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The indescribable homely smell of a wood-fire greeted the nostrils with the force of a spoken welcome. They could hear the gabble of the Kafirs at their supper and the noise of their shrill, empty laughter. "That's home," said Mills, breaking a long silence. "Yais," murmured the Frenchman; "'ome, eh? Yais. Ver' naice." "You may say what you like," continued the trader aggressively.
"Come on an' sit down to it, man!" The Dago made one final shrug at Bill. "De mate," he said, smiling with raised eyebrows, as though in pitying reference to that officer's infirmities of temper, "'e call me. So I cannot go to de galley for fetch de dinner more quick. Please escuse." Bill snarled. "Come on with ye," called Dan again. "Ah, yais!"
"Er " said Cuthbert, blushing as every eye in the room seemed to fix itself on him, "I think he means Abe Mitchell and Harry Vardon." "Abe Mitchell and Harry Vardon?" repeated Mrs. Smethurst, blankly. "I never heard of " "Yais! Yais! Most! Very!" shouted Vladimir Brusiloff, enthusiastically. "Arbmishel and Arreevadon. You know them, yes, what, no, perhaps?"
"Now, then, you Dago there," the officer of the watch shouted at him. "Keep that stone movin', an' none of yer shenanikin'!" "Yais, sir," answered the Dago, and bowed himself obediently. It needed the ingenuity of Bill to trouble his tranquility of mind.
"You must be quick, then," said Dawson, "'cause I'm in a hurry to get back." "Yais," smiled the Greek. "Bimeby he rain-a bad." "Rain?" queried Dawson incredulously. The air was like balm. "You see," the Greek nodded. "This-a way, sir. I go look-a quick." Dawson waited in the bar, where a dark, sallow bar-man stared him out of countenance for twenty minutes.
"Two old-fashioned gin cocktails," she iterated. "You savee, gin and bitters? Be sure it's Angostura, and lemon and soda, and two Manhattans with rye whisky. Hurry along now! Old-fashioned, remember!" In ten minutes Temanu came for the order. To Sen knew no English, and Temanu only, "Yais, ma darleeng," and "Whatnahell?" "Spik Furanche?" she begged.
"Yus," answered Bill, who, like most men before the mast, had never seen a chart in his life. "I looked at ev'ry name on it, ev'ry bloomin' one. A chart o' Africa it was, givin' the whole lot of 'em. But your place." "Yais?" cried the Dago. "You see 'im? An' de leetle bay under de hills? You find it?" "No," said Bill, "I didn't find it. It wasn't there." "Wasn't there?"
"Home is something. Though never so 'umble, ye know, there's no place like home." "Tha's all right," assented the other gaily. "I know a man name' Albert Smith, an' 'e sing that in the jail at Beira. Sing all the night till I stop 'im with a broom. Yais." Mills grunted, and they entered the skoff kia the largest of the huts, sacred to the uses of a dining-room.
I know now it is more better to be sad an' poor an' weak dan to be mad an' glad about fancies. Yais I know now!" "You'll be all right," said Dan. "Cheer up, lad. There's fellers worse off than you!" An inspiration lit up his honest and downright brain for a moment. "Why," he said, "it's better to be you than be a feller like Bill that never had a fancy in his life.
Quee pawnsays-vous!" and "Ça va bien! Oh, yais, I tink so!" and found big piles of shells and other munitions which the Germans could not take away and cellars with many wounded who had been brought in from the hills and that was all there was to it: a march in and look around, when for glory's sake, at least, the victors ought to have delivered congratulatory addresses.
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