'No.'
'Well remember that Mr. Bent is master on board this ship and I am mistress,' I said. 'I have given that bed to Mr. Lunt, and you can go there, and as you have a habit of spitting on floors and carpets you will now spit overboard or you will move.' So Saleh began to take a back seat. He was positively afraid to be among the servants.
Any excitement at sea is welcome, so we now began to take a great interest in him and Mahmoud. We were quite anxious as to whether they would be sea-sick or not. You might wonder why we cared, but this is the reason.
If they were sea-sick their fast of Ramazan would be broken, and all their previous fasting would go for nothing; they would gain nothing by going on with it, and might eat as much as they liked.
All the Indian party had taken advantage of the excuse of travelling to eat as usual.
Mahmoud soon broke down and rejoiced greatly thereafter, but Saleh reached the end of the day and his evening meal in safety, but his fast came to an abrupt termination early in the morning.
Does it not seem a wildly funny idea that putting food into your mouth by the back door (the throat) involuntarily should be quite as bad for your soul as voluntarily putting it in at the front door (the lips)?
We started at half-past five and reached Makalla at sunrise the following morning, Easter Sunday, March 25. Our arrival being announced, the Sultan Manassar invited us to see him, and he and his ugly sons were all dressed up again, and we had tea and halwa. Saleh kept running about trying to whisper to all the wazirs. My husband kept him under his eye as much as possible, but once he escaped and ran back and begged the sultan for a box of honey and a carpet. He only got the former, so he returned and was very abusive to my husband, saying it was his fault; I told him he could say what he liked at Aden, but had better be quiet as long as he was on the sea with us.
My husband graciously gave permission to ship a cargo of frankincense, and the ship was filled with delightfully sweet, clean bales, on which our luggage and men could be accommodated, and we were glad of the ballast.
We had three more days and nights on the sea, and during the last had a miserable fear of a calm; but at last a fine wind sprang up and we whizzed along, all sitting up in our beds, loudly rejoicing with one another on the prospects of our arrival at the haven where we would be, which took place at sunrise on March the 27th.
