“Taste? The savage!”
“Well, great taste in taking a fancy to you. I think you ought to be very proud.”
“Proud? I sicken with disgust! Pah! Don’t let’s talk about her, but try and make some plan to escape.”
“Well, yes, I suppose we must do that; but ’pon my word, old fellow, I don’t see how. I wish old Bolter were here.”
“I wish Mrs Bolter were here to tackle this dreadful woman!” laughed Hilton. “We men can’t manage her; but that clever, sharp little body would bring her to her senses. What do you want Bolter for?”
“Oh, he’d mix up a dose for the guards, and give it to them in their tea, or whatever they drink; then they’d go to sleep, and we could calmly walk back to the fort.”
“I wonder what Harley thinks of our absence?”
“Thinks we’re dead, probably, and reposing happily each of us in a crocodile sarcophagus. Well, Bertie, old man, what’s to be done? The Inche Maida has quite cut us it seems, and we’re all alone, I suppose. Come, what’s to be done to get us out of this plight? You’re quite right, old fellow; it is most absurd!”
“Absurd? It is disgraceful! I feel as if we were not men, but a couple of silly girls!”
“With beards,” said Chumbley.