Rejtő, Jenő: The three musketeers in Africa; Q 19045

21 as ambiguous, and all the time they hover between the extremes of believing him and a strong impulse to thrash him within an inch of his life. It's a fact, however, that with each successive betrayal or spilling the Sultan manages to get the trio's wish fulfilled by having them pushed, as it were, yet another circle further down into this inferno camouflaged as paradise, nearer to their goal. In this way they are, first, detailed to work on the railway. On the building site, they find, it's „ only Africans who work — the soldier prisoners are guards, equipped with whips and clubs. /"The Africans were sold to the captain by the chieftain of a jungle tribe for brandy and some creature comforts .J Next, they are detailed to work in the hospital, which is a place of sheer horror. In charge is a mad doctor, a Professor Winter, who has a mania for operating and extracting anything from teeth to appendices. Kvastich is his assistant, desperately -- and to no avail — pleading with him to forego operating. They are now, the Sultan points out to them, outside the fort of Igori. And in a small wooden shed a few yards away they find — Francis Barré. The man looks emaciated, and is apparently dying. He tells the musketeers the whole story — the captain told it to him when he thought he could win Barré over for his scheme. The captain is none