Complicated by such difficulties, the journey could never be completed within the time hoped for. Only on the evening of the 23rd March did they make their last halt before Koubo. This was still about five miles away; but within less than a mile was the place where, according to Tongane they ought to find the tomb in which lay the remains of Captain George Blazon.
Next day, at dawn, they would again set out. Leaving the road, they would go to the place where the Captain's forces had been destroyed, then make for the village. If it were in better condition than the others they would get some food and rest a few days, while Jane Blazon carried out her quest. Otherwise, they would make either for Gao or for Timbuctoo or Djenne, hoping meantime to reach lands less ravaged.
It was now that Amedee Florence thought it right to disclose his suspicions to his comrades. As they rested after the day's hardships, while Malik was cooking their meagre repast on a fire of dried grass, he told them what he had noticed. It seemed clear that they could hardly make a step without its being known to enemies who, though invisible, were always present.
"I will say more," he added. "I will dare to maintain that our adversaries have been in contact with us before; they're almost old comrades. I hold to it, until I'm proved wrong, that they comprise twenty blacks and three whites, and that one of these looks like the twin of our elegant friend, the self-styled Lieutenant Lacour, so favourably known to this honourable company."
"On what do you base this hypothesis, Monsieur Florence?" asked Barsac.
"On this: first, that our so-called escort could easily have learned our intentions and preceded us along our route and so carried out for our benefit the pretty work you've all been able to admire. It would be difficult to postulate an entirely different troop who, not knowing our plans, or even of our existence, would be acting in this way for reasons we cannot understand. There's something else, too. The inhabitants of the looted villages and that old Negro whom the doctor patched up before Kadou all suffered in the same way. So the murderers must have been near us before the second escort arrived, just as they have since it left."
"You may be right, Monsieur Florence," Barsac agreed, "but you haven't told us much after all. Nobody doubts that this devastation was directed against us. Whether it's the work of Lieutenant Lacour or somebody else, whether the bandits are around us instead of simply in front of us as we thought, that doesn't alter our situation at all."
"That's not my view," replied Amedee Florence. "So much so that I decided to speak at last after keeping silence so long so as not to increase your anxiety needlessly. But now, in spite of everything, we've reached our goal. Tomorrow either we shall be at Koubo, and so in safety, or else our direction will change and perhaps they'll stop persecuting us. I want, I don't mind saying, to deceive the spies for once, so that nobody will know what we're going to do."
"With what aim?" asked Barsac.
"I'm not too certain about it," Florence declared. "It's just an idea of mine. But it seems better to me, in Miss Blazon's interests, that the direction we're taking should not be known until her enquiries are complete."
"I quite agree with Monsieur Florence," Jane Blazon concurred. "Who knows whether our adversaries may not be about to declare war against us openly? Perhaps it will be tomorrow they'll attack us, to sink us just as we get into harbour. But I don't want to come so far without completing my quest. That's why I think Monsieur Florence is right in wanting to escape from the spies around us. Unfortunately I can't see how!"
"Nothing easier to my mind," Florence explained. "So far, at any rate, they haven't risked a direct attack. They've been content to hinder our progress and spy on us, and if Miss Blazon is right they won't interfere directly until our obstinacy gets the better of their patience. Probably their watchfulness relaxes when they feel certain we've settled down for the night. Our regular routine must reassure them, and they'll never doubt that they'll find us in the morning where they left us at nightfall.
"There's no reason why they should be more vigilant to-day than any other day, unless they've decided to attack us forthwith. If they have, it will be more necessary then ever to try to go off at a tangent. But if not, nothing can be easier than to set out at once, taking advantage of the darkness. We'll go one by one, making as little noise as possible, aiming for a general rendezvous. After all, it isn't a countless host we've got to deal with, and it would be sheer bad luck if we were to fall over the seductive Lieutenant Lacour."
Jane Blazon heartily approved, and it was settled that one after another they should go eastwards towards a large clump of trees which they had noticed at nightfall about a mile away. The trees were now invisible, but they could make certain of reaching them by taking their direction from a star twinkling on the horizon above the thick clouds which added to the darkness. Tongane would go first, then Jane Blazon, then Malik; the others would follow in succession, with Amedee Florence as rearguard.
Their departure took place without incident. Two hours later they were reunited on the edge of the clump of trees. They hurried through them, so as to place that impenetrable screen between themselves and the enemy. Then they advanced more quickly. To be so near their goal gave them new heart, and none of them felt tired.
After half an hour's quick walk, Tongane paused. He thought they were near the very spot where the rebel Captain's forces had been exterminated; but in the darkness he could not pick out exactly the place which Jane Blazon sought. They would have to wait for the day.
They then took several hours' rest. Jane Blazon, not knowing what the next dawn would reveal, was the only one unable to sleep. More pressing than before, a hundred questions thronged into her mind. Was her ill-fated brother really dead, and could she find evidence not destroyed by time? If such evidence existed, would it tend to confirm his guilt, or would it prove his innocence, or would it leave them still in doubt? And tomorrow, where was she to begin the enquiry she was determined to make? Might not the last witnesses of the tragedy have scattered, vanished, perhaps died themselves? Or could she find any of them? If she succeeded, what would be the truth she would learn from their mouth?
A little before six they were all ready. Until the day broke they waited, gripped by a strong emotion, their eyes fixed on Tongane, who was examining his surroundings and looking for some landmark.
"There!" he said at last, pointing towards a tree standing by itself on the plain three or four hundred yards away.
