These insinuations produced an effect the very opposite to the speaker's wishes, and the doctor quivered with impatience.
"Do you wish, then, you unhappy man, that this glory shall be shared with someone else? Is it, then, necessary to fib about it; to enlarge upon obstacles which are not serious; to repay, by cowardly hesitation, what has been done for me by the Government and the Royal Society?"
"But," replied Kennedy, who was very much addicted to the use of this word.
"But! " echoed the doctor, "do not you know that my journey ought to contribute to the success of enterprises already undertaken? Are you not aware that fresh expeditions are advancing into the center of Africa?"
"Still———"
"Listen to me, Dick. Just look at this map."
Dick regarded it with a resigned expression.
"Follow up the course of the Nile———"
"I am following it," replied the Scot resignedly.
"Have you reached Gondokoro?"
"I am there." And Kennedy thought how easy it would be to make a similar voyage on a map.
"Now," said the doctor, "place one of the points upon that town which the bravest travelers have with difficulty passed."
"I have fixed it."
"And now look on the coast line for the island of Zanzibar in the 6th degree of south latitude."
"I have got it."
"Follow now this parallel and you arrive at Kazet."
"All right."
"Now go up by the 33rd degree of longitude as far as the commencement of Lake Onkéreoné, at the spot where Lieutenant Speke halted."
"I am there. I shall be in the lake in a minute."
"Now do you know what is the natural deduction from the information gathered from the tribes on the borders of the lake?"
"I have not the faintest notion."
"It is that this lake, whose lower end is in 2° 30' latitude, ought to extend equally two and a half degrees above the equator."
