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The next twenty minutes Hawkinson and I spent in alternately setting up his camera within range of the panting, straining animals and in picking it up and running for our lives, in order to avoid being trampled by the maddened beasts in their furious and unexpected onslaughts.
So the next day, at the appointed hour which was two hours ahead of the time set for the cremation Hawkinson set out for the meru, accompanied by his interpreter. He did not return until dinner-time. "What happened?" I inquired, by way of greeting. "What didn't happen?" he retorted. "They turned me out just as the cremation was commencing.
I felt certain that they would take to flight when Hawkinson unlimbered his motion-picture camera and trained it upon them, but they continued their joyous splashing without the slightest trace of self-consciousness or confusion.
Hawkinson set up his camera on the bank of the Tjidani and spent several hundred feet of film in recording one of these performances. Even the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors will be unable to find any objection to that bathing scene.
One of them, wearing an enormous pair of black goggles, bestrode a sort of hobby-horse, made of papier-maché, and, when he saw that Hawkinson was taking his picture, cavorted and grimaced, to the huge delight of the onlookers. The female clowns, all of whom were burdened by excessive avoirdupois, wiggled their hips and shoulders as they marched in a sort of Oriental shimmy.
After Hawkinson had set up his camera on the edge of this extemporized arena the bulls were brought in: medium-sized but exceptionally powerful beasts, the muscles rippling under their sleek brown coats, their short horns filed to the sharpness of lance-tips.
The armament of the Negros had been removed after the armistice, so that we were without anything in the nature of a saluting cannon, but, as we wished to observe all the formalities of naval etiquette, the Doctor and Hawkinson volunteered to fire a royal salute with their automatic pistols as the Sultan came over the side.
Though close examination revealed the gold as gilt and the jewels as colored glass, the general effect was undeniably gorgeous. In spite of the brilliance of the scene, Hawkinson was as blasé as ever. He issued orders to the Minister of the Household as though he were directing a Pullman porter. "Have those elephants come on in double file," he commanded.
Two days later, however, he sent me a letter, signed by the minister of the royal household, authorizing Hawkinson to take motion-pictures in the grounds of the meru on the following day prior to the cremation. I didn't quite like the sound of the last four words, "prior to the cremation," but I felt that it was not an occasion for quibbling.
'Ma says chits and jewels have no business together, pursued Georgiana, 'and that's the reason why I have no trinkets except this, but I suppose my aunt Hawkinson was of a different opinion, because she left me this, though I used to think she might just as well have buried it, for it's always kept in jewellers' cotton.
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