“No.” She set down her goblet carefully, and refilled it, more or less, with an unsteady hand. “No. Gobayzy’s a… a worm, you say… Well, what can he give the British? His army of… of worms?” She chuckled. “Worms who crawl away at the sight of our spears! No. The British
“Has he not?” for the fourth time, drunk as David’s sow, but not too far gone to kiss me gently, playing her tongue along my lips, whispering. “Oh… beautiful! More beautiful than
“Just a few of us, ma’am,” says I, and she gave a whoop of laughter and heaved her bulk away, knocking over her goblet, which I gallantly rescued and refilled, after a fashion, for I was feeling the worse for wear myself, what with too much booze and the rising clamour and laughter… for now the party was becoming lively, and if you don’t believe what I’m about to tell you, I can’t help it.
Young Cavalry and his bint had evidently had their fill of meat and drink, and were starting to satisfy another appetite, pawing and fondling with increasing passion, and slipping off their stools on to a mattress which some obliging menial must have laid behind their places. Gad’s me life, thinks I, not before the savoury, surely, but there was no doubt about it, they were setting to partners in earnest, and Fasil, seated next to them, had unwound a fold of his
But if they’d cut off the sight, they couldn’t shut out the sound. Even above the drunken babble of talk, gasps and grunts and rhythmic pounding were audible, followed at last by a prolonged ecstatic wailing that reminded me of little Fraulein Thingamajig on the voyage to Trieste. Well done, Cavalry, that’s your sort, thinks I, and looked to see the company, and Masteeat if she still had her senses, express their indignation at such unseemly behaviour— but no one was paying the least attention until Fasil and t’sother chap resumed their
And then the other diners followed suit, in turn. Whether they observed some order of precedence, like Bishops going into dinner before Rear Admirals, I can’t say, but I think not, since Fasil and his consort were next to bat, and he must have been senior to Cavalry, surely. I was caught out, because Cavalry undid his
Then Infantry and his charmer were at it, and of course the inevitable happened: the others got impatient, and started out of turn, and all order was abandoned. Only the most perfunctory attempts were made to shield the jolly amorists, and the place shook like a New Orleans brothel in Holy Week. The Abs have two claims to distinction: they’re the noisiest eaters and fornicators on earth, and their queen is up there with the leaders. I’d been too intent on the scandalous scene to pay her much heed, and now when I looked she was reclining on one elbow, regarding me glassily over the rim of her
“Has… he… not… ?” she mumbled drowsily—by jove, she’d lapped the gutter, but d’you know, it was a rum thing, the drunker she got the more I fancied her. I’ve said she was no great beauty, but there was something damned fetching about the plump polished cheeks between the shining braids, the moist lips trem bling in a vacuous smile, the satin skin of her arms and shoul ders, the hard juggs thrusting themselves into my grasp, and the wild abandon with which she suddenly revived, clamping her mouth on mine, clawing at my rump, howling and writhing fit to wreck the furniture… and I think some considerate chaps must have noticed, for I’ve a recollection of being secluded by their
I hope we were, anyway… not that I imagine anyone would have paid us the slightest heed in the surrounding happy pandemonium, but one has to think of propriety and the good name of the service, especially among native peoples, however trying conditions may sometimes be. As I said to Speedicut, it’s hell in the diplomatic.
Elspeth maintains that one of the jolliest things about what she calls houghmagandie is the sweet exchanges of conversation afterwards. What they would have been like with Queen Masteeat of Galla, I cannot say, for she fell asleep at the end of our little frolic, and had to be carried insensible to bed by the more sober of her hand maidens, snoring like a volcano. My stars, but she was a glutton for mutton, and I was a well-ruined ambassador as I picked my way clear of the wreckage of that dining-chamber—would you credit it, Infantry and Cavalry were still going strong, with Fasil’s woman, too, while
I’ve no very clear recollection of making my way to the apart ment in the palace set aside for me, but I know I suffered a most ghastly bout of “spinning pillow” and had to hang over the side of the bed with the floor racing up to me and receding, time and again, before I finally settled, lying there in the dark wondering how much of Queen Masteeat I could take. She was no refined amorist, that one, strong as a bullock, randy as a stoat, and the roughest ride I could remember since Ranavalona of Madagascar—another Black Pearl of Africa, but before I could make philosophic review of this coincidence, my attention was distracted by a gentle pricking of some sharp point under my right ear, and a soft voice whispering:
“Lie still, friend, and prosper… for the moment. Speak… and you’ll be talking to Shaitan.”
I’ve written elsewhere of the terror of being shocked awake by deadly danger, and of the freezing paralysis that follows. It’s happened to me more than once—why, in China I was dragged out of bed into a midnight skirmish, and then into the pres ence of the lunatic leader of the Taiping Rebellion, but at least in that case my panic was shortlived, since my kidnappers proved to be friends. No such luck in Habesh; half-drunk as I was, there was no mistaking the threat of the knife-point, the lamplit nightmare of the gleaming eyes and teeth in the black faces staring down at me, the gag thrust brutally into my mouth, and the grip of the hands which wrenched me to my feet and ran me from the room, down a rickety staircase, and into the pouring rain of a chill night. Robed figures with swords and spears were about me, and then a blind fold was whipped over my face and I was being half carried, half thrust along, trying to yell for help through my gag and almost swallowing the thing out of sheer funk.
What made it doubly terrifying was the complete silence of my captors: not an order, not a word or a threat after that gloating voice that had woken me; these were professional kidnappers, probably expert assassins, who knew exactly what they were doing, where they were taking me, and why—although the wherefore didn’t occur to me, fuddled with fright and liquor as I was, until I was flung down on to a stretcher, swiftly bound to it, and borne off at a run. Only then, when I realised that I was not being hauled out to instant execution, did I ask myself who could be behind this abduction.
The answer seemed horribly clear: Uliba-Wark, thirsting for vengeance—and remembering how she’d dealt with Yando was enough to bring me out in a lather of fear. Oh Lord, and she’d had some ghastly notion of removing a victim’s bones one at a time and keeping him in agony for months! Being unable to scream or spew, I could only lie terrified while they jolted me along at speed—heaven knew how far we went, or how long it took; you ain’t at your calculating best with a mind a-shudder and a bellyful of drink, but I don’t believe they could have kept up that pace more than an hour, over five miles, perhaps, before they halted for a breather and set me down.
The blindfold was stripped away, leaving me blinking in the glare of a torch in the hand of one of the men surrounding me; seven or eight of them, Gallas in white
