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The afternoon glow, reflected from the burnt grass and white walls of the compound, struck upward in the vault-spaces of the ground floor, and lighted oddly the keen-eyed yellow mafoo and his serious young master. Nesbit, pert as a jockey, sat on the table swinging his feet furiously. "Sturgeon would take it all right, of course," he said, with airy wisdom. "Quite the gentleman, he is.
With the greatest difficulty could we preserve our equilibrium, and prevent the wheels from being crushed, as we surged along toward the palace gate; while all the time our Russian interpreter, Mafoo, on horseback in front, continued to shout and gesticulate in the wildest manner above their heads. Twenty soldiers had been stationed at the palace gate to keep back the mob with cudgels.
I owed deliverance to the fortunate breaking of my pony's halter, as, having been freshly clipped, he had become restive from the cold, thereby causing the mafoo to enter my room for a spare one, which I always carried with me. The following morning I felt very shaky and had a splitting headache, but was able to continue the journey, gradually recovering as the day wore on.
It costs no more to feed a good pony than it does a bad one, so he now decides to dispose of his hack for a trifling sum, and in its stead to purchase a griffin, which may be a potential winner of the champions. He orders his mafoo to inspect the new season's griffins as they arrive, and arrange with the dealer to bring three or four of the best for his approval.
A kind friend came with me as far as the village to act as my interpreter, and here he engaged a pony for me. It was to carry me ten miles for fourpence. It was small, rat-like and wiry, and was steered by the "mafoo" using the tail like a tiller.
The mafoo demands more, but will come down; you stick to your offer, though prepared to increase it; so demand and offer you exchange with the mafoo till the width of the village is between you, and your voices are almost out of hearing, when you come to terms. I nodded assent and apparently nothing more happened and the conversation, of which I was quite ignorant, continued.
On several occasions I have been obliged to rely on my mafoo, who with horse-clippers and iron scissors proved to be effective if somewhat unartistic.
Having finished shooting, my gun was again placed in the cart and we started leisurely for home, I riding a short distance in advance, followed by the second mafoo, while my pointer rambled over the grass. One evening, when thus returning, two medium-sized eagles swooped at the dog and commenced to regularly hunt him, much to his consternation.
Here, mafoo, makee finish!" He sprang up, clapped a helmet on the shorn head, and stalked out into the sunlight. "Come on," he called. "It's nearly time. We must pick up our young Hotspur." The clerk followed, through the glowing compound and the road. In the shade of the nunnery gate they found Rudolph, who, raising his rattan, saluted them with a pale and stoic gravity.
The next thing I remember was cold air beating on my face, water in my mouth and trickling down my neck and chest, strong arms supporting me and the voice of my friend's mafoo calling to his master for a light, the moon having set.
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