“They won’t stir another yard, sir! at least, not forward, so we shall have to retrace our steps.”
He rejoiced in his heart at the turn things had taken, without reckoning with the old man’s wall-headed obstinacy or the cupidity of the native.
“Nonsense!” replied Sir Richard tersely, as he stalked off towards the mutineers, to return triumphantly ten minutes later.
“We start when I said we’d start, my boy, in two days’ time, if the weather clears and the camels are fit,” he said as he entered his tent. “I’ve doubled their pay. Good night.”
Ralph Trenchard walked to his own tent and beckoned Abdul.
“ ... we are poor, very poor, Excellency,” the latter said, concluding his apologia. “We could not withstand the money.”
“Well, I’m sorry you gave in, on account of her Excellency your mistress, but it can’t be helped. Tell me—what did that rifle shot mean?”
Abdul spread his fingers to avert evil as he whispered:
“That was a mistake, Excellency, on the part of those whose eyes watch us from afar.”