The leader of the Opposition and Ralph met us almost at once, looking quite respectable and clean. They said they had been waiting right there for two days for fear we should come unwelcomed. We put up at the old familiar rest-house in the European Square, and our camels and impedimenta generally camped in front of us. Our first dinner in “civilisation” did not please us half as much as the culinary efforts of Cecily’s chef. Roast chicken with flies is not, after all, so appetising as badly cooked oryx, served up with hunger sauce, and at least, in the jungle, we escaped that last resource of the average cook when she can’t think up a pudding—stewed rhubarb. I wonder if there is a country where the weed can be avoided? Here it was again, a mass of flies and fermentation, singing away to itself in a little dish.
After dinner we sat outside the bungalow fighting battles o’er again, and regretting, oh, with such an ache of longing, the jungle and the wild. That night we hardly slept at all. We missed the camp sounds, the grunting camels, the sound of the fires being piled, we missed the open—all! We stretched out longing arms and touched a wall! We paced a floor that was not ground.
Everything in the world comes to an end. How sad that is sometimes! How we longed to turn the hands of the clock back, and Time with it!
Next day we joined our camp again, and began to make arrangements for its disbandment. We had come in at a bad time—camels being a drug in the market. The leader and Ralph disposed of theirs by public auction, but there could not be much of a demand for any more at this time of the year. Our beasts were in a very fair condition, all things considered, but we had great difficulty in getting rid of them. At last Clarence produced a dirty old Arab, whose appearance gave one the idea he had no means whatever, but of course this is not peculiar to Arabs, for some of our home millionaires are afflicted in the same way. The old gentleman bargained and bargained until I almost let the creatures go at 30 Rs. apiece, but Ralph arrived at the crucial moment and put a different complexion on the matter. He rushed into the discussion with vigour, and called the offer piracy, robbery, and things of that sort. I never could have been so personal myself. The Arab did not seem to think any worse of my kinsman for it, and the camels changed hands at the much improved price of 35 Rs. apiece.
The ponies were practically given away, and I had no end of a difficulty to unearth a philanthropist willing to board and lodge “Sceptre.” We only just got rid of our camels in time! That very evening the sportsman arrived in Berbera whom we had left cogitating at Aden. His wife was going stronger than ever, and her temper was, if possible, worse. He had not lost her. What a wasted opportunity! Their caravan had taken a completely different route to ours, having been to the Boorgha country and round by the Bun Feroli. Their trophies were very fine and numerous, and the kindly old shikari showed them to us with great pleasure and pride. He managed to be a sportsman in spite of Madam, not, I am sure, by her aid. She was a Woman’s-Righter, and like Sally Brass, a regular one-er. Regardless of the plain fact that we must all be hopelessly ignorant of home affairs, she worried our lives out of an evening to discover our trivial, worthless opinions on all sorts of political questions. It was very amusing to hear Cecily artfully trying to conceal her dense ignorance; we listened to them one night after dinner, and Madam, who probably knew as little of the subject as her victim, desired to know what Cecily thought of Mr. Chamberlain’s fiscal policy. My cousin did not enlarge, so that her lack of knowledge was overwhelmingly apparent. She shook her head solemnly, and said darkly, with grave emphasis, “What indeed!”
Now, “What, indeed!” can cover a multitude of things if said just as it should be. Put the accent on both words, and try it next time you are cornered.
I know Madam regarded us four as a ribald crew, and kept her fickle smiles only for “the Leader,” whom she desired to propitiate because his place at home adjoined hers, and as the old shikari meant to put up for Parliament at the next election, Madam saw a faint chance of securing a vote. We got a great deal of amusement out of her wiles and blandishments. One day in between the camel-selling and general disbandment we had much difficulty to repress our mirth, as we heard the warrior being tackled something like this.
“Of course, Major,” very suavely, “I can count on your vote?”
“I ought to say ‘Of course’ too. But what precisely are your husband’s political views?”
“Oh, he hasn’t any. Except on big game shooting.”