Indeed from where they sat the whole city lay very conveniently exposed to their view. They could see the irregular roofs of the Palace buildings in their grove of sapling blue gums and before them the still unfinished royal box from which the Emperor proposed to review the procession; small black figures could be observed working on it, tacking up coloured flags, spreading carpets and bobbing up the path with pots of palm and fern. They could see the main street of the city diverge, to the barracks on one side and the Christian quarter on the other. They could see the several domes and spires of the Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian, Anglican, Nestorian, American Baptist and Mormon places of worship; the minaret of the mosque, the Synagogue, and the flat white roof of the Hindu snake temple. Miss Tin took a series of snapshots.
“Don’t use all the films, Sarah, there are bound to be some interesting things later.”
The sun rose high in the heavens; the corrugated iron radiated a fierce heat. Propped on their pillows under green parasols the two ladies became drowsy and inattentive to the passage of time.
The procession was due to start at eleven but it must have been past noon before Dame Mildred, coming to with a jerk and snort, said, “Sarah, I think something is beginning to happen.”
A little dizzily, for the heat was now scarcely bearable, the ladies leant over the parapet. The crowd was holloing loudly and the women gave out their peculiar throbbing whistle; there seemed to be a general stir towards the royal box, quarter of a mile down the road.
“That must be the Emperor arriving.”
A dozen lancers were cantering down the street forcing the crowds back into the side alleys and courtyards, only to surge out again behind them.
“The procession will come up from the direction of the railway station. Look, here they are.”
Fresh swelling and tumult in the crowded street. But it was only the lancers returning towards the Palace.
Presently Miss Tin said, “You know, this may take all day. How hungry we shall be.”
‘I’ve been thinking of that for some time. I am going to go down and forage.”
“Mildred, you can’t. Anything might happen to you.”
“Nonsense, we can’t live on this roof all day with four petit-beurre biscuits.”
She rolled back the stone and carefully, rung by rung, descended the ladder. The bedroom doors were open and as she passed she saw that quite a large party was now assembled at the windows. She reached the ground floor, crossed the dining-room and opened the door at the far end where she had been informed by many penetrating smells during the past weeks, lay the kitchen quarters. Countless flies rose with humming alarm as she opened the larder door. Uncovered plates of horrible substances lay on the shelves; she drew back instinctively; then faced them again. There were some black olives in an earthenware basin and half a yard of brick-dry bread. Armed with these and breathing heavily she again climbed to the trap door.
“Sarah, open it at once.” The rock was withdrawn. “How could you be so selfish as to shut it? Supposing I had been pursued.”
“I’m sorry, Mildred. Indeed I am, but you were so long and I grew nervous. And, my dear, you have been missing such a lot. All kinds of things have been happening.”
“What things?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly, but look.’
Indeed, below the crowds seemed to be in a state of extreme agitation, jostling and swaying without apparent direction around a wedge-shaped phalanx of police who were forcing a way with long bamboo staves; in their centre was an elderly man under arrest.
“Surely, those are the clothes of the native priests? What can the old man have been up to?”
“Almost anything. I have never had any belief in the clergy after that curate we liked so much who was Chaplain of the Dumb Chums and spoke so feelingly and then…”
“Look, here is the procession.’
Rising strains of the Azanian anthem; the brass band of the Imperial Guards swung into sight drowning the sounds of conflict. The Azanians loved a band and their Patriarch’s arrest was immediately forgotten. Behind the soldiers drove Viscount and Viscountess Boaz, who had eventually consented to act as patrons. Then marching four abreast in brand new pinafores came the girls of the Amurath Memorial High School, an institution founded by the old Empress to care for the orphans of murdered officials. They bore, somewhat unsteadily, a banner whose construction had occupied the embroidery and dressmaking class for several weeks. It was em-blazoned in letters of appliqucl silk with the motto: “WOMEN OF TOMORROW DEMAND AN EMPTY CRADLE.” Slowly the mites filed by, singing sturdily.
“Very sensible and pretty,’
‘ said Miss Tin. “Dear, Mildred, what very stale bread you have brought.’
“The olives are excellent.’
“I never liked olives. Good gracious, look at this.’
The first of the triumphal cars had come into sight. At first an attempt had been made to induce ladies of rank to take part in the tableaux; a few had wavered, but Azanian society still retained certain standards; the peerage were not going to have their wives and daughters exhibiting themselves in aid of charity; the idea had to be dropped and the actresses recruited less ambitiously from the demi-monde. This first car, drawn by oxen, represented the place of women in the modern world. Enthroned under a canopy of coloured cotton, sat Mile. ‘Fifi’ Fatim Bey; in one hand a hunting crop to symbolise sport, in the other a newspaper to symbolise learning; round her were grouped a court of Azanian beauties with typewriters, tennis rackets, motor bicycling goggles, telephones, hitch-hiking outfits and other patents of modernity inspired by the European illustrated papers. An orange and green appliqucd standard bore the challenging motto THROUGH STERILITY TO CULTURE.
Enthusiastic applause greeted this pretty invention. Another car came into sight down the road, bobbing decoratively above the black pates; other banners.
Suddenly there was a check in the progress and a new note in the voice of the crowd.
