"Well now, make up the fire and see what you can do to get us a meal. I'll go and talk to the young chief, Charley, and butter him up. He and his men did jolly well. The shouts they let out when I gave the word made amends for their silence during the march, which must have been a trial to them."
Said Mohammed made up the fire and hunted about for the best cooking-pot and the articles of fare he thought would be most pleasing to the white men. The villagers had already set to work to prepare their own food, chattering and laughing in high elation. Within a quarter of an hour Said Mohammed had made a stew of some partly cooked waterbuck he had discovered. He washed out two rough mugs of clay, and pouring the stew into them, handed one to each of the young men.
"A thousand regrets, gentlemen," he said, "that circs. do not admit of more dainty dishes and service to match."
"That's all right," said John. "I could eat anything, and this stew is first-rate."
"Permit me to remark, sir, on national characteristics as displayed by gastronomic ways of going on, utensils, et cetera. The nation, sir, that invented gas-stoves produced Shakespeare, bard of Avon; what achievements in science or literature could be expected from a race that never devilled kidney nor poached egg? Shakespeare himself, sir, was a poacher in giddy youth; though poaching egg and poaching stag are in some respects different, yet each is fine art. The fate of empires lurks in the saucepan; indeed, the mightiest monarch would be negligible quantity without quantum suff. Wherefore----"
"A little more stew, please," said John, interrupting. "You'd better get your own supper, khansaman; you must be pretty peckish after your exertions."
"I am indeed, sir, an abhorred vacuum, and retire with permission to get jolly good tuck-in."
"Thank goodness!" ejaculated John when he had gone. "I say, Charley, I was getting very nervous when we didn't see the light for so long. You were pulled up by that hedge, of course; how did you get through?"
"Burrowed like a mole. I've a greater respect for that animal now. I suppose we'll make tracks for home in the morning, by the bye?"
"Well, d'you know, I'd rather like to finish this job now we've started. Juma's still at large: his men are a rabble, of course, but they're not licked, and if he gets them back to this fort of his he may still worry us, to say nothing of harrying the people about him. What do you say? Are you game?"