"Yes; people have arrived from their camp who saw them to-day."
"And are they on the Hargeisa road?"
"Yes."
At six a.m. this morning after a cup of hot tea we rode for two solid, steady hours till we came to the Hargeisa plateau. Turning sharp right we rode away from the Hargeisa track. I was suspicious, but said nothing until we met a Bedouin Somal. To my question he replied that he had come from a police camp about three hours' away; that with trotting camels we should arrive there in two hours, but the road was rough.
And had he seen anything of four Sahibs? No! He saw one, an officer with a troop of M.I., who went away yesterday morning.
And is this the Hargeisa road? No, it is not; we have left it, but there is another road from the police camp.
It was useless showing temper. I told Mahomed, the interpreter, we would ride back to the Hargeisa road and wait for the baggage camels. Mahomed, the interpreter, told me that that was impossible, because the baggage camels, having left the Hargeisa road at the camp, were following an entirely different road to the one we had come by. We went on to the police camp, as Mahomed had all along intended, and arrived at noon.
"And now," said I, "I shall have a cup of tea and some biscuits."
Every day since leaving Zeila we had carried the articles necessary for such a meal in our saddle-bags, but to-day they had been left behind. Why? Because Mahomed, the interpreter, and my boy arranged that I should lunch with the four Sahibs who are not here.