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Updated: May 7, 2025
Death of my Brother Robert Our Party at Jala-Jala Illness and Last Moments of my Friend Bermigan Recovery and Departure for France or Lafond Joachim Balthazard: his Eccentricity Tremendous Gale of Wind Narrow Escape in Crossing the Lake Safe Return to Jala-Jala Destruction of my House and the Village by a Typhoon Rendezvous with a Bandit Ineffectual Attempts to Reform Him His Death Journey to Tapuzi Its Inaccessibility Government of the Tapuzians Morality and Religious Character of their Chief Their Curiosity at Beholding a White Man Former Wickedness and Divine Punishment We bid Adieu to the Tapuzians, and Return to Jala-Jala.
"Monsieur Amédé!" she shouted anew, but not even an echo responded. "Mademoiselle Laure, ask for the head waiter." Mademoiselle Laure recrossed the vestibule and opening a door diametrically opposed to the other, called: "Monsieur Balthazard!" Monsieur Balthazard appeared, his shirt sleeves rolled up beyond his elbow, wiping his hands on a blue gingham apron.
The sky is covered with the heaviest clouds; the rain pours in torrents; the day-light disappears, almost as much as in the densest fog; and the wind blows with such fury that it throws down everything it reaches in its course. We were in our canoe; the wind had scarcely begun to blow with all its violence than Balthazard commenced to invoke all the saints in Paradise.
I have suffered a great deal in the course of my life, but no night ever appeared to me so long and cruel as this! Joachim Balthazard then recovered his speech, and, in a trembling, broken voice, said to me: "Ah! Don Pablo, do write I beg of you, to my mother, and tell her the tragical end of her son!" I could not help answering him: "You cowardly rascal!
My mother is cook here, and Monsieur Balthazard is my uncle. With old fat Julia, the maid, and Mathilde, the linen woman, we're all that's left. All the men have gone to war, and the women into the powder mills. We keep the hotel going, we do." Monsieur Amédé was full of good will, and a desire to help me all he could.
Balthazard had ceased his lamentations; we all kept silence; from time to time I only uttered these words: "Take courage, boys, we shall reach the shore." Our position then became much worse, for night set in. The rain continued to pour in torrents, the wind increased in fury. From time to time we received some light from globes of fire, like what the sailors call "Saint Elmo's fire."
"And how about the errands for the people in rooms twenty-four and twenty-seven." A noise at the hall door attracted our attention. It was as though some one were making desperate and fruitless attempts to open it. "There he is now," exclaimed Monsieur Balthazard. "I'll go and let him in. He's probably got his hands full."
It was a new idea, and it appealed to me strongly. "How about revolvers?" I asked quickly. "Well, Dr. Balthazard, the French criminologist, has made experiments on the identification of revolver bullets and has a system that might be compared to that of Bertillon for identifying human beings.
They knew at home that I was on the lake, and everything led them to presume that I had perished. My good and dear Anna threw herself into my arms in tears; she had been in such anxiety for my safety, that for some moments the tears that flowed down her cheeks alone expressed her joy at again seeing me. Balthazard returned to his seraglio.
A sincere attachment still subsists between us, and I am happy thus to assure him that he is, and ever will be, to me a valued friend. As I have now mentioned several persons who resided for some time at Jala-Jala, I must not forget one of my colonists, Joachim Balthazard, a native of Marseilles, as eccentric a man as I have ever known. When Joachim was young, he set sail from Marseilles.
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