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Here Kookoo, whose imperfect knowledge of English prevented his intelligent reception of the story, would laugh as if the joke came in just at this point. However, with all Monsieur's prattle, he never dropped a word about the man he had been before he went away; and the great hair-trunk puzzle was still the same puzzle, growing greater every day.
Once, as they were leaving, Kookoo, accidents will happen, was under the stairs. As they began to descend the tall man was speaking: " better to bury it," the startled landlord heard him say, and held his breath, thinking of the trunk; but no more was uttered. A week later they came again. A week later they came again. A week later they came yet again! The landlord's eyes began to open.
From all Kookoo could gather, he must have been telling her the very story just recounted. She had dropped quite to the floor, hiding her face in her hands, and was saying between her sobs, "I cannot go, Papa George; oh, Papa George, I cannot go!"
A decaying cornice hangs over, dropping bits of mortar on passers below, like a boy at a boarding-house. The landlord is one Kookoo, an ancient Creole of doubtful purity of blood, who in his landlordly old age takes all suggestions of repairs as personal insults.
To me these observations were more than usually interesting, as when I had met my friend Speke at Gondokoro he was much perplexed concerning the extraordinary difference in his observation between the altitude of the river level at Karuma Falls, lat. 2 degrees 15', and at Gebel Kookoo in the Madi country, lat. 3 degrees 34', the point at which he subsequently met the river.
He KNEW that both rivers were the Nile, as he bad been told this by the natives; the one, before it had joined the Albert lake the other, after its exit; but he had been told that the river was NAVIGABLE from Gebel Kookoo, lat. 3 degrees 34', straight up to the junction of the lake; thus, there could be no great difference in altitude between the lake and the Nile where he met it, in lat. 3 degrees 34'. Nevertheless, he found so enormous a difference in his observations between the river at Karuma and at Gebel Kookoo, that he concluded there must be a fall between Karuma and the Albert lake of at least 1,000 feet; by careful measurements I proved the closeness of his reasoning and observation, by finding a fall of only 275 feet more than he had anticipated.
Small profit to old Kookoo that he went to his own couch; sleep was not for the little landlord. For well-nigh half a century he had suspected his tenant of having a treasure hidden in his house, and to-night he had heard his own admission that in the little trunk was a fortune. Kookoo had never felt so poor in all his days before.
The lady seemed to think Kookoo had no business there; 'Sieur George seemed to think the same concerning his companion; and the few words between Mademoiselle and 'Sieur George were cool enough. The maid appeared nearly satisfied, but could not avoid casting an anxious eye at times upon her mistress. Naturally the visit was short.
He felt a Creole's anger, too, that a tenant should be the holder of wealth while his landlord suffered poverty. And he knew very well, too, did Kookoo, what the tenant would do. If he did not know what he kept in the trunk, he knew what he kept behind it, and he knew he would take enough of it to-night to make him sleep soundly. No one would ever have supposed Kookoo capable of a crime.
The Nile, having entered the valley between Gebel Kookoo and the western range, was no longer the calm river that we had seen to the south: numerous rocky islands blocked its course, and mud-banks covered with papyrus rush so obstructed the stream that the river widened to about a mile, -this width was composed of numerous channels, varying in breadth between the obstructing rock and island.
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