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My comrades, anxious to get through the Cuchilla, were already on horseback, shouting to me to mount. One more lingering glance over that wide prospect wide, yet how small a portion of the Banda's twenty thousand miles of everlasting verdure, watered by innumerable beautiful streams? Again the thought of Dolores swept like a moaning wind over my heart.
And very attentively everybody listened to the story, as I told it in detail, of how, after parting from the Eros, we had carried on in the hope of overtaking the Virginia; of how we had been caught in and overwhelmed by the hurricane; of how I came to go adrift, alone, in the longboat; of how I had been run down by La Mouette, and of my treatment on board her; of my adventures in King Banda's town, and my escape therefrom with the aid of poor Ama; of the death of the latter at which all hands expressed their sincere regret; and, finally, of how I had reached L'Esperance, and the extraordinary story I had heard while aboard her.
He was just in time, as the back of one of the elephants grazed his feet as it passed below him. In the meantime the guns were not idle. Wortley fired at the leading elephant, which had passed under Banda's feet, just as he was crossing the brook on our left. His shot did not produce any effect, but I killed him by a temple-shot as he was passing on.
I endeavoured to ascertain who she was; but although I had contrived to pick up a few words of the language, my ignorance of it was still so great that I had experienced the utmost difficulty in making myself understood, and all I could then learn about her was that her name was Ama. It was not until later that I discovered her to be King Banda's favourite daughter.
This was not at all what I wanted; but even Martinique was better than King Banda's town, and I therefore consented.
One of the greatest discomforts from which I suffered at this time was the outcome of the peculiar musical taste of King Banda's subjects.
It was while matters were in this very unsatisfactory state that I became aware that some event of extreme importance was imminent in the town; for upon sallying forth from my residence on a certain morning and crossing the great square, in the centre of which stood Banda's crucifixion tree, I saw that a number of men were engaged in setting up some forty stout, quaintly-carved posts in a circle round about the tree.
At length, after a more than usually intense paroxysm of pain had passed, Gouroo, Banda's favourite wife, who was present, and whose virulent animosity I had been unfortunate enough to arouse, bent over the patient and whispered something in his ear, the purport of which I could not catch.
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