Settlers and Scouts Part 32

The two girls made suspicious use of their handkerchiefs; Joe Browne kicked Ferrier under the table; and Oliver, choking over his coffee, accused Mr. Halliday of smoking very strong cigars. John and the elder members of the party preserved their gravity, though it was in a curiously constrained tone that John asked the Bengali to favour the company. With a smile of gratification Said Mohammed unrolled a scroll of paper, and, looking round to make sure that every one was attending, began in his high-pitched voice--

Hear me tell a moving story, chronicled in lofty rhyme, Redolent of stripling's glory, monument to end of time.

Idol of my veneration, you I celebrate in song; Ornament of British nation, you I crack up, hot and strong.

To begin at the beginning: When one day, at usual pace, Our oblate spheroid was spinning through an awful lot of s.p.a.ce, You, an up-to-date Orion, Enfield rifle in your hand, Did for most obnoxious lion, holy terror in the land.

Next, predaceous gang, Swahilis--Juma, if you please, and Co.,-- Prowling, slippery as eel is, on the rampage to and fro, Depredated native village, spreading woe and dire alarm, Then for more important pillage fell like ton of bricks on farm.

Faithful servant, Said Mohammed, feeling anything but bold, Like a bleating orphan lamb hid, sniffing wolves within the fold; While despoilers collared rifles, ammunition, sh.e.l.l and shot; Item, sundry piffling trifles which the poet has forgot.

Minions of a base levanter, villains of the deepest dye,-- You are after them instanter, lightning flashing from your eye; Swoop upon them in their slumbers, catch them fairly on the hop, Though inferior in numbers, smite them hip and thigh and crop.

Terrified by dire disaster, they make hurry-scurry flight.

Yoicks! our whipper-in goes faster, helter-skelter day and night, Till dark citadel is sighted, wall-encircled, likewise moat.

Is prodigious effort blighted? Not at all: we simply gloat.

Roberts' grit and Caesar's clear eye--honestly, you have them both.

'Fas est ab hoste doceri,' august Roman general quoth: Taking leaf from book of Juma, you perpended ruse de guerre, And with dodgy slimness you manoeuvred brigands from their lair.

Penned within restricted compa.s.s, you repel the fierce attack, Calm amid most awful rumpus: things are looking very black.

Lo! in thickest of the slaughter, one sees chance of chipping in, And with can of boiling water stems the tide and scores a win.

Threat of famine, grisly spectre, makes us look a little blue; But our commonwealth's protector, launching forth in bark canoe, Quits the precincts of the island, marches at a spanking pace, Up-hill, down-hill, swamp and dry land, perfect Nimrod in the chase.

Hippopotamus stupendous to your prowess falls a prey.

Ministers of grace defend us! you are spirited away.

Lo! proverbially fickle, Fortune knocks you from your perch, Leaves you in a pretty pickle, or, as you may say, the lurch.

Meditating in your prison, through the darkling stilly night, Ere red Phoebus has arisen you have perpetrated flight: Swift rejoin the little party by Swahili sore oppressed; Juma then is in the cart, he gets a bullet in the chest.

Pardon slight inaccuracy, due to exigence of rhyme; Frenzied poet, going pace, imagines only the sublime.

Be pedestrian and pedantic when you're patronizing prose, Spur your Pegasus quite frantic when a poem you compose.

To return from this diversion, and to make long story short, After enemy's dispersion you evacuated fort; Made a bee-line for the village, situated on a hill, Scooped the products of their tillage, bloodless coup, resistance nil.

Expediting preparations for strategic move in rear, 'Mid poor females' ululations, most distressing to the ear-- What makes all your pulses throb? oh! what sets all your nerves athrill?

'Tis shikari Wanderobbo, or, to use his alias, Bill.

Pale with rage and indignation (metaphorically pale), Billy tells of spoliation, thieves his property a.s.sail.

Tartar like the bold Cambuscan (Chaucer left his tale half-told), Juma digs up every tusk and Bill is absolutely sold.

