"We had better send it in one of our cups," I said, and I measured out some lotion. Hassan took it; a few minutes later he returned laden with cups, jars, pitchers, and bowls of every size and description.
"For the medicine," he said, as he deposited them beside us.
We looked at one another aghast.
"Say that we have no more," we said.
"I have told them," he said, "but they will not go away."
We went outside, where a tremendous hubbub had arisen. Our men were standing round the edge of the raft resolutely pushing would-be intruders back into the river. Up to their waists in water, hanging on to the raft at every point, shouting out their ailments, pointing to their throats, their eyes, their heads, were the whole male population of the place. In vain our men strove to keep them off; the raft was besieged at every point. In desperation we unmoored and floated out into the middle of the river; the most determined swam out after us, and holding on to the raft with one hand stroked their chests and pointed to the absent sun with the other. Finally, as we drifted down-stream, they gave up, and the last sight we had was that of a row of disconsolate invalids, suddenly endowed with great evidences of health and strength, careering wildly on the mud flats in the starlight round a discarded heap of empty bowls and pitchers.
CHAPTER XVI
A STORM AND A LULL
The men were still very quarrelsome; the whole day their grating voices never stopped. They seemed, however, quite anxious to row now, and proposed at sunset that we should not moor to the shore as usual but, as the night was not very dark, keep on and make up for lost time. We had been in bed a little while and were dropping off to sleep in spite of the ceaseless quarrelsome voices, when a worse out-break than usual thoroughly awakened me.