"You have thoroughly picked up again, Clinton," Skinner said as he arrived upon one of these visits. "No one would know you to be the same fellow who was brought down to Korti with me on that wretched camel's back. I think you are very lucky to have got put on to that transport work."
"So do I, Skinner; it gives me little time to sit and think, and though it is terrifically hot in the middle of the day I can always manage to get up some sort of shelter with straw or matting of some kind, and at any rate it is cooler there than on shore."
"I wish they would give me a turn at it," Skinner said. "I cannot offer to take an oar, for although my arm is going on very well the doctor says it may be months before I can venture to use it in anything like hard work. We get up jolly horse races here once a week in the evening. The natives enter their animals. Of course we have no chance with them on our little tats, but we sometimes manage to requisition two or three horses from the Hussars. I dare not ride myself, for though the horses and ponies are both very sure-footed these natives ride in the wildest way and one might get cannoned over. Still it is an amusement to look on and make small bets and watch the natives; crowds of them come out to see it, and they get tremendously excited over it. I wish we could get up a good football match, the Guards against Dongola; it would be awful fun. As far as running goes we should not be in it, and if one of them got the ball he would carry it right through us up to the goal, for they are as active and slippery as eels. Of course when it came to a good close fight we should have it our own way."
"Have you managed to get up football on board ship, Skinner?" Easton, who was stretched at full length on the ground, asked lazily.
"Not yet," Skinner laughed. "If we played at all we should have to use a cannon-ball, so that it should not be kicked over the sides; but then, unless we got iron shoes made for the purpose, we should all be laid up. But I have got a football in my cabin, and once or twice we have had games at Suakim, and very good fun it was too."
"No news, I suppose, Clinton?" Easton asked, sitting up.
Rupert shook his head. "Not a word. We hear very little of what is going on above us, and the natives who do come in lie so, there's no believing a word they say. I have been thinking that if one could trust them I would pay one of the sheiks to dress me up and stain my skin and take me with him on a wandering expedition to Khartoum and over the country on both sides of the river."
"It would be madness," Easton said. "Of course if you could talk their language perfectly it might be possible to manage it, for I suppose that with dye and false hair one might be got up to pass as far as appearances go, but not being able to speak the language would be fatal."
"Of course I should have to go as a dumb man. I was asking the surgeon the other day if there would be any great difficulty in cutting a fellow's tongue out."
"In doing what?" Easton and Skinner asked in astonishment.