on, whenever one saw Agenor he was poring over a Bambara grammar.

  Before setting off, however, Jane had to make certain that her father agreed. She obtained his consent much more easily than she had dared hope. Hardly had she mentioned, without going into details, her plan for undertaking the voyage when he made a gesture of assent, only to plunge once again into his habitual sadness. Had he as much as heard her? So far as could be seen, nothing now interested him.

  That settled, Jane and Agenor began getting ready for their journey. Not then realizing the help the Barsac Mission was to give them, they had to act as if they would be alone, and with only their own resources, to undertake that crazy peregrination of more than two thousand miles.

  For several years Jane had carefully studied the geography of the countries she had to pass through. The works of such explorers as Captain Binger had described in lull detail the regions and its inhabitants.

  Thus she learned that if she attempted an armed exploration, surrounded by a regiment of several hundred volunteers, whom she would have to arm, feed, and pay, she would first of all incur considerable expense. She would, moreover, be hurling herself against a warlike population who would oppose by force an incursion made by force. She would then have to fight in order to attain her end, even assuming she could attain it at all.

  Captain Binger indeed declared that if the natives wished they could stop any expedition, either by attacking it or by devastating the country and starving it out.

  Much impressed by this statement, Jane had decided to attempt a peaceful journey. Hardly any visible weapons, a few devoted trustworthy men, and the sinews of war represented not only by money but by presents for the village chiefs and their headmen.

  After having designed linen garments for the dry weather, and thick woollen ones for the rainy season, Jane and Agenor packed them in light cases, restricted these to the smallest possible number. Then they crated up gifts for the natives: second rate second hand guns, gaudy or variegated cloth, silk and cotton handkerchiefs, glass pearls, needles, pins, haberdashery, lace, buttons, pencils and so forth, the whole trumpery of a bazaar.

  They took also for themselves a small chemist's shop, weapons, telescopes, compasses, camp equipment, dictionaries and a few other books, the most up-to-date maps, cooking utensils, toilet materials, tea, provisions, indeed a whole carefully selected cargo of objects essential for a long stay in the bush, far from any centre of supply.

  Finally a metal case, made of nickel which sparkled in the sun, contained a selection of fishing-rods, lines and hooks, enough for half-a-dozen anglers. That was Agenor's personal luggage.

  The aunt and the nephew, or the uncle and niece, whichever you prefer, would then set off for Liverpool, where they would embark for th
e African coast. Their first intention was to start from the British colony of Gambia, and it was not until they learned, when stopping at St. Louis, that a French Mission was waiting at Konakry, and that it meant to follow a route similar to their own, that they decided to join the compatriots of St. Berain.

  Towards the end of September they sent to Liverpool their multifarious luggage, and on the 2nd October they had their last meal together, for Lord Blazon never left his room, in the great dining hall of Glenor Castle. In spite of the grandeur of the task she had imposed on herself, Jane Blazon could not refrain from thinking that perhaps she would never again see this castle, the cradle of her infancy and youth, and that when she returned, if she ever returned, her old father might no longer be there to welcome her to his arms.

  And yet it was above all for him that she was embarking on this adventure, so full of danger and effort. It was to bring a little happiness to his desolate heart that she was going to rehabilitate his name, to efface the stain which had smirched his escutcheon.

  As the hour for departure approached, Jane asked her father to let them say good-bye, and was ushered, along with Agenor, into the old man's room. He was sitting near the great window which looked out on the countryside. His eyes seemed fixed on the remote distance, as if he were waiting for someone to come into sight. Who could it be? George his son—George the traitor?

  On hearing his daughter, he turned his head slightly and his dim eye brightened. But it was only a gleam. His eyelids fell; his face resumed its customary lack of expression.

  "Good-bye, Father," said Jane, striving to keep back her tears.

  Lord Glenor did not reply. Rising from his armchair, he grasped the hand of the young girl; then, pressing her gently against him, he bestowed a kiss on her forehead.

  For fear of bursting into sobs, Jane withdrew from his grasp and went away in tears.

  The old man then seized Agenor's hand, shook it, and, as if to demand his protection, gestured toward the door through which Jane had just vanished.

  "Rely on me," Agenor assured him.

  Then Lord Blazon resumed his former attitude, and his glance was once more lost in the depths of the landscape, while, strongly moved, St. Berain left him.