“She cousin of yours?” he asked, with true Somali inquisitiveness.
“Very distant,” I answered.
Cecily and a couple of hunters met us quarter way. She told us the ponies rushed into camp in the early morning, as I had thought they would. She had not been unduly anxious about me, knowing I was with Clarence, and guessing we were bushed. They never heard the shots at all.
I did enjoy my breakfast, and never had a cup of tea that tasted half so good.
The thought of all that pork wasting in the near vicinity bothered us no end. Very greedy, I know. But, you see, dainties were not often to be had. We ordered out a couple of ponies, and rode back to the scene of my early morning encounter with the wart-hog to find him, marvel of marvels, intact. Though a thwarted looking vulture of business-like appearance flapped off and sat down in stone’s throw. They have a mighty contempt for man, these birds, or else it is they recognise they aren’t worth powder and shot.
Cecily evolved the idea of converting half the wart-hog into bacon, putting it into pickle, and promising it would equal the finest home cured. The ham was to be a treat to which we should look forward for weeks.
We pickled it all right, or what seemed like all right to us, rubbing it daily with handfuls of salt as we had seen ham cured at home. And then one day, when a meal was badly wanted, and the larder was empty of all else, we essayed to cut the treasured ham and fry it in slices. Cecily inserted a knife. The resultant odour was appalling. So were the awful little maggots that rose in hundreds. Clearly we didn’t know how to pickle ham, or else the ham of wart-hog would not take salt as our pig at home does. We could see the line to where the pickle had penetrated. Below chaos! Ruefully we had a funeral of our looked-for supper, and fell back on the never-failing “Elizabeth Lazenby.”