Their furious attack even disturbed my rest, provided though I was with curtains; while the sufferings of over a hundred European soldiers, ranged along the lower deck of our cargo boat, were displayed next morning in unequivocal signs. The language used throughout that trying night was more forcible than polite, though considerably more justified than the foul language one constantly hears at home from a certain class of people whom a heredity, as strong as that of drink or gout, has taught to embellish every sentence of their conversation with irrelevant oaths.
On this occasion I believe even the “Contemplative One” would have indulged in expressive language, at the risk of having to undergo a few more transmigrations, extending perhaps over a trifling billion of years.
Besides being free from the attacks of the mosquitoes, of which only a few stragglers continued to harass us, it was far more pleasant away from the trees, which shut out the little breeze there was; and, to my way of thinking at least, much safer, as the Burmese are adepts at stealing noiselessly through their own jungles, and we might have easily been boarded and cut down in cold blood.
As soon as the anchor held, and the boat pointed bow up stream, the all-important process of cooking commenced, and I was soon served with a curried fowl, an omelette, and a bottle of beer. The natives of Eastern lands can cook as no other race knows how; their curries and omelettes are unequalled at any restaurant in Paris, and they will improvise a kitchen of the simplest materials and under the most trying circumstances.
In camp, under the leafy canopy of a mango tree, I have often sat down to a dinner consisting of soup, fish, entrées, joints, game and pastry, all served secundum artem.
Things are sadly otherwise at home; if the kitchen range gets temporarily out of order—a very common occurrence—the cook becomes as irritable as a bear with a sore head, and even the simplest substitute for a meal is served to the accompaniment of parliamentary language.
Dinner over, I retired with my pipe to the stern to ruminate. After the excitement of the day came the inevitable reaction, and I certainly felt to all intents and purposes alone in the world.
Hitherto I had belonged to a comfortable mess, enjoying plenty of company and diversion, and surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance of war; now I was on an unexplored river, with unknown dangers at every turn. Amid these novel surroundings my thoughts naturally took a wide range, annihilating distance and dwelling upon the old, familiar faces at home. Anon the roar of a wild beast would recall me to my present position; and in one of the painful silences that followed—the animals in the boat had fed and were now buried in happy oblivion—I felt sure that another boat, much larger than our own, was rapidly approaching. To make assurance doubly sure, I dipped the blade of a paddle under water, and with the handle to my ear, distinctly heard the enemy advancing and already close at hand. As it was now past eleven, they had evidently calculated on finding us all asleep, and only with the utmost expedition did I succeed in arousing the guard in time.
By the time our arms were in readiness they were upon us: and, covering the gentleman at the helm, I informed him politely in his own language that any further advance on the part of his friends would compel me to deprive them of his own valuable services.
An ominous silence on their part convinced me that they were determined to board us, and indeed though my instructions concerning the prompt use of cartridge and bayonet would have made a considerable gap in their boat, the odds would still have been fearfully against us. This trial of strength was, however not to be; the boat steadily fell back, and the rapid current soon carried it out of sight.