The end of it all might however have been very different. Horses had been sent for me to go to Galadio’s camp, and if I had started, accompanied by Father Hacquart and a few men, we might have been murdered by the way. Maybe Galadio would have been afraid of immediate reprisals; maybe he would have hesitated to commit a crime which would have compromised him for the future; or perhaps, even he was, after all, too good a fellow to injure those who were coming to him as guests. This was the last scene of the comedy in which we took part at Fort Archinard. We had now to begin to think seriously of starting again, as we had already long before announced that we should go on September 15. We had bought our stores of grain, and our barges were once more in a state of repair. The information we had received about the river was to the effect that it was now navigable again. We were all busy repacking our stuffs and knick-knacks, and were eager to be off. Taburet was simply boiling over with impatience, and was already inquiring what steamboat we could catch at Dahomey, and wondering by what train he could go to Conquet. The rest of us, though we did not say so much about it, were just as anxious for the start, the more so that a kind of wave of fever was passing over our island, attacking the negroes, who had not always taken the preventive doses of quinine, more than us. Baudry, what with the repair of the barges, the buying up stores in the market, and the repacking, was quite worn out. It was really time we broke up our camp. On September 15 everything on board was once more ship-shape. Digui had gone to reconnoitre our route the evening before, and had come back very late, looking anxious. “It is very bad,” he said, “but we shall get past somehow.” The coolies, weary as they all were, could not contain their joy at the idea of leaving the Fort, and poor old Suleyman Futanke, who was no doubt afraid of being given back to Amadu, or left behind as useless, made desperate efforts to learn to row. Happiest of all, perhaps, was Atchino, the man from Dahomey, who had spent the whole day before packing tomatoes for us to eat on the journey, and who was dreaming all the time of the bananas of his home. In the morning, Abdulaye cut a great piece of bark out of a fig tree, and on the plain surface beneath, he engraved with a chisel the letters M. H. D. N. 1896. He then nailed firmly on to the same tree a plank, on which was written in large characters the name of Fort Archinard, for the benefit of those who should come after us.