“We'd be honoured.”
“Maybe the gladioli will be out.”
“That'll be nice.”
“Ahoy there!” Swinburne shouted. “I see palms!”
“The oasis,” Burton said.
“Praise be!” Krishnamurthy gasped.
“Arse!” Pox squawked.
They climbed up to the poet and stopped beside him. He pointed at a distant strip of blinding light. They squinted and saw through their lashes and
“Please, Captain Burton, don't tell us that's a mirage!” Sister Raghavendra said.
“No,” Burton responded. “That's real enough. It's just where it ought to be. Let's push on.”
They each took a gulp of water from their flasks, then returned to the hard work of placing one foot in front of the other, on and on and on, not daring to look up in case the oasis was farther away than they hoped.
Another hour passed and the temperature soared, sucking away what little strength remained in them.
Then, suddenly, they were in shade, green vegetation closed around them, and when they finally raised their eyes, they saw a long, narrow lake just a few yards ahead.
“Thank goodness!” Isabella Mayson exclaimed, sinking to the ground. “Let me catch my breath, then I'll prepare some food while you gentlemen put up an awning.”
Forty minutes later, they were tucking into a meal of preserved sausages and bread and pickles, which they washed down with fresh water and a glass each of red wine-an indulgence Swinburne had insisted on bringing, despite Burton's directive that they keep their loads as light as possible.
They sighed and lay down.
“My feet have never ached so much,” Trounce observed. “Not even when I was a bobby on the beat.”
Herbert Spencer, sitting with his back against the bole of a palm tree, watched Pox flutter up into its leaves. The colourful bird hunkered down and went to sleep. The clockwork philosopher made a tooting sound that might have been a sigh. “For all your complaints, Mr. Trounce,” he said, “at least you can enjoy the satisfaction of a good meal. All I ever get these days is a touch of oil applied to me cogs 'n' springs, an' that always gives me indigestion.”
Trounce replied with a long, drawn-out snore, then rolled onto his side and fell silent.
Peace settled over the camp, and into it, Swinburne said softly:
“Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.”
“That's beautiful, Mr. Swinburne,” Sister Raghavendra whispered.
The sun climbed and the heat intensified.
Three hours passed.
They were too tired to dream.
Herbert Spencer's polymethylene-wrapped canister-shaped head slowly turned until the three vertical circles of his face were directed at the king's agent. He watched the sleeping man for many minutes. Very quietly, the pipes on his head wheezed, “Time, Boss, is that which a man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.” Then he looked away and sibilated, “But for us, only equivalence can lead to destruction-or transcendence.”
He sat, motionless.
“Wake up! Wake up! We're attacked!”
Herbert Spencer's trumpeting shocked them all out of their sleep.
“We're attacked! We're attacked!”
“What the devil-?” Trounce gasped, staggering to his feet.
“Grab your rifle,” Burton snapped. “Be sharp and arm to defend the camp!”
He winced, realising that he'd uttered the very same words back in '55 at Berbera; the day a spear had transfixed his face; the day his friend William Stroyan had been killed; the day John Speke had begun to hate him.
There was a thud, and Trounce went down.
A wild-looking man stepped over him and jabbed the butt of a matchlock at Burton's head. The king's agent deflected it with his forearm, lunged in, and buried his fist in his assailant's stomach.
From behind, an arm closed around the explorer's neck and the point of a dagger touched his face just below the right eye.
“Remain very still,” a voice snarled in his ear. Burton recognised the language as Balochi-a mix of Persian and Kurdish.
He froze, tense in the man's grip, and watched as brigands rounded up his companions. They were big men with intimidating beards and flowing robes, wide blue pantaloons, and colourful sashes around their waists. They were armed with matchlocks, daggers, swords, and shields.
Herbert Spencer-who they obviously regarded as some sort of exotic animal-was surrounded and roped. With his enormous strength, he yanked his captors this way and that, throwing them off their feet, until one of the bandits raised a gun and fired a shot at him, at which point Burton, afraid that his friend would be damaged, called, “Stop struggling, Herbert!”
The brass man became still, and his attackers wound him around and around with the ropes then bound him to a tree trunk.
“Goat ticklers!” Pox screeched from somewhere overhead.
Burton was dragged over to the others. The two women were pulled aside, and, with their arms held tightly behind their backs, were forced to watch as the men were lined up and pushed to their knees.
“I say!” Swinburne screeched. “What the dickens do you think you're playing at? Unhand me at once, you scoundrels!”
A heavily built warrior strode over. He sneered down at the diminutive poet and spat:
“Bless you!” the poet replied. “Do you not have a handkerchief?”
The big man cast his eyes from Swinburne to Honesty, then to Trounce, Burton, and Krishnamurthy.
“Who leads?” he demanded.
“I do,” said Burton, in Balochi.
The man moved to stand in front of him.
“Thou has knowledge of my language?”
“Aye, and I say to thee that there be no majesty and there be no might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great, and in his name we ask for thy mercy and thy assistance, for we have suffered severe misfortune and have a long journey before us.”
The Baloch threw his head back and loosed a roar of laughter. He squatted and looked into Burton's eyes.
“Thou speakest very prettily, Scar Face. I am Jemadar Darwaas. I lead the Disciples of Ramman. Who art thou?”
“Some call me Abdullah the Dervish.”
“Is that so?” Darwaas pointed at Herbert Spencer. “And what is that?”
“It is a man of brass. A machine in which a human spirit is housed.”
