This Was Instantly Answered By A Yell From Human Voices In Chorus,
And Towards That Yell In A Slightly Amiable - A Very Slightly
Amiable - State Of Mind I Went.
I will draw a veil over the scene, particularly over my observations
to those men.
They did not attempt to deny their desertion, but
they attempted to explain it, each one saying that it was not he but
the other boy who "got fright too much."
I closed the palaver promptly with a brief but lurid sketch of my
opinion on the situation, and ordered food, for not having had a
thing save that cup of sour claret since 6.30 A.M., and it being now
11 P.M., I felt sinkings. Then arose another beautiful situation
before me. It seems when Cook and Monrovia got back into camp this
morning Master Cook was seized with one of those attacks of a desire
to manage things that produce such awful results in the African
servant, and sent all the beef and rice down to Buea to be cooked,
because there was no water here to cook it. Therefore the men have
got nothing to eat. I had a few tins of my own food and so gave
them some, and they became as happy as kings in a few minutes,
listening and shouting over the terrible adventures of Xenia, who is
posing as the Hero of the Great Cameroon. I get some soda-water
from the two bottles left and some tinned herring, and then write
out two notes to Herr Liebert asking him to send me three more
demijohns of water, and some beef and rice from the store, promising
faithfully to pay for them on my return.
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