These instructions were acted on immediately by ‘old Hankey Pankey’ to the letter, parties of seamen and marines from each ship in turn landing and patrolling the outskirts of the settlement, in front of which our little fleet of three vessels was anchored; and so we ‘marked time,’ so to speak, for the next few months, waiting for the ships belonging to the West African squadron to come up with the admiral himself, as not until then would we be able to resume active operations against the foe, whose defeat of us before their stockade at Wooromoloo we were burning to avenge.
“Lor’, Tom,” said Larrikins to me, expressing the current feeling of all on board the Mermaid, “I’d die happy, s’help me, if I could only pot that there bloomin’ Arab thief Abdalah, him we see’d shoot poor little Dabby. They told us, Tom, you reck’lect t’other day over in the nigger town there when we was on sentry go, him were the chief of the gang, and were boastin’ o’ killin’ our h’officers and makin’ all on us cut and run. Lor’, I’d give a year’s pay to settle that there beggar’s hash!”
At last one morning, when we were pretty well tired of this forced inaction, a despatch boat came up from Mombassa, bringing orders from the admiral, who had arrived there in his flagship, accompanied by several gunboats and other vessels, nearly all the crews of which had been landed.
The admiral informed our captain that he was about to proceed inland through the province of Teita with this formidable column; and that he, ‘old Hankey Pankey,’ was to assemble as strong a force as he could muster from the ships under his command and with a second column thus formed he was to start from Malindi and work in a south-westerly direction, when the two bodies would meet, completely hemming in the Arabs.
‘Old Hankey Pankey’ got us all ashore the same afternoon the admiral’s orders came; and, early the next morning, nearly four hundred strong now, just double our former strength, we marched off up country towards the scene of our defeat at the hands of the Somali chieftain Abdalah, on the occasion of our previous trip inland.
When we got near his stockade, though, which, it need hardly be stated, we approached with considerable caution this time, the old bird had flown, having crossed the Sabaki River before our approach and gone to join the rest of the Somalis at Teita, whom the admiral was now busy encompassing.
Our way, therefore, so far, was clear; and, breasting the hills manfully, we proceeded along the route marked out for us, our hopes high and our spirits buoyant at the chance of now turning the tables on the old miscreant who had previously beguiled us.
The country a little way from the coast began to get beautifully wooded: while a series of undulating plateaus were planted by the natives with plantains and sugar-canes, besides various vegetables whose names none of us knew.
Farther up the mountains some of the trees were tall and spreading, unlike anything, I thought, that ever grew in Africa; for I recognised a mountain-ash and a sort of oak, while the juniper-tree perfumed the air with its aromatic smell.
I have good cause to remember these same junipers! On our way up the heights, Larrikins and I, who were scouting in advance, on either side of the front of the column, met a native, who told us in the bastard jargon of the coast called the Swahili language that some big animals, which he said were bigger than us and covered with long hair, were in a valley on our right; and that, if we valued our lives, so at least Larrikins told me, he having picked up some of the lingo from a negro woman at Malindi, we had better make a détour so as to avoid this place.