I thought I must have misunderstood him.
"Uncle!" I exclaimed, "what did you say?"
"Why, you rascal, I see that I must give her to you, since you love each
other so consumedly!"
Kondjé-Gul could not repress a scream of joy. We both threw ourselves
into my uncle's arms at the same time.
"Yes," he said, "what a jolly couple they look! But it was your aunt
Eudoxia who led me at last to play this card! Here I am nicely balked of
all my fine schemes!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Kondjé-Gul, "we will love each other so much!"
"Well, well! There, they're quite smothering me! May the good God bless
you! go along. But now we shall have to come to an understanding with
this excellent mother; for according to these infernal French laws,
which complicate everything, her consent is necessary for your
marriage."
"I certainly shall not give it," said Madame Murrah furiously.
"All right! We will see about that," he continued. "That is a matter to
be arranged between us, and for that purpose I shall go to your house
to-morrow. Only, I give you warning, no noise, please, no silly attempts
to carry off your daughter, otherwise we shall wait until she is of age
in two years' time, and then you will have nothing."
Don't be surprised, Louis, if for the rest of this page I scrawl like a
monkey. At the recollection of this scene, my eyes are quite obscured
by a veil of mist. By Jove, so much the worse! for now it's all breaking
into real tears.
Dear me, what a brick of an uncle he is to me!
Notwithstanding Barbassou-Pasha's Turkish tactics, and in spite of the
happiness which for the moment quite overwhelmed us, my poor Kondjé-Gul
began to tremble again with fear after the departure of her mother, whom
we knew to be capable of any mad act. We decided that, in order to avoid
a very real danger, we would take her that very day to the convent of
the Ladies of X.; this we did. Before she becomes my wife she is going
to become a Christian, in pursuance of the wish which, as you know, she
has expressed a long time since, of embracing my faith. This visit,
which will account to the world for her disappearance, will be explained
quite naturally by this finale of our marriage; and if people ever
discover anything about this queer story of our amours, well--I shall
have married my own slave, that's all.