ut received no answer. He
knocked again, this time more vigorously. He heard her turn her head on
the pillow. "Let me sleep!" cried Dorothea angrily.

"Open the door, Dorothea," he begged.

"No, I will not; I want to sleep." These were the words that reached his
ear from behind the bolted door.

He pressed three or four times on the latch, implored her three or four
times to let him come in, but received no answer. He did not wish to
make any more noise, looked straight ahead as if into a dark hole, and
then turned and went back to his room in the attic.

XIII

Friedrich Benda was again in Europe. All the newspapers contained
accounts of the discoveries made on the expedition. Last autumn Arab
dealers in ivory had found him in the land of Niam-Niam, taken an
interest in him, and finally brought him, then seemingly in the throes
of imminent death, back to the Nile. In England he was celebrated as a
hero and a bold pioneer; the Royal Geographical Society had made him an
honorary member; and the incidents of his journey were the talk of the
day.

Toward the close of April he came to Nuremberg to visit his mother. The
blind old woman had been carefully and cautiously prepared for his
coming. She nevertheless came very near dying with joy; her life was in
grave danger for a while.

Benda had not wished to stay more than a week: his business and his
work called him back to London; he had lectures to deliver, and he had
to see a book through the press, a book in which he had given a
description of the years spent in Africa.

At the urgent request of his mother he had decided to stay longer.
Moreover, during the first days of his visit to Nuremberg, he suffered
from a severe attack of a fever he had brought with him from the
tropics, and this forced him to remain in bed. The news of his presence
in the city finally became generally known, and he was annoyed by the
curiosity of many people who had formerly never concerned themselves
about him in the slightest.

He was eager to see Daniel; every hour of delay in meeting his old
friend was an hour of reproach. But his mother insisted that he stay
with her; he had to sit near her and tell of his experiences in Africa.

When he heard of the outer events in Daniel's life he was filled with
terror. The fact that made the profoundest impression on him was
Daniel's marriage to Dorothea Doederlein. People told him a great many
things about