“So says the song.”
“Then say we can’t have wives, because we are not sahibs, and some day we shall be wives ourselves.”
“With luck!” ejaculated Cecily.
Clarence translated, and a perfect tremor of excitement shook the whole team. The horsemen pressed closer, and gazed at us until their eyes nearly dropped out of their heads. Laughing at the intensity of the inspection, we took our hats off and bowed. Our hair might be considered adequate proof of Mem-sahibdom. Goodness knows what the team considered it. They drew back and talked and jabbered and discussed.
To dibâltig or not to dibâltig, that is the question. And how we hoped they would answer it in the negative, and let us get back to tea.
With a wild war-whoop the matter was decided, and girding up their loins, away and away, hither and thither dashed the performers, throwing spears, catching them, jumping off the pony, then vaulting the saddle, then back again, finally gaining a seat face to tail. A real circus show this. Going at a mad gallop the riders would suddenly jerk the bit—a perfect devil of cruelty—and back the foaming pony would go, haunches to the ground. Poor creatures, how lathered they were and beside themselves with the pace and rush. Dust rose in volumes, and we receded and receded, but the flying figures only drew the circle closer. The affair went on for a whole hour, when it had to cease because the ponies were done, and could not keep up the required speed any longer. All the Somalis came round us, the ponies’ heads facing us, almost touching us, and we must have been hidden entirely from our own men, because as our dibâltig friends sat their panting ponies they raised both arms with spears held high, and dear me, how they shouted that “Mot” sentence.
I signed with my hand that we wished to get out of the circle—it was not pleasant so near the panting, pawing ponies, and one big black-looking fellow backed his steed out and made a path. I thanked them through Clarence and then began the usual palaver about the inadequacy of the presents.
If every man had to have a tobe it meant twenty-five, and we had to economise or we should clear out our stock before we finished up at Berbera. We had started out with several pieces of sheeting, but had done an immense amount of distributing. A tobe when cut has to be about twelve times over the length from a man’s elbow to his finger tips. That is how we measured. We offered half a dozen tobes, and suggested that the performers should toss up for them.
A hurricane of stormy words ensued, most annoying, as six tobes at a whack is very generous indeed. The men could not be invited to a meal because the rice supplies would not bear any undue strain. The affair ended with the presentation of five good clasp knives. And then the dissatisfied warriors rode away. We took the opportunity of telling Clarence that if any more Somalis came bent on doing this dibâltig performance they must do it on their own. We had seen enough of it. And run on the present lines it is more expensive than a box at the opera. We went back to a second tea, and a bath to get rid of the dust that covered us like flour.
In the evening, Cecily and I again penetrated my koodoo forest by ourselves, more for the pleasure of wandering in the beautiful oasis than anything, and our search went farther than my stroll of the morning. We pushed and crawled our way through the densest thickets that we might find the reason for such flapping and screaming of dozens and dozens of vultures, kites and hawks. In a thicket of thorn where the durr grass grew high, and in patches left off altogether, and exposed the sand, lay the remains of a lesser koodoo. It had been partially eaten, but not by vultures, a lion evidently, because it had begun on the hind quarters and eaten about half the animal. The antelope’s head was thrown back, and the fore legs were tucked beneath him. The lion had sprung from the grass straight on to his prey. The horns swept the hunched shoulders, and I think it must have been my friend of the morning.