m in a great bloody
battle and afterwards ordered the Mahdi's tomb to be razed.]

In the further course of the journey, Stas told about his journey to
Fashoda, about the death of old Dinah, of their start from Fashoda to
uninhabited regions, and their search for Smain in them. When he
reached that part where he killed the lion and afterwards Gebhr,
Chamis, and the two Bedouins, the captain interrupted him with only two
words: "All right!" after which he again squeezed his right hand, and
with Clary listened with increasing interest about the taming of the
King, about settling in Cracow, about Nell's fever, of finding Linde,
and the kites which the children sent up from Karamojo Mountains. The
doctor who, with each day, became more and more deeply attached to
little Nell, was impressed so much by everything which threatened her
most, that from time to time he had to strengthen himself with a few
swallows of brandy, and when Stas began to narrate how she almost
became the prey of the dreadful "wobo" or "abasanto," he caught the
little maid in his arms as if in fear that some new beast of prey was
threatening her life.

And what he and the captain thought of Stas was best evidenced by two
despatches, which within two weeks after their arrival at the
foot-hills of Kilima-Njaro they expressly sent to the captain's deputy
in Mombasa with instructions that the latter should transmit them to
the fathers. The first one, edited carefully, for fear that it should
create too astounding a sensation, and forwarded to Port Said,
contained the following words:

"Thanks to boy, favorable news about children. Come to Mombasa."

The second, more explicit, addressed to Aden, was of this purport:

"Children are with us. Well. Boy a hero."

On the cool heights at the foot of Kilima-Njaro they stopped fifteen
days, as Doctor Clary insisted that this was imperative for Nell's
health, and even for Stas'. The children with their whole souls admired
this heaven-kissing mountain, which possesses all the climates of the
world. Its two peaks, Kibo and Kima-Wenze, during daytime were most
frequently hidden in thick fogs. But when in fair nights the fogs
suddenly dispersed and from the twilight the eternal snows on
Kima-Wenze blushed with a rosy luster at a time when the whole world
was plunged in darkness, the mountain appeared like a bright altar of
God, and the hands of both children at this sight involuntarily were
folded in prayer.