I must take care of my words, for I may kill her, poor child.
“Mademoiselle Zinca—” I say.
“You know my name?” she exclaims.
“Yes, Mademoiselle. I arrived yesterday by the Grand Transasiatic.”
The girl turned pale; her eyes became troubled. It was evident that she feared something. Had Kinko been found in his box? Had the fraud been discovered? Was he arrested? Was he in prison?
I hastened to add:
“Mademoiselle Zinca—certain circumstances have brought to my knowledge—the journey of a young Romanian—”
“Kinko—my poor Kinko—they have found him?” she asks in a trembling voice.
“No—no—” say I, hesitating. “No one knows—except myself. I often visited him in the luggage-van at night; we were companions, friends. I took him a few provisions—”
“Oh! thank you, sir!” says the lady, taking me by the hands. “With a Frenchman Kinko was sure of not being betrayed, and even of receiving help! Thank you, thank you!”
I am more than ever afraid of the mission on which I have come.
“And no one suspected the presence of my dear Kinko?” she asks.
“No one.”
“What would you have had us do, sir? We are not rich. Kinko was without money over there at Tiflis, and I had not enough to send him his fare. But he is here at last. He will get work, for he is a good workman, and as soon as we can we will pay the company—”
“Yes; I know, I know.”
“And then we are going to get married, Monsieur. He loves me so much, and I love him. We met one another in Paris. He was so kind to me. Then when he went back to Tiflis I asked him to come to me in that box. Is the poor fellow ill?”
“No, Mademoiselle Zinca, no.”
“Ah! I shall be happy to pay the carriage of my dear Kinko.”
“Yes—pay the carriage—”
“It will not be long now?”
“No; this afternoon probably.”
I do not know what to say.
“Monsieur,” says Mademoiselle, “we are going to get married as soon as the formalities are complied with; and if it is not abusing your confidence, will you do us the honor and pleasure of being present?”
“At your marriage—certainly. I promised my friend Kinko I would.”
Poor girl! I cannot leave her like this. I must tell her everything.
“Mademoiselle Zinca—Kinko—”
“He asked you to come and tell me he had arrived?”
“Yes—but—you understand—he is very tired after so long a journey—”
“Tired?”
“Oh! do not be alarmed—”
“Is he ill?”
“Yes—rather—rather ill—”
“Then I will go—I must see him—I pray you, sir, come with me to the station—”
“No; that would be an imprudence—remain here—remain—”
Zinca Klork looked at me fixedly.
“The truth, Monsieur, the truth! Hide nothing from me—Kinko—”
“Yes—I have sad news—to give you.” She is fainting. Her lips tremble. She can hardly speak.
“He has been discovered!” she says. “His fraud is known—they have arrested him—”
“Would to heaven it was no worse. We have had accidents on the road. The train was nearly annihilated—a frightful catastrophe—”
“He is dead! Kinko is dead!”
The unhappy Zinca falls on to a chair—and to employ the imaginative phraseology of the Chinese—her tears roll down like rain on an autumn night. Never have I seen anything so lamentable. But it will not do to leave her in this state, poor girl! She is becoming unconscious. I do not know where I am. I take her hands. I repeat:
“Mademoiselle Zinca! Mademoiselle Zinca!”
Suddenly there is a great noise in front of the house. Shouts are heard. There is a tremendous to-do, and amid the tumult I hear a voice.
Good Heavens! I cannot be mistaken. That is Kinko’s voice!
I recognize it. Am I in my right senses?
Zinca jumps up, springs to the window, opens it, and we look out.
There is a cart at the door. There is the case, with all its inscriptions: “This side up,” “this side down,” “fragile,” “glass,” “beware of damp,” etc., etc. It is there—half smashed. There has been a collision. The cart has been run into by a carriage, as the case was being got down. The case has slipped on to the ground. It has been knocked in. And Kinko has jumped out like a jack-in-the-box—but alive, very much alive!
I can hardly believe my eyes! What, my young Romanian did not perish in the explosion? No! As I shall soon hear from his own mouth, he was thrown on to the line when the boiler went up, remained there inert for a time, found himself uninjured—miraculously—kept away till he could slip into the van unperceived. I had just left the van after looking for him in vain, and supposing that he had been the first victim of the catastrophe.
Then—oh! the irony of fate!—after accomplishing a journey of six thousand kilometres on the Grand Transasiatic, shut up in a box among the baggage, after escaping so many dangers, attack by bandits, explosion of engine, he was here, by the mere colliding of a cart and a carriage in a Peking street, deprived of all the good of his journey—fraudulent it may be—but really if—I know of no epithet worthy of this climax.
The carter gave a yell at the sight of a human being who had just appeared. In an instant the crowd had gathered, the fraud was discovered, the police had run up. And what could this young Romanian do who did not know a word of Chinese, but explain matters in the sign language? And if he could not be understood, what explanation could he give?
Zinca and I ran down to him.
“My Zinca—my dear Zinca!” he exclaims, pressing the girl to his heart.
“My Kinko—my dear Kinko!” she replies, while her tears mingle with his.
“Monsieur Bombarnac!” says the poor fellow, appealing for my intervention.
“Kinko,” I reply, “take it coolly, and depend on me. You are alive, and we thought you were dead.”
“But I am not much better off!” he murmurs.
Mistake! Anything is better than being dead—even when one is menaced by
