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The arms and provisions, as was our custom, were piled up under an oilskin, between my break-wind and that of the overseer, with the exception of one gun, which I always kept at my own sleeping place.
The low-lying horizons looked infinitely far off; the sense of space was confusing. Here and there appeared a home-stead, backed with a "break-wind" of thickly-planted trees; but the general impression was of vast, still distance, endless reaches of sky, and uncounted flowers growing for their own pleasure and with no regard for human observation.
Then he said to his daughter: "You come and hold the candle." Mary put on her hood and followed her father to the yard. The carcase lay close to the rails, against which two sheets of bark had been raised as a break-wind. The beast had been partly skinned, and a portion of the hide, where a brand might have been, was carefully turned back. Mary noticed this at once.
At length she stopped at the back of a crescent-shaped break-wind of boughs, and a moment later eager, trembling, and almost speechless I stood before the two English girls. Looking back now, I remember they presented a truly pitiable spectacle. They were huddled together on the sandy ground, naked, and locked in one another's arms. Before them burned a fire, which was tended by the women.
At the same time, I ought to tell you that now and again we disobeyed deliberately, and did our best to lash the savages into a fury, hoping that they would spear us or kill us with their clubs. Our sole shelter was a break-wind of boughs with a fire in front.
The arms and provisions, as was our custom, were piled up under an oilskin, between my break-wind and that of the overseer, with the exception of one gun, which I always kept at my own sleeping place.
I threw the spare tarpaulin over the wheels on one side, letting about half of it lie on the ground in case of damp, and so making a floor and a break-wind.
In passing another of Lady Spencer's farms, seven miles farther down the same river, we were glad to pocket a large piece of damper for our evening meal, which we made at our old bivouac near the Great Plain, where we found the native under the break-wind, which he had covered with another bough or two.
"After this incident our liberty was curtailed altogether, and we were moved away. The women were plainly told so we gathered that if anything happened to us, death, and nothing less, would be their portion. Now that we could no longer leave the little break-wind that sheltered us, we spent the whole of our time in prayer mainly for death to release us from our agonies.
I questioned Jimmie, but the incidents seemed to have escaped the old king's memory. Joe could build bigger woodheaps with less wood than any black or white tramp or loafer round there. He was a born architect. He took a world of pains with his wood-heaps he built them hollow, in the shape of a break-wind, with the convex side towards the house for the benefit of his employers.
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