Another elephant-hunter was to be
sent to us in the place of Jali; but I felt that we had lost our
best man.*
* I heard from Jali six weeks later; he was then well,
and offered to rejoin us shortly, but I declined to
risk the strength of his leg.
Although my people had been in the highest spirits up to this
time, a gloom had been thrown over the party by two
causes--Jali's accident, and the fresh footmarks of the Base that
had been discovered upon the sand by the margin of the river. The
aggageers feared nothing, and if the Base had been legions of
demons they would have faced them, sword in hand, with the
greatest pleasure. But my Tokrooris, who were brave in some
respects, had been so cowed by the horrible stories recounted of
these common enemies at the nightly camp-fires by the Hamran
Arabs, that they were seized with a panic, and resolved to desert
en masse, and return to Katariff, where I had originally engaged
them, and at which place they had left their families.
This desertion having been planned, they came to me in a body,
just as the camels and Jali were about to depart, and commenced
a series of absurd excuses for their intended desertion.
