festival too, poor little _mousko_. So we must send a message to
Madame Renoncule, that she may not be uneasy about him, and as there
will soon not be a living creature on the footpaths of Diou-djen-dji
to laugh at us, we will take it in turn, Yves and I, to carry him on
our back, all the way up that climb in the darkness.

* * * * *

And here am I, who did not wish to return this way to-night, dragging
a mousmé by the hand, actually carrying an extra burden in the shape
of a _mousko_ on my back. What an irony of fate!

As I had expected, all our shutters and doors are closed, bolted and
barred; no one expects us, and we have to make a prodigious noise at
the door. Chrysanthème sets to work and calls with all her might:

"Ho! Oumé-San-an-an-an!" (In English: "Hi! Madame Pru-u-u-u-une!")

These intonations in her little voice are unknown to me; her longdrawn
call in the echoing darkness of midnight has so strange an accent,
something so unexpected and wild, that it impresses me with a dismal
feeling of far-off exile.

At last Madame Prune appears to open the door to us, only half awake
and much astonished; by way of a night-cap she wears a monstrous
cotton turban, on the blue ground of which a few white storks are
playfully disporting themselves. Holding in the tips of her fingers
with an affectation of graceful fright, the long stalk of her
beflowered lantern, she gazes intently into our faces, one after
another, to assure herself of our identity; but the poor old lady