A little later they were all at its foot. As Tongane was still quite certain, they attacked the ground where he pointed out, though there was nothing to indicate the presence of a grave. Feverishly they hacked up the soil with their knives, dirowing it by handfuls on the sides of the rapidly deepening excavation.
"Look out!" the reporter cried suddenly. "Here are some bones...."
Deeply moved, Miss Blazon had to lean on the doctor's arm.
Carefully they at last uncovered the remains: a body, or rather a skeleton in a marvellous state of preservation. On what had once been the arms were fragments of material and some gold embroidery, indicative of rank. Among the bones of the chest they found a wallet, almost completely destroyed by the weather. They opened it. It contained only one document; a letter to George Blazon from his sister.
Tears gushed from the young girl's eyes. She raised to her lips the discoloured paper, which crumbled between her fingers; then, half fainting, she approached the grave.
"Doctor," she said to Chatonnay in a trembling voice. "Please, won't you be good enough to investigate my poor brother's remains?"
"At your service, Miss Blazon," replied the doctor, so distressed that he almost forgot the hunger gnawing at his vitals.
He got down into the grave and began, with the care and precision of a police-surgeon, to make the examination. When he had finished, his face was very serious and showed an intense emotion.
"I, Laurent Chatonnay, Doctor of Medicine of the University of Paris," he said, not without a certain solemnity, and in the midst
of a profound silence, "I certify as follows: First, the bones presented to me for examination, and which Miss Jane Blazon declares to be those of her brother George Blazon, show no trace of a wound made with firearms; secondly, the man from whom these bones came has been murdered; thirdly, that death was the result of a dagger thrust delivered downwards, which broke through the left shoulder blade and reached one of the upper lobes of the heart; fourthly, that this is the weapon, withdrawn by my hand from the bony sheath in which is was still embedded."
"Murdered!" whispered Jane, overcome.
"Murdered, I assert," repeated Dr. Chatonnay.
"And from behind!"
"From behind."
"Then George must be innocent!" cried Jane Blazon, bursting into sobs.
"The innocence of your brother is a question beyond my purview, Miss Blazon," replied Doctor Chatonnay gently, "and I cannot assert it with the same assurance as the material facts which I have adduced, but I must tell you I think it infinitely probable. The result of my examination, indeed is that your brother did not fall weapons in hand, as has hitherto been thought, but that he was struck down from behind, before, during, or after, the salvo which has been recorded. When exactly, and by whom, was he struck? I do not know. All that one can say is that the blow was not delivered by regular troops, for the weapon which slew your brother is not a military weapon but a dagger."
"Thank you, Doctor," said Jane, who was gradually recovering her self-control. "The first results of our journey, at any rate, have given me confidence. One thing more, Doctor: would you be willing to set down in writing what you have seen today, and would these gentlemen be kind enough to act as witnesses?"
They willingly hastened to carry out Jane Blazon's request. On a sheet which M. Poncin agreed to detach from his notebook, Amedee Florence set out the facts. Then this attestation, signed by Dr. Chatonnay and witnessed by everyone present, was given to Jane Blazon with the weapon found in her brother's grave.
The young girl trembled as she touched this. It was a dagger, thickly coated with rust, perhaps mixed with blood. On the ebony handle, half decayed in the damp ground, they could still make out the trace of some obliterated lettering.
"Look at this, gentlemen," said Jane, showing them these almost invisible markings, "this weapon is marked with the murderers name."
"A pity it's effaced," sighed Amedee Florence, as he examined the dagger. "But wait a minute. ... I can make out something ... an T and an T, I think."
"That's not much," said Barsac.
"Perhaps we shan't need any more to unmask the assassin," Jane said gravely.
At her request Tongane carefully replaced the earth over the remains of George Blazon, then, leaving the tragic grave in its loneliness, they made for Koubo.
But after two or three miles they had to halt. Strength failed Jane Blazon; her knees gave way beneath her, and she sank to the ground.
"Emotion," explained Dr. Chatonnay.
"And hunger," added Amedee Florence quite accurately. "Come along, old St. Berain, are you going to watch your niece die of hunger, even though she's your aunt, devil take it! Go and hunt! And mind you don't mistake me for the gamel"
Unfortunately game was scarce. Most of the day elapsed before the two hunters found anything at the muzzles of their rifles, but at last fortune favoured them. Indeed, things had never geen so good, two bustards and a partridge falling, one after another, to their shots. For the first time for days they could have a good meal. So they decided not to try to reach Koubo that evening, but to spend a last night in the open air.
Worn out with fatigue, and convinced that they had thrown their enemies off the track, the travellers neglected the watch they had hitherto kept. So none of them saw some strange phenomena which appeared during the night. Westwards, faint lights flickered here and there on the plain.
Brighter lights replied to them in the east; although there were no mountains in that unusually flat country, these lights were high above the ground. Little by little the feeble gleams in the west and the powerful lights in the east approached each other, the former slowly, the latter more quickly. All converged on the point where the sleepers lay.
Suddenly these were awakened brusquely by the strange roaring sound which they had already heard near Kankan. Now, however, it was much nearer and much more intense. Scarcely had they opened their eyes when dazzling beams, glaring from about ten centres of brilliance like searchlights, flared out suddenly to the east of them, less than a hundred yards away. They were trying to understand this when some men, emerging from the shadows, entered the cone of light and leapt on the startled and half blinded sleepers. In an instant these were hurled to the ground.
Out of the darkness beyond, a brutal voice asked in French: "Are you there, boys?"
Then, after a brief silence: "The first to move will get a bullet in his head. Come on, you there, let's get going!"
Jules Verne, Into the Niger Bend: Barsac Mission, Part 1
(Series: # )
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