ptoms of
becoming inquisitive I was to invent some way of keeping his attention;
so all unsuspected by him I lay in the sand by the roadside within
three yards of him, while the ants crawled over me and he dozed leaning
on his rifle. Once a long snake crawled over my wrist and my very
marrow curdled with fear and loathing; but except for mosquitoes, who
were legion and sucked their fill, there was no other contretemps. I
don't know what I would have done if the askari had taken alarm and set
off to investigate. I trusted to intuition should that happen.

The work of arranging the stuff in the dhow was the most difficult of
all, because we dared not light a lantern, yet we also dared not stow
things carelessly for fear of confusion when the hour of action came.
The space was ridiculously small for ourselves and all those men, and
every inch had to be economized. In addition to that the dhow had to
be worked backward off the mud far enough to be shoved off easily, and
then made fast by a rope to the bushes in such way as not to be
noticeable. Most of the ropes turned out to be rather rotten, and we
could only guess at the condition of the sails; the feel of them in
the dark gave us small assurance. But fortunately we had a couple of
hundred feet of good half-inch manila in camp with us, and that Fred
and Will took out and stowed in the hold the night following.

We bought such things at the D.O.A.G. as we could without arousing
suspicion, as, for instance, a quantity of German dried pea-soup--not
that the porters would take to it kindly, but it would go a long way
among them at a pinch. Live stock we did not dare buy, for fear of the
noise it would make; but we laid in some eggs and bananas. Most of
the thirty-pound loads were rice.

It troubled us sorely to leave our good tents, beds, and equipment
behind, yet all we could take was the blankets and one gladstone bag
packed with clothes for us all. Kettles and pots and pans were a noisy
nuisance, yet we had to have them, and blankets for all those porters,
who would escape from jail practically naked, were an essential; but
fortunately we had a sixty-pound bale of trade-blankets among our loads.

Not one word did we exchange all this while with Coutlass and his
friends. Not one overture did we make to them, or they to us. But
there was no doubt of their intention to do their worst. They gloated
over us--eyed us with lofty disdain and scornful superior know