Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
Category: Nonfiction
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no heed toanything. Reaching the pack in which the sky-rockets were, he tore itopen and drew out one of them. With trembling hands he tied it to abamboo stick, planted it in a crack in the ground, struck a match andlit the string of the tube hanging at the bottom.
After a while a red snake flew upwards with a sputter and a sizzle.Stas seized a bamboo pole with both hands in order not to fall andfixed his eyes on the distance. His pulse and his temples beat likesledge hammers; his lips moved in fervent prayer. His last breath, andin it his whole soul, he sent to God.
One minute passed, another, a third, and a fourth. Nothing! Nothing!The boy's hand dropped, his head bowed to the ground, and immense griefflooded his tortured breast.
"In vain! In vain!" he whispered. "I will go and sit beside Nell and wewill die together."
At this moment far, far away on the silvery background of the moonlitnight, a fiery ribbon suddenly soared upward and scattered into goldenstars, which fell slowly, like great tears, upon the earth.
"Succor!" Stas shouted.
And immediately these people, who were half-dead a short time before,dashed pell-mell in a race across tufts of shrubs and grass. After thefirst sky-rocket, a second and third appeared. After that the breezebrought a report as though of tapping, in which it was easy to divinedistant shots. Stas ordered all the Remingtons to be fired, and fromthat time the colloquy of rifles was not interrupted at all and becamemore and more distinct. The boy, sitting on a horse, which also asthough by a miracle recovered its strength, and keeping Nell beforehim, dashed across the plain towards the saving sounds. Beside himrushed Saba and after him trumpeted the gigantic King. The two campswere separated by a space of a few miles, but as from both sides theydrew to each other simultaneously, the whole trip did not last long.Soon the rifle shots could not only be heard but seen. Yet one lastsky-rocket flew out in the air not farther than a few hundred paces.After that numerous lights glistened. The slight elevation of theground hid them for a while, but when Stas passed it he found himselfalmost in front of a row of negroes holding in their hands burningtorches.
At the head of the row were two Europeans, in English helmets and withrifles in their hands.
With one glance of the eye Stas recognized them as being Captain Glennand Doctor Clary.
XXV
The object of the Captain Glenn and Doctor Clary expedition was not atall to find Stas and Nell. It was a large and abundantly equippedgovernment expedition despatched to explore the eastern and northernslopes of the gigantic mountain Kilima-Njaro, as well as thelittle-known vast regions lying north of that mountain. The captain aswell as the doctor knew indeed about the abduction of the children fromMedinet el-Fayum, as intelligence of it was published in the Englishand Arabian papers, but they thought that both were dead or weregroaning in slavery under the Mahdi, from whom thus far not a Europeanhad been rescued. Clary, whose sister married Rawlinson in Bombay andwho was very much charmed by little Nell during the trip to Cairo, feltkeenly her loss. But with Glenn, he mourned also for the brave boy.Several times they sent despatches from Mombasa to Mr. Rawlinson askingwhether the children were found, and not until the last unfavorablereply, which came a considerable time before the starting of thecaravan, did they finally lose all hope.
And it never even occurred to them that the children imprisoned indistant Khartum could appear in that locality. Often, however, theyconversed 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 along stay on the eastern slope of Kilima-Njaro, after exploring theupper courses of the Sabak and Tany rivers, as well as Kenia Mountain,the captain and doctor turned in a northerly direction, and aftercrossing the marshy Guasso-Nijiro they entered upon a vast plain,uninhabited and frequented by countless herds of antelopes. After threemonths of travel the men were entitled to a long rest, so CaptainGlenn, discovering a small lake of wholesome brown water, ordered tentsto be pitched near it and announced a ten days' stop.
During the stop the white men were occupied with hunting and arrangingtheir geographical and scientific notes, and the negroes devotedthemselves to idleness, which is always so sweet to them. Now ithappened one day that Doctor Clary, shortly after he arose, whenapproaching the shore, observed between ten and twenty natives ofZanzibar, belonging to the caravan, gazing with upturned faces at thetop of a high tree and repeating in a circle:
"Ndege? Akuna ndege? Ndege?" (A bird? Not a bird? A bird?)
The doctor was short-sighted, so he sent to his tent for a field-glass;afterwards he looked through it at the object pointed out by thenegroes and great astonishment was reflected upon his countenance.
"Ask the captain to come here," he said.
Before the negroes reached him the captain appeared in front of thetent, for he was starting on an antelope-hunt.
"Look, Glenn," the doctor said, pointing with his hand upwards.
The captain, in turn, turned his face upwards, shaded his eyes with hishand, and was astonished no less than the doctor.
"A kite," he exclaimed.
"Yes, but the negroes do not fly kites. So where did it come from?"
"Perhaps some kind of white settlement is located in the vicinity orsome kind of mission."
"For three days the wind has blown from the west, or from a regionunknown and in all probability as uninhabited as this jungle. You knowthat here there are no settlements or missions."
"This is really curious."
"We had better get that kite."
"It is necessary. Perhaps we may ascertain where it came from."
The captain gave the order. The tree was a few tens of yards high, butthe negroes climbed at once to the top, removed carefully theimprisoned kite, and handed it to the doctor who, glancing at it, said:
"There is some kind of inscription on it. We'll see." And blinking withhis eyes he began to read.
Suddenly his face changed, his hands trembled.
"Glenn," he said, "take this, read it, and assure me that I did not geta sunstroke and that I am in my sound mind."
The captain took the bamboo frame to which a sheet was fastened andread as follows:
"Nelly Rawlinson and Stanislas Tarkowski, sent from Khartum to Fashodaand conducted from Fashoda east from the Nile, escaped from thedervishes. After long months' travel they arrived at a lake lying southof Abyssinia. They are going to the ocean. They beg for speedy help."
At the side of the sheet they found the following addition written insmaller letters:
"This kite, the 54th in order, was flown from the mountains surroundinga lake unknown to geography. Whoever finds it should notify theDirectory of the Canal at Port Said or Captain Glenn in Mombasa.
Stanislas Tarkowski."
When the captain's voice died away, the two friends gazed at each otherin silence.
"What is this?" Doctor Clary finally asked.
"I do not believe my own eyes!" the captain answered.
"This, of course, is no illusion."
"No."
"It is plainly written, 'Nelly Rawlinson and Stanislas Tarkowski.'"
"Most plainly."
"And they may be somewhere in this region."
"God rescued them, so it is probable."
"Thank Him for that," exclaimed the doctor fervently. "But where shallwe seek them?"
"Is there no more on the kite?"
"There are a few other words but in the place torn by the bough. It ishard to read them."
Both leaned their heads over the sheet and only after a long time werethey able to decipher:
"The rainy season passed long ago."
"What does that mean?"
"That the boy lost the computation of time."
"And in this manner he endeavored to indicate the date, therefore thiskite may have been sent up not very long ago."
"If that is so, they may not be very far from here."
The feverish, broken conv
ersation lasted for a while, after which bothbegan to scrutinize the document and discuss every word inscribed uponit. The thing appeared, however, so improbable that if it were not forthe fact that this occurred in a region in which there were noEuropeans at all--about three hundred and seventy-five miles from thenearest coast--the doctor and the captain would have assumed that itwas an ill-timed joke, which had been perpetrated by some Europeanchildren who had read the newspapers describing the abduction, or bywards of missions. But it was difficult not to believe their eyes; theyhad the kite in hand and the little rubbed inscriptions were plainly inblack before them.
Nevertheless, there were many things which they could not comprehend.Where did the children get the paper for the kite? If it had beenfurnished to them by a caravan, then they would have joined it andwould not have appealed for help. For what