chap he was--plenty of money, and he liked
spending it in what he called exhibitions--No, that aren't right--
expeditions--that's it; and he used to take me. What he wanted to find
was what he called the Nile Sauce; but he never found it, and we never
wanted it. My word, the annymiles as he used to shoot when we was
hungry, and that was always. My word, the fires I used to make, and the
way I used to cook! Why, I could have given the Camel fifty out of a
hundred and beat him. We didn't want any sauce. Did either of you
gents ever taste heland steak? No, I suppose not. Fresh cut, frizzled
brown, sprinkled with salt, made hotter with a dash of pepper, and then
talk about juice and gravy! Lovely! Wish we'd got some now. Why, in
some of our journeys up there in what you may call the land of nowhere
and nobody, we was weeks sometimes without seeing a soul, only
annymiles--ah, and miles and miles of them. I never see such droves and
never shall again. They tell me that no end of them has got shot.--
Beautiful creatures they were too! Such coats; and such long thin legs
and arms, and the way they'd go over the sandy ground was wonderful.
They never seemed to get tired. I've seen a drove of them go along like
a hurricane, and when they have pulled up short to stare at us, and
you'd think that they hadn't got a bit of breath left in their bodies,
they set-to larking, hip, snip, jumping over one another's backs like a
lot of school-boys at leap-frog, only ten times as high."

"Did you ever see any lions?" said Fitz, growing more serious as he
began to realise that there was very little fiction and a great deal of
fact in the sailor's yarn.

"Lots, sir. There have been times when you could hear them roaring all
round our camp. Here, I want to speak the truth. My governor used to
call it camp, but it was only a wagging, and we used to sleep on the
sand among the wheels. Why, I've lain there with my hand making my gun
rusty, it got so hot and wet with listening to them pretty pussy-cats
come creeping round us, and one of them every now and then putting up
his head and roaring till you could almost feel the ground shake. Ah,
you may chuckle, Mr Poole, but that's a fact too; I've felt it, and I
know. And do you know why they roared?"

"Because they were hungry?"

"Partly, sir; but most of it's artfulness. It's because they know that
it will make the bullocks break away--stampede, as they calls it--and
rush of