For the last three days that unworthy girl Zouhra has been on her way to
Rhodes.
Well, what does that matter? I admit that I have only three wives left,
that's all. And what of that? Is it fitting that you, my dearest friend,
should try to make me feel ashamed of it?
While exercising your facetiousness, it seems to me that you especially
level your irony at certain other worries necessarily occasioned by the
position of Kondjé-Gul and what you call the wooing of the "fierce
Kiusko." Ye Gods! so I have a rival. Really, you make me laugh!
I fancy, however, that all this will inevitably end in a duel between
us, which indeed, as time goes on, seems to me quite unavoidable.
One evening when I arrived rather late at Téral House by reason of one
of those tedious dinners with which Anna Campbell's leaves-out were
celebrated, I found Kondjé-Gul quite downcast, and her eyes red with
crying. I had left her a few hours before in the best of spirits, and
delighted about a pretty little pony which I had given her in the
morning, and which we had been trying. Surprised and alarmed at such a
sudden grief as she evinced, and which had caused her to shed tears, I
anxiously questioned her about it.
Directly I began speaking to her I saw that she wanted to conceal from
me the cause of her affliction: but I pressed her.
"No, it's nothing," she said, "only a story which mamma told me."
But when she tried to smile, a sob broke out from her lips, and,
bursting into tears, she threw her arm round my neck, nestling her head
on my bosom.
"Good heavens! what's the matter, dear?" I exclaimed, quite alarmed.
"Tell me all about it, I entreat you. What has happened? And why are you
crying like this?"
She could not answer me. Her bosom heaved, and she seized my hand and
covered it with kisses, as if in order to demonstrate her love for me in
the midst of her distress.
I succeeded in calming her; and then, making her sit down by my side,
with her hands in mine, I pressed her to confess her troubles to me. Her
hesitation increased my alarm: she turned her eyes away from me, and I
could see that she feared to reply to me. At last, quite frantic with
anxiety, I resorted to my marital authority.
Then, with childlike submission, she related to me the following strange
story, which filled me with astonishment.