Our litters lay upon the ground
With heavy curtains shaded round;
The Plague had passed away.
We could not hear a single sound,
And wondered as we lay--
“Perhaps the Forest Belt is passed,
And Timbuctoo is reached at last,
The while our faithful porters keep
So still to let their masters sleep.”
Poor Blood and I were far too weak
To raise ourselves, or even speak;
We lay, content to languish.
When Sin, to make the matter certain,
Put out his head beyond the curtain,
And cried in utter anguish:
“This is not Timbuctoo at all,
But just a native Kraal or Crawl;
And, what is more, our Caravan
Has all deserted to a man.”
* * * * *
At evening they returned to bring
Us prisoners to their savage king,
Who seemed upon the whole
A man urbane and well inclined;
He said, “You shall not be confined,
But left upon parole.”
Blood, when he found us both alone,
Lectured in a pedantic tone,
And yet with quaint perfection,
On “Prison Systems I have known.”
He said in this connection:--
“The primal process is to lug
A Johnny to the cells--or jug.
Dear Henry will not think me rude,
If--just in passing--I allude
To Quod or Penal Servitude.
Of every form, Parole I take
To be the easiest to break.”
On hearing this we ran
To get the guns, and then we laid
An admirable ambuscade,
In which to catch our man.
We hid behind a little knoll,
And waited for our prey
To take his usual morning stroll
Along the fatal way.
All unsuspecting and alone
He came into the danger zone,
The range of which we knew
To be one furlong and a third,
And then--an incident occurred
Which, I will pledge my sacred word,
Is absolutely true.
[Illustration ** Our three travellers aiming guns at the African
king from protected positions.]
Blood took a very careful aim,
And Sin and I did just the same;
Yet by some strange and potent charm
The King received no kind of harm!
He wore, as it appears,
A little fetish on a thread,
A mumbo-jumbo, painted red,
Gross and repulsive in the head,
Especially the ears.
[Illustration ** A little fetish on a thread....]
Last year I should have laughed at it,
But now with reverence I admit
That nothing in the world is commoner
Than Andrew Lang’s Occult Phenomena.
On getting back to England, I
Described the matter to the Psy-
Chological Committee.
Of course they thanked me very much;
But said, “We have a thousand such,
And it would be a pity
To break our standing resolution,
And pay for any contribution.”