took a huge draught of it.

"Superb nectar! finest grog I've tasted for a long time?" he exclaimed.
"Give me more of it."

We gave him another huge jorum. He sucked it down with great
satisfaction, and it undoubtedly cooled the fever which was raging in
his inside. Our French friends, we flattered ourselves, did not find
out his real condition; and when we had made him comfortable they
invited us all to the room in which they were holding their revels.
Sambo, our guard, for some reasons best known to himself, made no
objections to the proceeding. Perhaps he judged that it was the best
way of disposing of us. Perhaps he had some acquaintance--I won't say
of the fair sex--among the sable inmates of the mansion, with whom he
had no objection to pass a short time while we were amusing ourselves in
the society of the masters and mistresses.

We danced, and ate sweetmeats, and drank coffee and claret-and-water and
smoked cigars and cigarettes to our hearts' content, and laughed and
talked to the nut-brown maids who composed the female portion of the
party, for there was not a white face among them. We were quite
disappointed when our black guard put his head into the room and sang
out--

"Allons, messieurs, allons?"

"I should like to _allons_ you and your ugly mug?" exclaimed O'Driscoll,
eyeing the negro with no friendly look. But there was no help for it.
The black fellow was our master; we had passed our word of honour not to
attempt to escape, and to behave ourselves orderly, and we felt that we
had already verged on the bounds of propriety in what we had done. Our
polite hosts promised to take very good care of Robson and to forward
him on with an escort the next day, should he have recovered his
strength.

Once more, therefore, we were in the saddle and proceeded through
forests and among mountains and by plantations, guided by the light of
the moon, till, very sore and very tired, we arrived, past midnight, at
a place which our guard informed us was Ou Trou. We said that we wished
to lodge at the best inn, on which he chuckled audibly, and told us that
we had better take up our abode for the night in a shed hard by among
some piles of Indian-corn straw. We agreed that we had often been
compelled to sleep on far more uncomfortable couches, and that the next
morning we would set out to explore the town and choose lodgings. With
this comfortable reflection, after our guard had disappeared into a
neighbo