Part 38 (2/2)
The DOAG proved aplace in which to spend convivial evenings However, it seeeant-major had decreed amusement the non-commissioned officers' mess overlooked all trifles in brave deter tunes (each a different one, and nearly all high tenor) and took seats in a rooainst aby drill tunics
Down the center was a narrow table, loaded with drinks of all sorts A case of bottled beer occupied the place of pride at one end; as Schubert had boasted, nothing was lacking that East Africa could show in the way of imported alcohol Under the table was an unopened case of sweet Gerainst one ere such things as absinth, chartreuse, pepper outside thein a basket full of wet grass where the evening breeze would keep it cool
”Now for Gesang!” shouted Schubert, knocking the neck off a bottle of beer, and beginning to sing like a drunken pirate
A enuine Jew froloomy recess filled with tusks and sacks of dried red pepper, and watched everything froainst each sergeant's name whatever he took to drink
They appeared to have no check on hilanced at his account
”What is the use?” said Schubert, noticingthe unspoken question ”There is just so much drink in the whole place We shall drink every drop of it! All that ne? That stuff is costly”
They all took beer to begin with, knocking the necks from the bottles as if that act alone lent the necessary air of deviltry to the whole proceedings A sroped on the floor all night for the splinters of glass, sleeping between ti bottle necks awoke hiain
”Die Wacht a that first!” He began to sing it himself, all out of tune
Fred cut the noise short by standing up to play so clamor of chords and runs on which he prides himself, that he swears is classical, but of which neither he nor anybody knows the na or two in English, we joining in the choruses
Meanwhile, Broas soaking away steadily, taking whatever drink ca but the task of assuaging the thirst he had accu since he left hootten his cattle already--the Greeks who stole them--the Masai who stole from the Greeks He paid for all he took, to the Jew's extreru, to the Jew's supremest unconcern
”An' my name's Brown o' Lumbwa, just in proof of all I say!” he infore at intervals
When Will had exhausted all the A list there was nothing left for it but to eants had been raised on Fred made the happy discovery that none of them knew The Marseillaise, so he played that as an antidote each ti and the soism
The Jeho probably knew rew more and more beady-eyed each time The Marseillaise was played
There was a pause in the proceedings at about ten o'clock, by which tieants except Schubert were sufficiently drunk to feel thoroughly at ease Schubert was cold-eyed sober, although scarcely any longer thirsty
A native was brought in by two askaris and charged before Schubert with hanging about the bo beside es, poured cool water over es and translated to lish very well indeed, but in such low tones that I could scarcely catch the words, drawing in his breath and nothis lips at all
The native explained that he had waited to see the bwana o and no , so he proposed to wait outside the gate and watch for the co He would intercept him on his way down fro a favor What favor? Satisfaction For what? For his daughter He was the father of the girl whom the coin Now she was to have a child It would be a half-black, half-white child
Who would nowbad been given her She had been sie on her parents and an already poverty-stricken village Therefore he had coiven at least a present of hter, all except Schubert, who seemed only appalled by the impudence of the request He sat back and ordered the story repeated
”And you dare ask forof a Nyamwesi! Is the honor not sufficient that your black brute of a daughter should have a baby by such a great person? You cattle have no sense of honor! You must learn! Put him down! Beat him till I say stop!”
There was no need to put him down, however The motion of the hand, voice inflection, order were all too well understood The man lay face-doard on the floor without so much as a murmur of objection, and buried his face in both hands The askaris promptly stripped hiared it from him