But I had stopped thinking about it, and agreed that I had seen places like it in Scotland.
"Pasha," said Hassan, "the boatmen want you not to sit so near the edge of the raft."
"Why," laughed X, "do they think I shall roll over?"
"No," replied Hassan, pointing ahead, "but we are going to shoot a rapid and they say you will be frightened."
"I would sooner be frightened than go through the awful exertion of moving on this raft," said X, and she gazed placidly at the line of foaming waters which we were rapidly nearing. There was only just room for the raft to rush between hard, sharp-edged boulders of rock, and it seemed as if we should inevitably be dashed to pieces or stranded at an acute angle on one of them.
The Zaptiehs helped with the oars, they and the boatmen keeping up one prolonged yell of "Allah! Allah!" They exerted themselves strenuously, a strange thing for Easterns to do; the raft creaked and rocked and plunged; there was a very disturbing sense of fuss and unseemly exertion on board; the cook was saying his prayers inside; Hassan, with an air of total unconcern or even apparent perception of what was going on, was laboriously adding up his accounts; and X, with equal unconcern, was mending her gloves. On such occasions one thinks of one's past sins and the future; I thought of the future. I stood up and leaned my back against the wall of the hut to steady myself.
"X," I roared above the din, "I wonder what there is for supper to-night."
X looked at me with a bored expression. "The same, I should think," she said, "as we had last night and the night before and the night before that. Why this sudden interest in your food?"
"Because," I said, "I have an idea I shall enjoy my supper to-night."
"Yes," said X (she was always sympathetic), "this sort of weather does make one hungry."