Once more I am trussed up and that disgusting sack again shuts me off from the outer world. Before I'm quite blindfolded, I realize that my companions, including Miss Blazon (I beg her pardon. Mlle Mornas) are undergoing the same treatment. Then, as before, I'm carried off. . . . Am I going to resume that little horse ride after the style of Mazeppa?

No. I am dumped face downwards on some hard flat surface which doesn't at all resemble a horse's hide. Several minutes pass and I hear something like wings beating violently, while the surface which supports me begins to sway gently in all directions. This lasts a moment, then suddenly it's deafening. That famous roaring, but five times, ten times, a hundred times as loud, and then comes the wind striking me with an amazing force which increases from second to second. At the same time I have the feeling . . . how can I put it? . . . the feeling of being in a lift....or more precisely in a scenic railway, when the car rushes up and down artificial hills, when breathing is cut short, and the heart is seized with indescribable pain... . . Yes, that's it, it's something of that sort I can feel.

This feeling lasts for perhaps five minutes, then, bit by bit, my body regains its usual equilibrium. At last, I declare, my head buried in that cursed sack, deprived of air and fight, lulled by that roaring, which has now become regular, I think I must have fallen asleep.

A sudden surprise arouses me. One of my hands has moved. Yes, my bonds, insecurely fastened, have worked loose, and an unconscious effort has separated my hands.

At first I take care to keep still, for I'm not alone, as I learn from two voices howling through the surrounding din. Two people are talking. One speaks English, but in a voice so harsh it might have come from a gullet scared by alcohol. The other answers in the same language, but with a fantastic grammar, and mingled with words which I cannot understand. I guess they must come from the Bambara, for I often heard similar sounds during my four months in this lovely country. One of the two conversationalists is a true Englishman, the other is a Negro.