"I expect the coast is French. It's awkward; particularly since we carry cartridges."
"Senegal's French," said Macallister. "The rest is nobody's; the strongest tribe uses the ground it wants. Man, they're amusing fellows at the foreign offices. Do they think they can parcel out Africa wi' a gold fountain pen?"
"Sometimes the French foreign office uses the foreign legion."
"Must I teach ye geography? The legion leeves in Algeria, and that's t'ither side the country o' Kaid Maclean."
"It is not important," Don Erminio remarked. "All politicians are animals, and if the Moors shoot somebody with the cartridges, it is not my affair. I will catch fish for baccalao and then my señora will not want much money."
Kit put away the chart and went on deck. He rather envied Don Erminio's philosophical carelessness. The captain did not bother; if he could catch fish and shoot rabbits, he was satisfied. Kit was not like that. His job was to keep things going smoothly, but things did not go smoothly when one left them alone. He was accountable to Wolf and the owners of the ship, and began to see his duties might clash. Walking up and down the boat-deck, he frowned when he heard the clink of glasses and Don Erminio's laugh. Then Macallister began to sing, and Kit went off impatiently to his room.
At daybreak they hove anchor and steamed South along the coast, until one morning a dark line on the port bow indicated land. Then they turned a quarter circle, the line got faint, as if it ran back to the East, and after they took soundings Mossamedes steamed into a wide, shallow bay. Some time after she brought up a plume of smoke blew across the sandhills, a boat was swung out and Kit and the interpreter went ashore. Nothing romantic marked the landing of the cartridges. A few big, dark-skinned men came down the beach, took the boxes from the sailors and vanished in the sand. The boat pulled off and Kit began to think smuggling in Africa was strangely flat.
Then Mossamedes, stopping now and then to use the lead, steamed North dead-slow. They saw no ships, although at times a trail of smoke stained the blue horizon. Liners bound for Cape Town kept deep water, and the captains of the Guinea boats hauled off until they made Cape Verde. The stream of traffic flowed along, but did not touch the forbidding coast.
At length Don Erminio headed cautiously for the beach and Mossamedes dropped anchor in the pool among the sands. For two or three days the captain and Kit went fishing and then, when the smoke signal wavered about the mouth of the wady, Kit went ashore with Miguel in the big cargo launch. In a sense, perhaps, the job was not his, but he felt his responsibility. The camels were his employer's, and he must see them got on board.
The morning was hot, the sea luminous green, streaked by dazzling lines of foam. Sandhills and stony hummocks floated like a mirage in quivering, reflected light. Farther off, dust storms tossed in spirals and dissolved. Now and then the wind got light for a few minutes and Kit felt he could not breathe, but there was no break in the steady beat of the white surge on the beach.