CHAPTER IX—DEATH OF “THE BARON”
My very friend has got his mortal hurt
In my behalf, my reputation stain’d
Romeo and Juliet
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse,
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood,
All in gore blood
Romeo and Juliet
Very often we made detours from the main caravan, rejoining it at a given spot, and this spirit of “wanderlust” brought us into a nice quandary one fine day. Going by the map and guided by the compass, Clarence was to arrive with the whole outfit at a precise place by nightfall, and we two, tired of the two-and-a-half miles an hour pace, did an excursion on sport intent, taking our own way to meet the caravan. We, with three hunters on the ever-willing ponies, left camp early, and going easily soon put a good distance between ourselves and the slow-coach camels. Dik-dik popped up everywhere, but ’twas no use disturbing the jungle for such small game. Water-holes next loomed ahead, and into the mud the Somalis precipitated themselves to drink and dabble. It was really not fit to swallow, and sudden death would seem to be the probable result. Not at all! It gave a sudden impetus to our men, who grew quite lively, game for anything, as they chanted invitations to imaginary animals to come and be shot. All the song was of the “Dilly, Dilly, come and get killed” pattern, and was for the most part addressed to a rhinoceros who lived in fancy. “Wiyil, Wiyil, Mem-sahib calls you,” was the bed-rock of the anthem, and like our home-made variety one sentence had to go a long way.
We found a track made by tortoises innumerable who evidently marched in solid phalanx to the water-holes. We followed the trail for a long way, but it seemed to be taking us to a Never-never land, so we turned, giving up the idea of discovering the source of the path. But in a tiny lake, as big as a bath and as shallow, we came on three tortoises swimming. They drew in their ugly snake-like heads with a sideway motion beneath their armour-plate residence, and there was nothing left to see but a flat, dirty, yellow carapace. They were quite small, and we pulled one out with a deft noose thrown by the second hunter. Each man took off his turned-up sandals and rested one bare foot at a time on the shelly back, “to make strong the feet.” They did this very solemnly, and, of course, in turns, mounting their ponies when the superstitious rite was well over.