The small picket, which, attracted by the noise, came to the assistance of the three Europeans, was fortunately almost entirely composed of these picked men. As soon as they saw the Arabs, they advanced against them at the double, attacked them at close quarters, and dealt their blows right and left without apparently taking any thought of their own danger. The struggle was soon over. Two Arabs took to flight, whilst the remaining four, hastily concealing their arms, began to bellow and shout, and maintained that they were the victims of an unprovoked attack on the part of the Europeans. The latter contented themselves with a shrug of the shoulders without trying to enter into any explanations, which, moreover, would have been utterly futile, seeing that the Dinkas could not have understood them. The matter ended, as it would have done in our own country, by the whole party being taken to the Egyptian station-house, situated in a square of Khartoum close to the Divan. The soldiers, however, treated the Europeans with the greatest courtesy, making them walk in front, without using any force, whereas on the slightest provocation they used both their fists and their feet on their other prisoners, whom they had recognised as slave dealers. The Dinkas hate these brutes, whom they, and on good grounds, reproach with having depopulated their country, and with still making razzias there for the purpose of seizing their women, celebrated for their culinary and household talents, and, for these reasons, eagerly sought after in every well-appointed harem. When the station-house was reached, the Europeans succeeded in explaining matters to the officer on duty, and were at once set at liberty, whereas the traders were detained in durance vile to answer later on for their misdeeds. At home once more, in the house occupied by them in the centre of Khartoum, the three Frenchmen, in spite of the excitement of the evening and the fatigues of the night, sat down to congratulate each other on their victory, and to talk over the expedition which had been resolved upon at Madame de Guéran's house. "It is unnecessary to say," said M. de Morin, addressing M. Delange, "that I have no right to drag you into these stupid countries whither we are bound. The Niam-Niam, whose acquaintance we shall soon be called upon to make, are not provided by nature with tails, as many travellers have stated—that is certain. But it is still more certain, according to Piaggia, Poncet, Schweinfurth and many others, that they file their teeth to a point in order to facilitate their digestion of human flesh. Their neighbours, the Monbuttoos, are not one whit behind them from an anthropophagous point of view; indeed, it is currently reported of them that when very hungry they do not stop at disinterment. I, consequently, my dear fellow, am not inhuman enough to devote your body to the refreshment of these interesting races."