Part 55 (2/2)
Will attended to the anchor Fred was too anxious for the safety of the only rifle to trust it out of hand, and he hesitated Georges Coutlass saved the day by letting go the shi+vering Syrianat the halyard with his knife Down ca round in answer to anchor and helm, Fred, Will and Brown, between the that ere the first sailors he ever heard of who did not have ru overti in the jaws of a crescent granite reef, and watched the red glow above the German launch move farther and farther away frory, until dawn di roofs of Muanza, Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon loudly accusing us all at intervals of being rank incompetents unfit to be trusted with the lives of fish, and Coutlass afraid of nothing but interruption The things he said to the e that they had apparently in couide” or a Rock Scorpion froe to her, beyond ad that he had half a dozen wives already, and had been too bored by convention ever to subain The ht of his lawless ar, and only afraid when he left her for a , even supposing that had been possible Foras a box full of sand to serve as hearthstone, but the little scraps of fuel we had brought with us were drenched and unburnable, even if the risk of being seen were not too great Lady Saffren Waldon told us ere ”toe-rag contrivers” In fact, now that she was out of reach of the men she feared and hated most, she reverted to type and tried to doance Luckily, she slept for an hour or two
A little before dahen it began to be light enough to let us see the outline of the shore, we sent Kazih the hole that did duty for block, and by the time the sun had pushed the uppermost arc of his rim above the sky-line we once ale; the seamanlike precaution would have been to lie where ere at anchor until fairer weather; but daring is forced on the fearfullest, and there was nothing for it but to study out the method by which the unwieldy spar should be , drill Fred, Will, Brown and Kazimoto, and then haul up the anchor and sail away before people on shore could see us
We had to tack toward Muanza for a quarter of a mile with fear in our arms to make them clumsy before I dared believe ere clear of the reefs; but when I put the helht nor any other boat that ht contain an enee into boiling water not many miles ahead, and once around that we should be sheltered The only fly in the oint for us just around the spur, or else under the lee of another s to our left, but e could not see in that hour could not upset us much
Every one claetful of the chain that had galled theht, demanded to be set ashore to build a fire and eat Lady Saffren Waldon awoke to fresh bad terew villainously impatient His Greek friend, from under the shelter of the leaky reed-and-tarpaulin deck, offered him Greek advice, and was cursed for his trouble One curse led to another, and then they both had to be beaten into subjection with the first thing handy, because when they fought Lady Saffren Waldon egged thee the other Greek with a brooch-pin, which brought out the Goanese to the rescue That crowded dhoas no place for pitched battles, plunging and rolling between the frying-pan of Muanza and the fire of unknown things ahead
”Onethe rifle But, he did not lish temperament does not turn readily on even the s in distress Besides, it was an indubitable fact that we allrecord, and now a eous love-affair on hand, to the other Greek or the Goanese, ere now disposed to bid for our friendshi+p by abusing hi, or worthy citizen of any land, but he had courage of a kind, and a sort of splendid fire that et his turpitude
We were a seasick, cold and sorry company that rounded the point at last and carew close down to the water's edge Having no small boat, we had to wade ashore and carry the wo to his own inae exploded by being dropped between two porters waist-deep into the water It was her fault She insisted one was not enough, yet refused to explain hoo should do the work of one Sitting on their two shoulders, holding on by their hair, she frightened the left-handhis nose and eyes She insisted on having bothdropped her, and Fred's refusal was the signal for near, our rescue of her being flung at once on to the scrap heap of her ness to leave her again at the hts or feelings than the cuckoo has for the owner of the nest in which she lays her eggs
”Beat those fools!” she ordered ”Beat theive them no breakfast!”
”Do you see that rock over there, Lady Waldon?” Fred answered ”Go and spread your clothes to dry When we've cooked food we'll send Rebecca to you with your share”
”If you send that slut tointo a new fury
”Whom do you call slut?” demanded Coutlass (and he had no compunctions of any kind--particularly none about woallant after his own fashi+on, and alert for a chance to show off) Lady Waldon backed away from him
”Of course,” she sneered, ”if you loose your bully at me, I am no match at all!”
Fred proe, to sit and nurse his bruises with polyglot profanity The Syrian Rebecca went over to co the two of them with either e which) Lady Waldon retreated toward the rock that Fred had pointed out
We cooked a reat inroad into our stores beforetoseen even by natives, but Lady Waldon upset that part of our plan by setting up such a screae three hundred yards away, that they could not help hearing her, and caate She was forced to dress faster than ever in her life before, and ca all three ”to teach them manners” She had perfectly absorbed the German attitude toward all black raph wire along that coast, and that the only German settle wood, for fuel for their own launch and for the stea to serve the lake ports, Muanza included
With that good news for encouragement we made the three natives a sht be induced not to talk about us, and put to sea again The weather was fairer and growing intolerably hot Even before the sun grew high the dhoas a co Noah can have had to tolerate: and we lacked Noah's faith in o in a hotter latitude, and having more fleas on board than the pair he is reported to have carried
As we crept up-coast, leaning to this or that side when the gusts of wind varied, the only enviable ones were the three in the bow, posted there to keep a look-out for the launch or any other ene one another, and air to breathe that mostly had not been tasted half a dozen ti the foredeck look-out, keeping it awake and its units fro The rest of us found no joy in life, and not too much hope even when Fred's concertina lifted the refrain of missionary hy, the porters huh their noses (When that happened Lady Saffren Waldon's scorn was so the arch-priests of Babylon would have paid to see)
There was never roo elbow to elbow and back to back or knee to knee Lady Waldon simply refused to yield her corner seat on any account at any time to any one Coutlass refused to leave his neeetheart, for the freely-voiced reason that then Brown ht make love to her; and we did not care to send both of them below for obvious reasons That reduced open-air accommodation to a mini enough to bear the weight of two men at a time, and we did not care to throw the whole deck overboard for fear of rain
And by-and-by the rain came--out of season, but no less violent because of that It rained three days and nights on end--three windless days and starless nights, during which we had to linger alongshore close to the papyrus In order to keep e in the sand-box below The se added to the heat, and the heat drove asp a few ain to make room for the next in turn
Sleep on shore was impossible, for thereabouts were crocodile and snake swamps, fuller of insect life than dictionaries are of letters Poling was next to iave no purchase
And the oars we made out of poles were clumsy affairs; there was not room for more than two boys to try to use them at a time, even if the deck would have stood the strain of more feet, which it certainly would not have done
Lady Waldon slept seated in her corner, with her head wrapped in a veil over which the s Coutlass and his lady-love endured rain and insects in the open, too, but suffered less, because of mutual distraction The rest of us took turns with the natives below, lying packed between the whether the famous Black Hole of Calcutta was really such a record-breaker as they say Broas of the opinion that the Black Hole was a nosegay compared to our lot--”Besides which, they probably had rurew sick under the strain of heat, fear, excitement and inactivity The native suffers as much from unaccustomed inconvenience as the white ht out themy fraed together with only the thickness of his blanket and ainst the shi+p's side Toward rew colder, too When dawn cas on lish blanket