Now behold you on your mettle; now momentous hour has struck, You in most pugnacious fettle sally forth to try your luck; Meet marauders by the river, fall on them like bolt from blue, Crying 'Stand and eke deliver, or I'll run you through and through!'

(Note: that speech, correct in diction, is not quite correct in fact; 'Tis a literary fiction, managed with consummate tact.

So the other cla.s.sic writers, Livy and Thucydides, Decorate the lips of fighters with sublime apostrophes.)

Though the words were never uttered, pish! it matters not a jot; Like March hares the scoundrels scuttered, dropping burdens on the spot; After years of patient waiting, Bill regains his ownest own, And with ecstasy gyrating, bellows till he's fairly blown.

You with prescient ac.u.men see that all is not O.K.; You alas! have very few men, Juma has a vast array; Yet while danger round you thickens, lo! you neither quail nor quake; Though you wonder how the d.i.c.kens you are going to take the cake.

To omit progressive stages, which would take up too much time, Occupy a dozen pages and exhaust a lot of rhyme-- After navigating torrent where the crocodiles disport, You were spied by foe abhorrent, lurking watchful in the fort.

How you diddled them just proper, how you did the Johnnies brown, And how many came a cropper as the rafts were floating down: This perchance a future Milton, seeking an heroic theme, May compose splendacious lilt on, in the groves of Academe.

And perchance some future Hallam, with display of prosy pomp, Will relate in distant Balham scrumptious battle in the swamp; And describe the villain Juma, in penultimate despair, Meeting Bill upon the boom and getting his quietus there.

Now the hurly-burly's over, not a cloud bedims the sky; You are jolly well in clover, and the bloom is on the rye; 'Tempus fugit': I must stow it---end my palpitating lay, Ever faithful cook and poet, Said Mohammed, failed B.A.

There was a burst of applause as the Bengali concluded.

"Capital!" cried Mr. Halliday.

"Wonderful!" exclaimed the girls together, clapping their hands.

"Absolutely unique, by Jove!" added Oliver.

"You're sure of immortality now, John," said Joe.

"I wouldn't wonder if it's good enough for _Punch_," said Mr. Gillespie.

"Such laudation warms the c.o.c.kles of my heart, ladies and gentlemen,"

declared Said Mohammed, beaming. "But the poem is not destined to be squandered on _profanum vulgus:_ it is strictly for private consumption."

"Have some copies printed, Mr. Mohammed," said Mrs. Burtenshaw. "I'll pay the bill."

"Your esteemed order, madam, shall be punctually attended to. And now, with excuses, I beg to be allowed to retire to my own place--to return to my muttons, as it were: or in other words, to wash the dishes."

And with profound salaams he withdrew.

By the last advices from Nairobi I learn that the Hallidays' farm in Kenya is exceedingly prosperous. Mr. Halliday received his lease, and was recently mentioned in a Government report as one of the most enterprising and successful settlers in British East Africa. Mrs.

Burtenshaw regards this testimonial as unfair, since Mr. Halliday is only a figurehead, and John does the work; but, as Mr. Gillespie says, n.o.body cares a pin for what appears in a Government report.

There are two other farms adjoining Alloway, one owned by Charles Ferrier, the other by the two Brownes. It is rumoured that, as lions and other wild-fowl have now disappeared from the vicinity, two of the three farms will soon be graced by the presence of ladies; but there seems to be some speculation at tea-tables in Nairobi as to whether Hilda Ferrier will become Mrs. Joseph Browne or Mrs. David Halliday.

Knowing John, I should say that there is no doubt about the matter. Mr.

Gillespie advises Helen Browne to change her name to Ferrier at the same time: he is a firm believer in economy. Said Mohammed is anxiously awaiting definite information, for he says that he cannot set to work on his nuptial ode in honour of the occasion until he knows which is which; then he will show us all what's what. My own opinion is that he will be so busy in erecting a wedding-cake of suitable proportions as to have no leisure to build the lofty rhyme. Meanwhile he has learnt Spenser's "Epithalamium" by heart, and is convinced that, with due inspiration, he will knock it into a c.o.c.ked hat.

THE END